Shibuya Parco reborn

On Friday, November 22nd, the reborn Shibuya Parco will finally open its doors to the public. Featuring 180 unique stores, organized around the themes of Fashion, Art & Culture, Entertainment, Food, and Technology, the new building will not only serve as a new landmark with its visually arresting appearance, but will also become a new hub of fashion, culture and entertainment for the neighborhood, not to mention a must-stop destination for fans of Japanese games, anime and pop culture.

We visited the yet-to-open building earlier this week to see what all the fuss was about, and what we experienced surpassed our expectations. This is NOT your typical department store. As our guide explained, Shibuya Parco is not simply about selling and showcasing finished products, it's also about proposing new ideas and even setting trends. We saw evidence that Shibuya Parco intends to become a relevant influence in Shibuya's fashion, culture and art scene. We were also impressed with the way it integrates new technologies into the retail experience.

Of course, our main interest was on the CYBERSPACE SHIBUYA floor where you'll find Nintendo's first store in Japan, Pokémon Center Shibuya, a Capcom Shop, a Jump Store, GG Shibuya, Japan's first dedicated mobile e-sports viewing cafe & bar, and plenty of other exciting Japanese pop culture content (Click here to jump down to that part).

But before we could enjoy those sights and sounds, we were treated to a guided tour...

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Exterior

The first thing you'll notice as you walk up Koen Dori is the unconventional architecture of the building. With its staggered modular design with surfaces jutting out from the base and its spiral walkway with green and open spaces on the 4th and 8th floors, connecting to garden area on the 10th floor, the architecture is intended to echo the varied topography of Shibuya's urban landscape.

This is the main entrance from Koen Dori:

On the other hand, if you climb up Spain-Zaka to approach Shibuya Parco, you'll see a different facade altogether, as well as an open passage through the building, called Nakashibu Dori, featuring a cafe and decorated with art.

The rooftop garden space:

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Fashion

Geyser Parco on the 3rd floor or Port Parco on the 4th floor are centered on the concept of incubating next-generation fashion designs and brands. For brands such as ELIN, Greed International, Best Packing Store, SSW, FDMTL, Flower Mountain, and sneeuw, this represents their first direct retail shop or even their first-ever brick-and-mortar presence.

Parco Cube on the 5th floor, focused on Shibuya, Harajuku and lolita fashion brands such as Angelic Pretty and Candy Stripper, uses new technologies to merge offline and online retail experience.

Girly and cute fashion brand Emily Temple Cute is here too:

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Art and Entertainment

Artwork can be found not only in the form of galleries and shops which combine art, fashion, and other items such as home accessories and stationery but also on the display cases, floors, even the bathrooms and walls of the building itself.

Does this letter look familiar? If you visited the old Shibuya Parco store, you'll recognize this as the letter R from the PARCO neon sign. The new building has recuperated these neon letters as artwork within the building.

The building is also home to Parco Theater on the 7th and 8th floors, which can seat 636 people, and White Cine Quinto, a mini-theater on the 8th floor which seats 108 people.

It may look like they forgot to build the wall in this spot since you can still see the beams of the external structure with numbers and notations still scribbled on them, but it's actually on purpose. This is a corner on the 4th floor supporting sustainable fashion.

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Technology

Various new technologies are featured in Shibuya Parco, beginning with these Cube Mirror interactive displays in Parco Cube on the 5th floor. You can view apparel and accessories on the screen and directly make purchases by scanning a QR code and using an app on your smartphone.

The floor also features interactive booths (right) for international visitors which recognize verbal commands and display information in five languages, and from December, a telepresence robot called Temi (left) will circulate through the retail space, offering assistance and connecting visitors by video chat with human assistants.

Another example is AR glasses through which you can experience interactive art...

...and an AR-enabled art mural which you can enable by scanning the QR code and looking at it with your smartphone's camera

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CYBERSPACE SHIBUYA

If you're into Japanese pop culture, you'll probably want to visit the 6th floor of Shibuya Parco.

Nintendo Tokyo

This is the first official Nintendo store in Japan! That alone is reason enough to visit Shibuya Parco.

You'll see giant mascots of many of your favorite Nintendo characters:

The shop is loaded with exclusive character goods which you can only buy here.

Even outside the store, there's an homage to the pixelated Mario of an earlier generation in the form of a whimsical sculpture.

Pokémon Center Shibuya

If you think you've seen one Pokémon Center, you've seen them all, then think again. The Pokémon Company has taken a radical departure from the tone it set with its previous stores, giving Pikachu and many other iconic Pokémon a complete fashion makeover courtesy of Japanese graffiti artist Number-D. Some of these goods premiering in the Shibuya store will also be on sale at other Pokémon Stores but if you want to catch them first, head down to Shibuya Parco!

If you saw Detective Pikachu, then you'll recognize the scene which greets you at the entrance to the store. This animatronic Mewtoo and the surrounding installation is an interactive experience you can try only here!

As soon as you leave this area, you'll begin to see the graffiti-influenced theme of the merchandise in the Shibuya store.

Have you ever seen a Pikachu like this before?

Of course, not all Pokémon here are in this style. You'll find plenty of classic Pokémon goods as well.

We got one of these cute Pikachu stuffed toys:

Some stickers:

And an exclusive Pokémon Center Shibuya promotional card, Shibuya Pikachu, which you can get for free while supplies last!

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Capcom Store Tokyo

Capcom fans are well served at Shibuya Parco with the Capcom Store Tokyo.

In addition to a corner with Monster Hunter World Iceborne merchandise...

You can also pick up Capcom figures, as shown in this cool display wall:

And you'll want to take a picture with Ryu from Street Fighter doing his famous hadoken!

GG Shibuya mobile esports cafe & bar

For e-sports fans, Japan's very first cafe & bar dedicated to mobile esports is here, too.

And that's only the beginning. You'll also find a store selling character goods from the Jump manga magazine, a Digimon store, a Touken Ranbu store, and a Tokyo Otaku Mode store. And we haven't even talked about the wide variety of excellent and unique restaurants and cafes at Shibuya Parco either...

As you can see, Shibuya Parco is an attractive new destination for visitors to keep in mind when they visit Tokyo.

Please note that it will probably be very crowded in the first weeks or even months after it opens, and some stores may only be accessible with advanced reservation.

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Information

• Name: Shibuya Parco 渋谷パルコ
• Address (EN): 15-1 Udagawacho, Shibuya City, Tokyo 150-8377
• Address (JP): 〒150-8377 東京都渋谷区宇田川町１５−1
• Hours: Shops 10:00-21:00, Restaurants 11:00-23:30 (some shops have different hours)
• Telephone: 03-3464-5111
• Website: Shibuya Parco
• Instagram account: Shibuya Parco