UPDATE/TLDR: Some genius moved the GOAT manga floor —a very popular and always busy floor— from the 2nd floor to the 8th floor. You either have to walk up 8 flights of stairs (terrible in the summer) or wait for the World’s Slowest Elevator, which usually arrives on 1F fully loaded heading down to B1, and when it comes back up to 1F is often fully packed from people waiting on B1. Whose idea was this and why??? I’m docking them a star because of this.

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However, if you're after stuff like manga, anime DVDs and blu-rays (which are very expensive in Japan) and magazines, this is probably the best bookstore in Tokyo for it. As a general Japanese bookstore it's exceptional, too, with the primary caveat that it's so sprawling that it's spread out in his building across multiple floors. This wouldn't be so bad if they didn't move the manga floor from the 2nd floor (where it had been for two decades) to the 8th floor.

And to get to the 8th floor you either have to figure out where the next escalator is (it's never in the same place as the preceding escalator) or wait for the elevator --which takes forever as it's small and slow-- or walk up eight flights of stairs.

Best bookstore, worst layout.