Sailor Moon store — Local services in Tokyo

The store is now very large so you can all stop ranting about it's size now. Yay! Entry is very well managed and all rules and policies have been clearly posted online for weeks now and also on signs.

PSA Tourists from now and 4/18 to 4/22/24: The store is reopening on the 18th and right now is running at 10% capacity in blue area only. The first 4 days of reopening are for fanclub members and those who got tickets in advance for entry. This is to avoid overcrowding and scalpers panic scooping up new goods. Do not leave negative reviews just becuase you didnt read info the past months and are denied entry. The store will be much larger as they bought out the store next to it. I hope all fans can actually enjoy their visit here once it reopens.

2/5/24: PSA Tourists - when you visit the store you are only seeing a tiny cross section of goods in the store. There are almost weekly releases if you follow the official news pages. Stock does not always last long due to popularity. If you want a specific SM item I reccommend researching release dates and goods locations, rather than giving the store a negative review and saying the staff are mean to you and lieing about the goods being bootleg etc, like seriously where do you get these accusations?

10/2/23: Mostly back to normal, still busy weekends due to tourism. Always read their social media and sailor moon official website so you can plan your visit accordingly and not be confused/angry at the staff or others in the store etc.

6/24/23: super organized line ups and limits on buying set durring Cosmos Movies months, very smart decisions.

Sailor Moon = ¥¥¥¥¥¥. Seriously though the staff are very kind and helpful even when you have a lot to buy. To the people negatively reviewing the store saying that the staff are rude it's probably because you were trying to film or trying to speak to them in English or something because the store is not like that, I've been going here for 5 years and I have never seen them be rude to someone unless they were doing something wrong...

Writing this review since the store was on my radar for my Tokyo trip but was something I crossed off the list after reading all the "meh" reviews here. I am so glad my husband said, "no you HAVE to go." We went on a weekday shortly after they opened, and there was lots of space to browse (also it's not as tiny as some reviewers are saying). They had a lot of items to choose from that were way nicer quality than any official merch you can get in the US. You can definitely find something of your favorite that's special and unique to the SM Store. They also had original manga art on display!! I thought the prices were reasonable, thought that's likely due to the current USD exchange rate being in my favor. I got 13 items for both myself and friends, and it was only $90 (with tax free). I was surprised I didn't spend more than that. As someone who grew up in the 90s and only had the very sporadic merch that showed up in the US, this store is a dream come true and I wish I could share it with my 10 year old self. ❤️

The Laforet department store that it's in is also very cool to walk around. It's neat to see all the subculture fashions of Harajuku. We had really great time strolling around after SM, and my husband actually found an awesome shirt at one shop (wasn't even looking for something!). There are some food and cafes in Laforet as well, so you could definitely make it more of a little trip than just popping into the SM store...

I read all the bad comments about the store, thought maybe they are just hardcore sailor moon fans hunting down all sailor moon stuff around the world already, that’s why they are disappointed. That’s why I still went there and gave it a try.

The truth is they are so right, everything you want are sold out or display only.. You can probably only get some notebook and pens, and some left over jewelry ( which might end up your choice, since you don’t wanna go out with empty hands). Didn’t even mention you needed to wait in a queue to enter the store, I waited at least half an hour. Btw the store is separate into tow side, one side for team sailor moon another side for the Sailor Starlights. Both side are small and 2 stores together are allowed to capacity 7-9.

Notice: you can only make one purchase by each enter, which mean make sure you checked out everything in both store then make then payment at once. Once you paid if you wanna get something from another part of the store, you would need to line up again. ( thus was the mistake that I have made, because I couldn’t understand what they meant about one purchase, they didn’t explain to me except keep saying “one purchase”) There are tax free for tourist, remember to tell them you need tax free.

Conclusion: it is not worth if you are only staying in Tokyo couple days. As if I am resident of Japan, I would still not like...