Tokyo Character Street at Tokyo Station: Pokémon, Chiikawa, Ghibli & 30 Shops One Train Ride from Maihama

Every family that flies home from Tokyo passes through Tokyo Station — and from Maihama it is a single 12-minute ride on the JR Keiyo Line, the same line you take to Narita or Haneda transfers. Under the Yaesu side of the station, outside the ticket gates, is Tokyo Character Street: about 30 official shops for Pokémon, Sanrio, Chiikawa, Studio Ghibli, Jump manga, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Kirby, Snoopy, Miffy, LEGO, Tomica trains and most of the characters your children have been pointing at all week. It opens 10:00–20:30, it is fully indoors, and it sits beside a ramen street and a snack-maker street. For Disney-based travelers it solves two problems at once: the rainy afternoon, and the last-morning souvenir run on the way to the airport.

Who is this for?

• Kids (or adults) who want Japanese characters that Disney doesn’t sell — Pokémon, Chiikawa, Sumikko Gurashi, Kirby, Ghibli.
• A rainy or very hot day when you want a short, dry, cheap outing from Maihama.
• Departure day: souvenirs, a bento and a baggage-free walk to the Narita Express or airport bus from the same station.
• Anyone who got lost at Tokyo Station once and would like the Keiyo Line explained properly (see below).

What’s there

Tokyo Character Street (B1, with three big shops on 1F)

Shops are small and specialized — think official pop-up scale, not department store — and the lineup churns a little every season. As of the October 2026 shop list, the anchors are:

Hours: 10:00–20:30, every shop, daily. Most goods are ¥500–3,000; the capsule-toy shop takes coins and 100-yen rolls. Weekend afternoons are crowded in the narrow aisles — weekday mornings right at 10:00 are calm enough to let a six-year-old browse.

Tokyo Okashi Land (B1) — the snack makers’ street

Next to Character Street, three or four of Japan’s snack companies (Calbee, Glico, Morinaga and a rice-cracker maker) run shops with limited flavors and fresh-fried potato chips. 9:00–21:00. Good for cheap, flat souvenirs that survive a suitcase.

Tokyo Ramen Street (B1)

Eight-plus ramen shops under one corridor, each a branch of a well-known Tokyo shop. Hours vary by shop, roughly 8:00–23:00; the tsukemen shop Rokurinsha also opens for breakfast 7:30–9:45 — a useful trick on departure day. Queues form at lunch; 11:00 or after 14:00 is faster.

Also useful on departure day

• Tax-free counter: 1F north, 10:00–21:00 (ask which shops qualify).
• Baggage storage: a Sagawa Express counter on 1F north (7:00–21:00) and coin lockers, so you can shop with hands free before the airport train.
• Currency-exchange machine and ATM are marked on the floor map.

How to get there from Maihama — and how not to get lost

1. JR Keiyo Line from Maihama to Tokyo — rapid trains about 12 minutes, local trains about 16 minutes, IC ¥253 (fares changed in March 2026; the old ¥230 figure is out of date). From Shin-Urayasu it is about 16 minutes, ¥341.
2. You arrive on the Keiyo Line platforms, the deepest level of Tokyo Station (B4), at the far south end of the complex. Take the escalators up and leave through the Keiyo Underground Yaesu Exit (京葉地下八重洲口) on B1 — it is the nearer of the two Keiyo gates.
3. Now walk north through the Yaesu underground passage following signs for “Tokyo Station Ichibangai / Yaesu Underground Central Exit” (八重洲地下中央口). Character Street is the block directly in front of that exit, still on B1. Allow 5–10 minutes on foot; there are moving walkways on part of the route.

From Urayasu Station (Tozai Line): ride to Otemachi (about 17 minutes, IC ¥252), which is connected underground to Tokyo Station’s Marunouchi side; then cross the station to the Yaesu side (a 10–15-minute underground walk). It works, but it is the longer way in.

Payment: the Keiyo Line is JR, so you need a Suica/PASMO or a paper ticket — contactless credit cards don’t open JR gates. See the IC card guide.

Two ways to use it

Rainy afternoon (3 hours): Maihama 13:00 → Character Street 13:30–15:30 → late ramen or a bento from the station → back at the hotel by 17:00, never having been outdoors.

Departure morning (2 hours): check out, send the big suitcase ahead if you haven’t already (how), Keiyo Line to Tokyo at 9:30, Okashi Land from 9:00 / Character Street from 10:00, lunch bento, then the Narita Express or airport limousine from the same station. Keep the shopping flat — the Narita Express has limited luggage space.

With kids

• The aisles are narrow and strollers are awkward at peak times; a carrier is easier for toddlers. Elevators exist from the Keiyo level, but the route involves long corridors.
• Restrooms are in the Ichibangai concourse; nursing rooms are in the station’s shopping areas (ask at the Ichibangai information counter).
• Set a budget before you enter: every shop has a ¥300–600 blind-box rack at child eye level.

Pair it with

• Day trips into Tokyo: routes and fares cheat sheet — Tokyo Station is the start of several of them; Character Street is a good “if it rains” fallback for any of those days.
• The Pokémon Center DX in Nihombashi (about 10 minutes’ walk north via the underground) is the full-size store if the small shop isn’t enough; the Tozai Line’s Nihombashi Station takes you back toward Urayasu from there.
• Pre-trip checklist and sending luggage ahead — the two pages that make the departure-day version work.

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