Tachikawa Souvenirs Guide: What to Buy, from Tokyo Sake to Paper

Tea and nori from “a certain municipality”: anime-town souvenirs and a pistol-shaped city

The association’s “Tachikawa × Anime” page explains. In 2010 its predecessor, the Tachikawa Tourism Association, held its first collaborative event with the TV anime A Certain Magical Index (Toaru Majutsu no Index), in which scenery resembling Tachikawa appears. Since then, under the banner “regional promotion for a certain municipality”, it has continued collaborative projects with anime and manga in which Tachikawa appears, centred on this series and its spin-offs. Tachikawa officially calls itself “a certain municipality”. (The joke is the series’ own title: the Japanese word toaru, “a certain”, is how the show is known to fans.)

The results are on the Taikoban shelves too. A tea shop in the city sells “Saten Nori”, “Komoe Cha” and “Uiharu Wa-kocha” (Japanese black tea), each named after a character in the series: Ruiko Saten, Komoe Tsukuyomi-sensei and Kazari Uiharu. According to the association, Saten Nori uses seaweed from the Ariake Sea flavoured with a home-made sauce, free of additives and colourings. Komoe Cha is carefully chosen deep-steamed green tea in pyramid teabags. Each description adds, as if to make quite sure, that it is “sold as goods connected with the regional promotion of a certain municipality”.

A Japanese sweet shop in the city makes three kinds of dorayaki (two small pancakes sandwiching sweet bean paste): the “Gekota Dorayaki” named after a frog character from the series, the “Tachidora” bearing the Tachikawa mark, and Udora’s “Udora-yaki”. An anime frog, the town’s emblem and an udo monster, all sharing the same bean paste. The same shop also makes a sweet called “Goro”. According to the association, it is named after the many five-way junctions (gosaro) in the city, and is packed with big chestnuts still in their inner skins — packed gorogoro, as Japanese says of chunky things tumbling together. Naming a sweet after the number of five-way junctions: the grumble locals let slip — “that crossing is so confusing” — has turned straight into a confection.

Even the shape of the town becomes a souvenir. The “Tachikawa Map Acrylic Keyring”, made by a badge company in the city, represents, according to the association, the shape of Tachikawa City, which is said to look like a pistol, colour-coded by district name. Look at a map of Tachikawa again after being told, and yes, it could look like that. The same company makes wooden keyrings from Tama-grown Japanese cypress, shaped like the flower of the kobushi magnolia, which is associated with Tachikawa. Kobushi is also treated as the city flower in the association’s descriptions of other products.

There is herbal tea, too. According to the association, the Taikoban “KARIN” and “SUZUHA” are caffeine-free herbal teas made with Tachikawa-grown ingredients: KARIN with Tachikawa ginger, SUZUHA with Tachikawa turmeric. Both packages state clearly that the ingredients are from Tachikawa, and are discreetly decorated with the city flower, the kobushi. There is coffee as well. “Blend Tachikawa Drip Bag” is a blend inspired by Tachikawa’s symbol tree, the keyaki (Japanese zelkova), and expresses in coffee, it says, a majestic zelkova rising over a broad field of flowers. The taste of a zelkova. I can’t imagine it, but drinking it would probably straighten your back a little.

Quiz for the wandering traveller

“Saten Nori” is sold as “goods connected with the regional promotion of a certain municipality”. In which sea was its seaweed harvested? (A) Tokyo Bay (B) the Ariake Sea (C) the mouth of the Tama River. The answer is at the end.

After the anime town, I want to talk about the kitchen. Among the Taikoban are products that come from Tachikawa’s fields, hen houses and pig sheds.

Eggs, pork and bonito flakes: specialities from Tachikawa’s kitchen

First, pork. “Yawaraton” (柔豚, “tender pork”) is a brand of pork raised by Furukawa Chikusan in Nishisunacho, Tachikawa. According to the association, the farm raises purebred three-way-cross pigs, chosen for meat quality, for four months or more, feeding them bread crusts and powdered Sayama green tea as well as compound feed such as maize. Feeding them bread crusts in particular, it says, improves the quality of the fat, giving soft meat with plenty of marbling. On the strength of its reputation, the name “Yawaraton” was registered as a trademark in 2013. Pigs raised on bread crusts. From the point of view of a kitchen that never knows what to do with the crusts every time it makes sandwiches, it is enviably waste-free.

A caterer in the city turns that Yawaraton into buta-suki (pork simmered sukiyaki-style) and puts it in a bento. Another, the “I LOVE TACHIKAWA Bento”, is a makunouchi box with nine compartments holding Yawaraton buta-suki and side dishes of seasonal Tachikawa vegetables; its wrapping paper shows the city’s facilities and sights. When you have finished eating, the wrapper becomes a little map of Tachikawa. This same Yawaraton also became the sausages that the city gave as extra prizes to the top skateboarders at the Japan skateboarding championships held in Tachikawa.

Next, eggs. A poultry farm in the city has a local history of more than fifty years, the association writes. The eggs of its “Momiji”, a fully Japanese breed of hen, are named “Tamagokoro”. The name folds together Tama, tamago (egg) and magokoro (sincerity): the place, the product and the feeling, all in one word. The same farm also raises ukokkei (silkie chickens), and sends two kinds of premium gift eggs all over Japan: “Tokyo Ukokkei Eggs”, from birds fed a mix adjusted to their age, and “Kanau Premium”, from birds whose feed is enriched with seaweed and fish meal.

The eggs turn into many sweets. “Torokeru Torippurin”, made with a confectioner in the city, uses one silkie egg per bottle of pudding and is often introduced as a “drinkable pudding”. “Tachikawa Egg Pudding” and “Tachikawa Blueberry Chiffon”, made by a hotel in the city, use Tamagokoro eggs and Tachikawa blueberries grown on a farm in Sunagawacho. You start to want to repaint the map of Tachikawa in egg-yolk yellow.

There is a bonito-flake shop, too. According to the association, the Taikoban “Tama Katsuo” is the handmade bonito furikake (a savoury rice sprinkle) of a shop long loved in Tachikawa since it opened in Showa 9 (1934). A bonito sprinkle named after Tama, which has no sea. The name and the contents disagree in a pleasing way.

For seasoning, there is “Motodare”, a rich sauce base made by a shop in the city from top-grade soy sauce, bonito flakes, mirin and so on, with no synthetic preservatives, restrained sweetness and a light colour. According to the association it is a popular product with orders from all over Japan, and it won a gold award at a food competition in 2023. According to the maker’s own pages, it has been sold at the shop in Showa Kinen Park since November 2024.

Finally, something sweet. The Taikoban apple pie is made by a company that was originally an apple wholesaler. According to the association, the pie is square to recall a wooden apple crate, representing the company’s history as a wholesaler. An apple pie that ought to be round tells the company’s story in the shape of a crate. There are lemons too. The “Tachikawa Lemon Project”, run with the Tachikawa City shopping street federation, works with growers in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, said to be the birthplace of Japanese-grown lemons, to raise the lemon into a Tachikawa speciality; it produced a lemonade base. Turning something Tachikawa doesn’t grow into a Tachikawa speciality: the character of the whole town is packed into one bottle.

So far we have looked only at new products. But on the Taikoban shelves there is just one item that sells the old Tachikawa itself.

Take home Tachikawa in Showa colours: then and now

It is called “the SOUND of Oldies in TACHIKAWA — Tachikawa Scenes: A Showa-Colour Album”, a calendar of photographs made by the Tachikawa Insatsujo printing company. According to the association, it is a calendar decorated with nostalgic photographs of Tachikawa streets that can no longer be seen, made in the hope that residents would enjoy the memories and that it would pass on to later generations how Tachikawa has changed.

According to the company’s profile, Tachikawa Insatsujo was founded on 6 July Showa 5 (1930), opening as a letterpress and lithographic printer in what is now Shibasakicho 2-chome, Tachikawa. (“Showa” is the imperial era from 1926 to 1989.) In Showa 38 (1963) it set up a second factory in Fujimicho and began offset printing, and in Showa 42 (1967) it moved its head office. For more than ninety years, this company has been printing Tachikawa’s words on Tachikawa’s paper.

Open the company’s shop page, and the calendar titles are lined up. The “Showa-colour Tachikawa Scenes” series has changed its theme every year: Street. One day. Department Store. Tachikawa Clubs & Bars. Company. Among the photo books there is one built from photographs of the Cinema City cinema, one of the Tachikawa base photographed in 1991, and a photo collection on the Sunagawa Struggle, the local resistance to the US base, whose title credits it with getting the base returned. Department stores, streets, the clubs and bars of a base town. For people who knew Showa-era Tachikawa, just reading the titles must bring back the neon and the crush of bodies. To a generation that never knew it, each title may sound like the name of an unfamiliar town.

Here I come back to the paper bonsai.

Back then, in the days of the base, there were souvenir shops for foreigners around Tachikawa Station. (After the war, the airfield in the middle of the city was a US military base.) Issue 15 of Tachikawa Monogatari, a city newsletter on local history, writes that “Souvenir Stores” opened in the base town, and that such shops spread not only around the North Exit of the station but across the tracks to the South Exit as well. Their customers were probably American servicemen from the base. They would have chosen Japanese souvenirs in Tachikawa and carried them back across the ocean.

Today, the souvenirs sold under Tachikawa’s name are chosen by the people of Tachikawa themselves. In the park shop, paper bonsai are lined up with the line “Take Japan home. Bringing Japan home.” They were made by a paper factory that started in Nishikicho in Showa 38. The one stamping the seal of approval after judging them is the town’s own tourism association. A town that once laid out souvenirs for others has become a town that chooses its own.

Back to the opening mystery. Why does Tokyo’s sake gather in Tachikawa, which has no brewery? Having gazed at the 59 products, I feel I can see half an answer. Tachikawa was not born as a place that produces specialities. It grew up as a town of airfield, base and station, a place where people and things gather. So this town’s specialities gather here before they grow out of the ground. The sake of Tokyo’s ten breweries collects on a sixth floor by the South Exit, lemons from Kure become a Tachikawa speciality, and the scenery of an anime becomes Tachikawa’s regional promotion. And from among what had gathered, the people of the town began to choose for themselves, and to make for themselves. The paper bowl, the five-toed sock, the beer of the aircraft company: they all belong to that side, the side that started making.

The other half, I suspect, is decided by the people who buy. Tachikawa is a town whose population grows by more than 24,000 in the daytime. In the evening, as those people head for the ticket gates, what is inside the paper bags they carry will become Tachikawa’s specialities of the future.

Quiz answer

The answer is (B), the Ariake Sea. According to the association, Saten Nori uses nori from the Ariake Sea flavoured with an additive-free, colouring-free home-made sauce. A regional-promotion product of landlocked Tachikawa is made of seaweed from the sea off Kyushu, Japan’s southern main island.

Before you go

• The full list of “Tachikawa no Taikoban” and where each is sold: see the Tachikawa Tourism Convention Association’s “Tachikawa Kanko Navi” pages: https://tokyo-tachikawa.org/tourism_category/taikoban/ . Line-ups, prices, stockists and shop opening days may change.
• TiSTORE: inside the Hana Midori Culture Center in Showa Kinen Park (3173 Midoricho, Tachikawa). Mainly Taikoban goods; products involving food or drink are not sold here. Check park admission, opening days and the shop’s hours on the official page: https://tokyo-tachikawa.org/tistore/ . For how to explore Showa Kinen Park, see this series’ Showa Kinen Park article.
• “Tokyo Kuramoto Dayori”, the Tokyo Sake Brewers Association’s sake shop: 6F Shuzo Kumiai Building, 1-1-23 Nishikicho, Tachikawa. About 3 minutes on foot from the South Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, 5 minutes from Tachikawa-Minami Station on the Tama Monorail (per the association). Opening days and hours on the association’s page: https://www.tokyosake.or.jp/shop/ . In Japan you must be 20 or over to drink alcohol.
• “Tama to Boku FROM TACHIKAWA”: sold at places including NewDays Tachikawa, outside the ticket gates on the station’s second floor (per the association). Stockists on the association’s page: https://tokyo-tachikawa.org/tamaboku/
• Udo products (udo dressing and others) are also sold at the Farmers’ Center Minore Tachikawa (2-1-5 Sunagawacho, Tachikawa). For udo’s season and how to buy it, see this series’ Tokyo udo article.
• From Shinjuku: take the JR Chuo Line (Rapid) to Tachikawa without changing trains. The sake shop is on the South Exit side; the Faret Tachikawa art and the bus or walk towards Showa Kinen Park are on the North Exit side.
• Combine with: choose your sake at the South Exit, then head down to the Nekawa Greenway and the Tama River (see the Nekawa article). On the North Exit side, walk the art of Faret Tachikawa, then buy its postcards at the park shop (see the Faret Tachikawa article).
• General tips: carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO for trains and the monorail, and check shop opening days on the official sites before you go.

Souvenirs chosen? Head for Tachikawa Station’s North Exit

As the paper bags multiply to two, then three, your shoulders give out first. Sake on a sixth floor at the South Exit, a paper bonsai picked up in the park shop, one more box in front of the ticket gates: a souvenir hunt in Tachikawa involves a surprising amount of walking.

A one-minute walk from the North Exit of Tachikawa Station, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店). It is a hot yoga studio with heated lava-stone floors, and it also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30, so you can drop in at the end of an afternoon’s shopping or just before your train home.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and mat rental included. Apart from your bags of souvenirs, you can come empty-handed.

Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

• On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
• Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

Sake and beer once you’re 20. Paper bonsai once you’ve assembled it. Yoga with nothing but yourself. What you carry home from Tachikawa isn’t always in the paper bag.

Cover photo: The North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, with the red arch over the pedestrian deck in front (Photo: DiKnK8713 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

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