A MONTH IN JAPAN – OSAKA, NOVEMBER 24, 2025

On this our second and last day in Osaka, we planned a walking tour through the Minami District, as recommended by Lonely Planet Guide Kyoto & Osaka, which promised:

This walk offers a little bit of everything that Minami is famous for.  Starting in the bright lights of Dotombori [sic], you’ll head into the Namba area through busy shopping arcades, and onwards to Den Den Town, Osaka’s anime and manga heartland.  Next comes Shin-Sekai, a gaudy entertainment district, before finishing at Osaka’s tallest building. 

We braced ourselves for the onslaught of giant, moving neon billboards; a myriad of specialty street food eateries; multi-storey buildings stacked with toys and comic books; digital arcades; and tacky souvenir shops.  The whole prospect portended a blinking sensory overload mixed together with wooden buildings from an analog age.  But, hey. Why not!?

From our apartment hotel, Central Mansions, we walked to the Tanimachi 6-Chome Metro Station and took the Tanimachi Line one stop to Tanimachi 9-Chome Station, where we transferred to the Sennichimae Line and exited two stops later at Namba Station.  We followed the metro signs for the Higashi Gate exit and voilà, we were at the Ebisu Bridge, the trailhead for today’s walk.

• Ebisu Bridge

As described in Japan Travel:

The Ebisu Bridge is not only an important infrastructure used by local people and indispensable for their daily lives, but also a famous sightseeing spot visited by tourists from Japan and abroad. The current Ebisu Bridge is the winner of a worldwide design competition. [It] is characterized by a circular plaza on the bridge, with a ramp along the plaza that allows visitors to descend to the bottom of the bridge and enjoy the surrounding scenery.

The bridge is also the entryway to Dotonbori, where we would spend part of our day and to which we would return at night for the neon.  I didn't take any photos of the bridge in the morning and pulled these daytime images from the Internet to show the unique circular design of the bridge.  

Lonely Planet advised us to cross the bridge and look for an alley on the right with a wooden sign for Hozen-ji, a tiny temple with a moss-covered deity tucked into the urban fabric.

• Hozen-ji

From Wiki:

Hozen-ji is a Buddhist temple of the Jōdo-shū sect … located in the Dotonbori district, near Namba Station. It has a reputation in Japan for helping women who are about to give birth.

The temple was founded in 1637. Located in the middle of a district of theaters and other performance venues, it was frequented by actors and other artists. Shows were regularly given there in tents. 

 

Except for one statue, it was completely destroyed during the bombings of 1945. The statue of Fudō Myōō is known for its unusual appearance: it is entirely covered in moss. Pouring water on the statue, known as "Mizukake Fudo", is a good luck gesture according to tradition.

 

I was able to get a stamp at Hozen-ji for my collection, the last one for this trip.  ☹

•  Dotonbori

From Lonely Planet:

No trip to Osaka is complete without a...stroll in Dotonbori.  The 400-year-old bori (canal) that gives the area its name is a riot of glittering billboards, while running parallel is a bustling Dotonbori street with its fabulous food signs – think giant waggling octopuses, crabs, puffer fish and dragons.  

It’s here that you’ll see chefs deftly flicking rows of gooey, golf-ball-shaped tako-yaki, Osaka’s famous snack. 

First popularized in the 1930s, an egg-rich batter is griddle-cooked around a small piece of octopus, with optional toppings of tako-maki sauce (like Worcestershire sauce), bonito flakes, dried seaweed and mayo. 

The Dotonbori area was packed with tourists and locals, all looking for that elusive snack of a lifetime.

 

We exited the lip-smacking throng through the Sennichimae arcade 

and made our way to Nankai Namba Station through yet another arcade, this one the Doguya-suji, chock-a-block with pots, pans, bamboo steamers, ceramic chopsticks, tako-maki griddles, and every other culinary-related item under the sun. We resisted temptation.

• Nankai Namba Station

A word on some very confusing nomenclature, should you ever find yourself in Osaka.  "Namba Station" refers to an area of which Dotonbori street is a part.  It also refers to and includes both Nankai Namba Station, serving the Nankai Railroad which takes you to Koyasan, and Osaka-Namba Station, serving the Kintetsu Line which takes you to Nara and Kobe.  It’s really easy to get confused and lost when looking for “Namba Station.”  But today we were on foot and simply exploring, people watching, 

and admiring the Takashimaya Osaka Department Store 

and the mosaics on the Nankai Namba train station. 

Time for lunch!  We'd heard about conveyor belt sushi restaurants and wanted to try one.  No problem!  Back to Dotonbori Street.

• Sushiro

We came full circle from our starting point to enter Sushiro, a conveyor belt sushi restaurant situated on the first floor of an office building right cross the street from the waggling crab and above the weird drumming clown. 

We were somewhat apprehensive about the food concept, but we needn’t have been.  The Japanese don’t settle for shitty sushi, and how the plates arrive at your table doesn't necessarily determine quality.  You can read all about conveyor belt sushi and the restaurant that started the trend here,  but suffice it to say that at Sushiro:  the restaurant was incredibly brightly lit; water and green tea were complimentary at the look-o-wood table; we ordered from a touch screen; the sushi exited the belt as if it were on an off ramp from the Autobahn; and the sushi was fresh, well-prepared, varied, and inexpensive.  In  other words, a Shotei Ohtani home run!

 

Then it was back on the trail and this is where it got sleazy.

•  Den Den Town

Arigato Travel sets the scene:

Den Den Town, coming from the town name Denki no Machi (electric town), truly lives up to its vibrant reputation. During the Meiji period this shopping street was mostly known for second-hand bookstores, Den Den Town quickly took over the electronic consumer shop scene with affordable products.

Full of pop culture and many things to entertain oneself with, this city is popular with younger generations, retro electronic enthusiasts, frequent karaoke goers, plastic model collectors, and so many others.

So, if you’re looking for vintage, maid cafes, second hand electronics, music, cameras, Nintendo games, entertainment, game arcades, plastic model stores, crane stores where you move the claw to pick up a plush toy, manga, and anime, this is the place for you.  Not looking for any of that stuff, it was not exactly the place for us. Still, this electronics-games-digital art experience is a big thing in Japan, so we checked it out.

• Animate

The biggest store in Den Den Town for anime lovers is Animate—five floors of manga, figures, character goods, and audio-visual media tucked into a side street.  

We ascended the escalator and got off at each of the five floors to see the merch. 

 

We were pretty stunned to find that one entire floor was given over to hard core videos, Hentai manga (see cartoons below), blow-up dolls, and sex toys, which incels in short sleeved white Permapress shirts were furtively enjoying.   

More power to them, but this was, to quote George W. Bush, "some weird shit," and we quickly found the exit.

Hewing to our Lonely Planet route, we left Den Den Town's sleaze behind for Osaka’s version of Coney Island in Paris -- Shin-Sekai.

• Shin-Sekai

The Japan Guide gives a rundown of what Lonely Planet calls “a gaudy entertainment district”:

Shinsekai ("New World") is a district in Osaka that was developed before the war and then neglected in the decades afterwards. At the district's center stands Tsutenkaku Tower, the nostalgia-evoking symbol of Shinsekai.

The area was developed into its current layout following the success of the 1903 National Industrial Exposition, which brought over five million people to the neighborhood. Shortly after the expo closed its doors, work began to improve and update Shinsekai.

Paris was chosen as the model for Shinsekai's northern half, while the southern portion was built to imitate Coney Island in New York. Tsutenkaku Tower was constructed in 1912 after Paris' Eiffel Tower. Although it was scrapped during WWII, the tower was reconstructed soon afterwards in 1956. The current tower is 103 meters high, with the main observatory at a height of 91 meters. In addition, the tower offers an open-air deck on top of the main observatory and a 60 meter long slide at the base of the tower. It is also possible to participate in an activity that involves walking and jumping around the exterior of the tower. 

No, we did not jump around the exterior of Tsutenkaku.  

Instead, we opted for Tennoji Park, hoping that the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts or even the zoo would still be open.  Sadly, they were not, but the Christmas market on a grassy slope was.

• Tennoji Park

 

• Milk Bar

Back at Central Mansions, my husband searched for a “cool cocktail bar near me,” and landed on a chill vinyl music listening bar called Milk Bar.  This is what Timeout has to say about the bar:

Conveniently located between Shinsaibashi and Nagahoribashi, vinyl collector Hideo Matsumoto’s watering hole boasts an international cult following. On any given night, music aficionados from around the world come to hang out here and listen to smooth tunes selected from the owner’s trove of around 5,000 records, ranging from ’70s UK soul to ’90s acid jazz, Japanese city pop and Latin beats. 

The bar’s set-up of two small speakers around a handsome 1978 model JBL 4311-A produces an impeccably smooth and crisp sound, one that caresses the senses and gently nudges you to order another whisky with soda. To protect this laid-back atmosphere, Matsumoto refuses entry to groups of four or more and any individual who can’t keep their voice down. Also note that smoking is allowed inside the bar.

It was groovy (no pun intended) in the extreme.

 

• Izakaya Robata 

After whisky and gin cocktails, laid-back Motown, and an interesting conversation with a middle-aged African-American ex-pat living and working in Osaka as an HR officer for a multi-national, we left Milk Bar to wander around the adjacent blocks in search of dinner.  We stumbled (not literally) on Robata, our favorite type of Japanese restaurant, a neighborhood izakaya. 

 

The place was staffed with super friendly cooks and blessed with equally friendly customers, one of whom said she regularly eats here after her shift at the izakaya where she works. You can’t find a better recommendation than that!  As always, the food was outstanding.

 

• Ebisu Bridge Redux

Before calling it a night, we strolled over to the Ebisu Bridge to see the famous Glico Man and his compatriots pulsating in the evening sky.

 

 

And with that, it was back to Central Mansions for a good night’s sleep.  Check out time was at 10 and then we'd be off to Naoshima, the art island in the Seto Inland Sea.

Keep it real!

Marilyn