One Million Used Books Turn Jimbocho Into Tokyo's Book Town Festival

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The 66th Tokyo Famous Kanda Used Book Festival turns the Jimbocho district into an open-air book market from October 23 through November 1, 2026 — organized by the Kanda Used Bookstore Federation with Chiyoda City, in a neighborhood the organizer calls the world's largest used-book town.

A 500-Meter Corridor of More Than a Million Books

More than 100 outdoor wagons line Yasukuni-dori across an approximately 500-meter stretch, offering more than 1 million used books in total. The main outdoor sale runs 10:00–18:00 daily (17:00 on the final day, November 1) and is cancelled in the event of rain. A separate special rare-book sale runs October 23–25 at Tokyo Kosho Kaikan.

This year's festival also features a limited Rilakkuma × Kanda Used Book Festival collaboration tote bag, and an official Jimbocho bookstore map is being distributed to help visitors navigate the district's roughly 120 used and antiquarian bookstores.

A Neighborhood Built Around Discovery

What makes Jimbocho distinct isn't just the festival — it's that the surrounding neighborhood already functions as a layered enthusiast destination, with cafes, curry restaurants, musical-instrument shops, and sporting-goods shops woven between its used bookstores year-round.

That existing density is exactly why a street-level festival like this one works: the festival doesn't create a book culture in Jimbocho, it temporarily amplifies one that was already there.

What To Know

This is Tokyo's book-otaku culture in its purest physical form — a roughly 500-meter outdoor corridor of more than 100 wagons and over a million books, inside a neighborhood that already has about 120 used bookstores, showing why a whole district (not just one shop or one event hall) can function as a discovery engine for physical books even in a digital era.

Jimbocho is layered far beyond the festival itself: alongside its roughly 120 used/antiquarian bookstores, the neighborhood also contains cafes, curry restaurants, musical-instrument shops, and sporting-goods shops — meaning the Kanda Used Book Festival sits inside a neighborhood that was already a dense enthusiast destination before the festival's 66 editions ever began.

What Fans Are Saying

• "A million books along one street is unreal."
• "Jimbocho is basically a book-lover's whole world, festival or not."
• "The Rilakkuma tote bag is a fun touch this year."

Original Japanese

• 「1本の通りに100万冊って想像を超えますね」
• 「神保町はお祭りがなくても本好きの楽園ですよね」
• 「リラックマのトートバッグ、今年らしい企画ですね」

Easy Japanese

10月23日から11月1日まで、神保町の古本屋街で「神田古本まつり」が開かれます。100万冊以上の古本が、屋外の台に並びます。