This store is one of my personal favourites. The entire 6th floor of the Radio Kaikan building is devoted to Volks. 2/3 of the floor is made up of the Showroom, housing all their model kits, 1/6 dolls, etc, as well as all sorts of other things, such as Pinky St figures, Gloomy merchandise, Emily the Strange and Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise, Pullips, Blythes, Jennys, and more. You will also find their Dollfie Dreams here. The other 1/3 of the floor is the Tenshi no Sumika, devoted to SD. This is the biggest Tenshi no Sumika I have been in, barring the one at Tenshi no Sato, and as far as I know is the only one in Tokyo that has all the Full Choice System parts clearly out on display and easily accessible. (Ginza has them in a glass cabinet, and Shinjuku doesn't have them on display at all.) It's a very spacious environment, which makes wandering around much easier and more relaxing than at the smaller Sumika stores. It also always has several sales bins at the entrance to the Sumika area (mostly clothes, occasionally shoes) which can be awesome for finding really good bargains.
How to get there:
Catch one of the JR lines to Akihabara -- the Yamanote, Chuo, or Seibu lines are what I usually take, but I believe there are a couple of others that stop there as well. Don't take the Hibiya line -- it's a Metro line, and the station is somewhere else, and you will end up getting lost in some weird dirty-looking back alleys trying to get to where you want to go. ^_^;
When you get off the JR train, follow the yellow signs to the 'Akihabara Electric Town Exit'. Akihabara station is quite large, but just keep following the signs. When you come out the ticket gates, turn left.
When you walk out of the station, it will look something like this:
The building you are after is the one on the right, with the big yellow sign out the front of it. Yes, Volks is really that close to the station. ^_^ Head towards it. It looks like this:
The entrance is basically at the middle of the building, so walk towards the red character with the two green dots above it and look for an escalator. It looks like this:
Ignore the men hanging around who may try to sell you something and hop on the escalator. The escalators only go up to the 4th floor, but if you're into models, you might want to stop there and look around Hobby Lobby. Also, if you like Pinky St figures, definitely stop in at Yellow Submarine (go left from the escalator and it's the first shop around the corner, on the right hand side) as they usually have their Pinkys at 20% off, and sell the parts separately as well.
From the 4th floor, either take the stairs up to the 6th floor, or walk around till you find the elevator and take that instead. And then you're there! Have fun! ^o^
