Tourists, cult status drive profits at Japan discount chain offering ‘jungle'-like experience
Business is booming at Japanese discount chain Don Quijote, which sells everything from nostril-hair wax to compact gadgets and colourful party costumes, thanks to its cult status among tourists but also inflation at home.
Advertisement
At a large Don Quijote store in Tokyo's bustling Shibuya district, hundreds of tourists rush to fill their baskets with snacks and souvenirs from its heaving narrow aisles.
'I was pretty overwhelmed at first, just because there's so many options, everything's in a different language,' 27-year-old Garett Bryan from the United States said.
But 'I feel like I bought a lot and it was only like US$70' including 'a coffee cup for my mum, a fan, some Godzilla chopsticks, just a couple toys'.
The chaotic cut-price shops nicknamed 'Donki' were founded in the 1980s by Takao Yasuda, who named them after his business inspiration: the idealistic protagonist of the classic Spanish novel, Don Quixote.
Advertisement
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
11 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
The legacy of Hong Kong's signature curio shops
Since the mid-19th century, Hong Kong has been famed for the extensive array of (mostly, but not exclusively, Chinese) curios available in speciality shops. A mainstay of the local tourism industry, generations of visitors have departed these shores with some appealingly 'oriental' item tucked away in their baggage as a memento of their stay. While some are genuine antiques, most curios are recently manufactured. Porcelain items, jade and intricately carved netsuke remain popular, along with Swatow embroideries, Mandarin coats and scroll paintings. Despite the wholesale decimation of African elephant populations in recent years, carved ivory curios remain popular purchases for the less environmentally conscious, and Hong Kong's numerous ivory shops have insisted, for the past few decades, that items are all made from 'old stocks'. Tourists browse among the second-hand and curio stalls at Upper Lascar Row. Photo: Winson Wong From the 1920s, open-air second-hand stalls along Upper and Lower Lascar Rows , just below the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road, were regularly referenced in contemporary guidebooks and thus became popular tourist hunting grounds for curiosities. More credulous visitors still hope for hidden treasure among the random bric-a-brac, mostly caked in dust, found jumbled together. For some bargain hunters, this fusty atmosphere is a large part of the appeal. Until well into the 60s, these lanes also had a well-deserved reputation among local residents as a thief's market, where newly burgled householders surreptitiously checked out stalls to see whether their stolen property was being fenced. During the worldwide tourism boom that characterised the Roaring Twenties , wealthy passengers who travelled on round-the-world ocean liners typically staged through Hong Kong on their journeys. In the interwar years, upmarket shopping arcades located within popular hotels, such as The Peninsula in Kowloon or between the Gloucester and the Hongkong Hotel in Central, each had at least one curio dealer to meet demand from passing tourists. Surrounding backstreets had many more to choose from. Interwar Hong Kong was an excellent place to buy high-quality Japanese curios, such as netsuke, unusual as their widespread availability here may appear today. A hawker selling used goods on Upper Lascar Row in 1972. Photo: SCMP Archives Hong Kong in those years had a sizeable resident Japanese community, many of whom had made their homes in the British colony for decades, and who spoke English and Cantonese, as well as Japanese. As a free port, curio items, like almost everything else on offer in that long-ago 'shopping paradise', were imported and sold unburdened by export and import tariffs and local sales taxes. Consequently, purchases made in Hong Kong were frequently cheaper than in their country of origin. And unlike Japan, where curio items varied throughout the country, Hong Kong's speciality shops that sold such wares were within pleasant strolling distance of each other and stocked a wide variety.
South China Morning Post
13 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Should you buy a Switch 2? Will the price go up? What to know about Nintendo's new console
The Nintendo Switch 2 console has officially been released. It is the follow-up to Nintendo's second bestselling gaming device ever, the 2017-released Switch, which, with sales topping 150 million, is behind only the Japanese gaming giant's handheld Nintendo DS. Thus, the Switch 2 carries expectations. Though it has a larger, higher-resolution 1080p screen and more processing power than its predecessor, it is not a wholesale reimagining. It looks similar, albeit just a tad larger, and again comes with detachable controllers, which Nintendo dubs 'Joy-Cons', only now they are magnetised. Switch owners will feel right at home with the new device. Play Yet a new video game console brings with it questions. What is worth playing? Is it easy to upgrade? And will it even be in stock?
South China Morning Post
17 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Nintendo launches highly anticipated Switch 2 amid heavy demand in Japan
Read similar stories: Nintendo released the Switch 2 video game console worldwide on June 5, 2025. In Japan, lucky Nintendo fans who won a first-day sales lottery lined up to pick up the highly anticipated device. It is the second iteration of the hit Switch game system, which initially launched in 2017.
