Review: M’s Pop Life in Tokyo, Japan

M’s Pop Life is a very large sex shop in Tokyo’s famous Akihabara neighborhood. “Aki” has been known around the world since the days after the second world war. It started out as a notable area for black market goods in the early days of the US occupation. Later it became known as an “electric town” where you could find electronic and computer parts of all sorts.

These days Akihabara is most known as a place where Otaku can find anything and everything that relates to hobbies like video gaming and anime. Thanks to places like M’s Pop Life and the previously reviewed Love Merci it is also a place where you can buy a wide variety of sex accessories and Japanese porn.

Japanese sex toys

Everyone knows about dildos and pocket pussies. But Japanese sex toys take things to the next level. The uninitiated can be astounded by the sheer number and variety of sex toys available in Japan. They range from things like remote control vibrators to full body dolls meticulously modeled on the bodies of popular stars. Western sex toy markets are starting to develop some new things. But Japan is still the clear world leader in onanism.

It seems that Japanese sex toys have become a lot more popular since I first wrote about places like the Love Merci sex mega-store several years ago. Either that or they have simply become more notable thanks to the internet and global economic integration. These days you can order a Japanese onaholes based on a Japanese porn store right to your door in Berlin thanks to shops like Kanojo Toys. But that doesn’t make these kinds of super stores in Japan any less interesting.

M’s Pop Life in Akihabara

M’s Pop Life is a large shop that takes up multiple floors of a building. It is easy to see from the ground floor with banners and advertisements spread around the exterior. Even amidst all the signs, neon lights and women dressed like French maids in the street the place stands out. Yet it doesn’t look like some tacky sex shop. Instead it has a clean and well designed look.

Inside there is an open staircase and lift to one side. On the other is the floor space which is filled with Japanese AV on DVD and Blu-ray. Surprisingly this area does continue to get a good amount of foot traffic. But it is the upper levels that most people focus on.

The next floor up is perhaps the most interesting for men. It is lined from one end to the other with an incredible number of onaholes. Most of them are based around various female body parts or styles of sex. So you might find a twisting deep throat hole or a pair of big breasts with a slot in the middle you can fit your unit into. Then there’s the more hentai based toys based on old ladies, fat women, virgin brides, elder sisters, uteruses, mermaids, ghosts, and in at least one case a male television host.

Further up you find the couples floor which contains everything from BDSM toys like chains and paddles to a very wide variety of vibrators and dildos. It is quite common to see mixed gender couples and even single women perusing the goods here. This sort of thing may shock some old timers but I’ve been around enough to know better. Not long ago I wrote about male go go bars in Pattaya that are visited by Asian women in droves.

The floor above the couples area is home to some really high end sex tools and technology. There are literal sex machines here displayed in a way reminiscent of the way household appliance were shown off in Sears and Roebuck years ago. If guys can spend five thousand dollars on a Japanese sex toy there’s no reason a women couldn’t or wouldn’t drop a similar amount on a fully automated apparatus. Still that kind of purchase is infrequent. So this level probably wouldn’t see as much traffic if it wasn’t also where they kept condoms of all shapes and sizes. They also have enough lubricant on offer to slide a beluga whale through the prison bars in Attica.

Finally there is the top floor of M’s Pop Life. Here they have a wide array of panties and sex lingerie and costumes. Rather than feeling like reaching the top of a mountain this area is actually a bit disappointing. Japan is home to high quality female undergarments and the country practically invented cosplay. So it would be nice to see something other than the kind of cheap garb sold on the sidewalk around Nana Plaza. But the rest of the massive shop more than makes up for it.

Summary

This website and reality itself has proven time and time again that porn is not dead. While physical disk sales are certainly down there are still a lot of people who like to browse in person. That is even more true when it comes to sex toys. That makes total sense as you can get a real idea of what it is you are looking at when the products are right in front of you. Few shops allow for exploration like M’s Pop Life. That’s why it is so popular.

Each floor of M’s has a cash register where you can pay for purchases. They are expertly packed in thick bags that protect the contents from prying eyes. Unlike the privacy minded Love Merci the cash registers at M’s are totally open so everyone can see what you are buying. But it is a lot like the open floor blowjob bars in Japan in that people tend to mind their own business.

Masturbation carries little to no shame or stigma in Japan. Of course it is still an act mostly performed in private. But big stores like M’s Pop Life stand in the middle of popular neighborhoods and are regularly visited by men, women and couples in the middle of the day. And why not? As the globally known Tenga company puts it: “everyone does it, why not make it better?” Three stars.

M’s Pop Life. 1 Chome−15−13 Sotokanda, Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan. Click here for a map. Open every day from 11:00 AM until 10:00 PM. Phone: +81 03-3252-6166. Website: https://www.ms-online.co.jp/page/akihabara-store.php