Harajuku

Harajuku is an area between Shinjuku and Shibuya. The area has two main shopping streets, Omotesandō and Takeshita-dōri. The latter caters to youth fashions and has many small stores selling gothic lolita, rockabilly, hip-hop, and punk clothing, in addition to fast food outlets and so forth.

In the 1980s large numbers of street performers and wildly dressed teens including takenoko-zoku (竹の子族, "bamboo-shoot kids") gathered on Omotesandō and the street that passes through Yoyogi Park on Sundays when the steets were closed to traffic. The streets were reopened to traffic in the 90s, and a great number of teens stopped gathering there. Today there are still teenagers hanging out in Harajuku, mostly on the bridge across the train tracks from Harajuku station to Yoyogi Park.

In recent years Omotesandō has seen a rise in branches of expensive fashion stores and is sometimes referred to as "Tokyo's Champs-Élysées". The area known as "Ura-Hara" (back streets of Harajuku) is a center of Japanese fashion for younger people — brands such as A Bathing Ape and Undercover have shops in the area.