Doraemon Time Square and Hello Kitty Japan at DiverCity Tokyo Plaza: What's Free in Odaiba
Doraemon Time Square's character bench photos are free, so is browsing Hello Kitty Japan next door. Real Odaiba day trip, plus what's actually gone now.
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We spent a full day in Odaiba in May 2024, DiverCity Tokyo Plaza, a boat ride, arcades, the kind of day that sounds expensive until you break down what actually cost money. Two stops inside DiverCity itself didn’t cost us a yen: Doraemon Time Square and the Hello Kitty Japan store next door. Both are worth knowing about before you go, and one thing Odaiba used to be famous for isn’t there anymore, so we’ll clear that up too.
Doraemon Time Square: free character bench photos
On the 2nd floor of DiverCity Tokyo Plaza, Doraemon Time Square centers on a large mechanical clock that puts on a short Doraemon themed show every hour, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. On either side of the clock sit life-size statues of Doraemon, Nobita, and Shizuka, seated on public benches, free to walk up and sit next to for a photo. No ticket, no line management, just a shared bench with a cartoon character that’s been part of Japanese pop culture since 1969.
Doraemon first appeared in a Japanese children’s manga in 1969, and the character’s genuine, sustained popularity is a big part of why a full plaza gets dedicated to him rather than a single mural. The bench statues are part of a larger Doraemon’s Door to the Future monument marking the character’s 50th anniversary, not a temporary promotional set piece, which is part of why it’s still there years later while other Odaiba installations have come and gone.
Hello Kitty Japan: also free to browse
A short walk away, also on the 2nd floor, Hello Kitty Japan is a dedicated Sanrio store with a genuinely large selection, plus a couple of details worth knowing: it offers an embroidery service for personalizing t-shirts and tote bags, and an engraving service for keyrings, both real add-on costs beyond whatever’s already on the shelf. Right next to the store, Hello Kitty no Kongariyaki sells character shaped cakes, soft serve, and mochi, a real food stop if the shopping alone doesn’t cover a snack. Like the Pokémon and Sanrio stores we’ve covered elsewhere in Tokyo, walking in and browsing costs nothing, what you leave with is the only variable.
What used to be here and isn’t anymore
If you’ve read about Odaiba before, you’ve probably seen photos of the towering Unicorn Gundam statue that stood in DiverCity’s Festival Plaza since 2017. It’s worth being direct about this rather than repeating outdated info: the statue’s display run ended August 31, 2026, and it’s no longer there. If a Gundam statue is the reason you were planning an Odaiba trip specifically, that reason no longer applies, worth checking current DiverCity announcements before you build a day around it.
We also hit the arcades that same day, on the 6th floor of the same DiverCity building, home to a full Round1 Stadium, bowling, arcade floor, karaoke, and more. No receipt or photo from that stop to show for it, but we’ve already broken down Round1’s pay-per-game versus timed play package pricing in detail from our Sakai location, and the same math applies here too, it’s the same chain nationwide.
Getting to Odaiba
DiverCity Tokyo Plaza is a 3 minute walk from Tokyo Teleport Station on the Rinkai Line, or about 5 minutes from Daiba Station on the elevated Yurikamome Line, which is worth riding at least once just for the views across the bay. A more scenic route, and the one closer to what we actually did that day, is a water bus straight from Asakusa:
Asakusa to Odaiba water bus cruise
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It passes Tokyo Skytree, the Sumida River bridges, and Rainbow Bridge on the way in, a genuinely different way to arrive than another train transfer, and a single adult fare clears the $50 cart minimum once paired with anything else in the same Klook order.
Was it worth it
Completely, and the free half of the day did most of the work. Sitting next to a cartoon character that’s been running since before either of us were born, then wandering a Sanrio store big enough to have its own personalization counter, cost us nothing beyond whatever ended up in a shopping bag. Skip the now-gone Gundam and build the day around what’s actually still there, and Odaiba still earns a full day on the itinerary.
