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The story
Seibu Shibuya, the department store in Udagawa-cho, Shibuya, closed its doors after 58 years of history, with crowds chanting “Seibu! Shibuya!” on its final day. In the 5ch News Speed+ thread discussing the Asahi Shimbun report, posters traded nostalgic memories of the cultural presence of the Saison Group under Seiji Tsutsumi, debated the bright and dark sides of redevelopment projects like Shibuya Hands and Sakura Stage, and pointed out that the department store format itself is becoming unsustainable as the middle class shrinks. Opinions were also split on whether Shibuya’s redevelopment counts as a success or a failure.
Seibu Shibuya closes, a cultural landmark falls on hard times — yet Shibuya keeps on changing [Tokyo]: Asahi Shimbun
September 30, 2026, 8:41 PM
Paid article By Mirin Oshita
Source: asahi.com / Original article here
What people said
Among railway-affiliated department stores, Hankyu is the only one that really stands out — the rest are small fry.
The owner changed, but it's still around.
Set to close in November.
they've all changed with the times,
I remember watching a movie at Tokyu Culture Hall right after finishing my university entrance exams.
I was sure I'd failed, and just couldn't face going home.
Tokyu Toyoko's gone too, and Marui and Parco are both on their last legs.
Honestly, unless you're seriously rich, nobody buys clothes at a department store anymore.
why was there even a Seibu department store in Shibuya, which doesn't even have a terminal station?
?? Shibuya is a terminal station though?
Because aside from Tokyu there were no department stores there, so for Seibu — which only had a foothold in Ikebukuro — it was the perfect spot to expand into.
Guess the older and younger brothers ended up running completely separate groups.
Well, the older brother — a man of letters and a novelist too — died young.
You didn't know they couldn't stand each other? They didn't even share the same mother, for that matter.
If you're heading there, turn right in front of the Yoyogi Park police box.
Since I remember the glory days of Saison culture, it just doesn't sit right somehow.
Saison culture ended the moment Seiji Tsutsumi stepped down.
The media kept hammering him, claiming he rewrote something 30 years ago to let foreign capital take it over.
"I Love the Mysterious" (不思議、大好き)
made Shigesato Itoi's name — and the job title "copywriter" — known to the general public.
There was that Parco catchphrase too —
"Might as well become a beauty…"
something like that.
Say Shigesato Itoi and I think of Bass Fishing No. 1 (the fishing game he helped create).
Apparently that's why it's got massive support among broke young people.
Shibuya's done for.
That's why they put high-end brands on the lower floors — so there's still a way to get money out of people.
Shibuya got redeveloped because they hated how low the average spend per customer was for the location, and the plan was to ditch young people and target adults with money instead — except it's completely failed to work lol
What actually succeeds there anymore?
The upper floors are filled with offices, so it's actually doing fairly well.
The newly rebuilt Parco and Shibuya Scramble Square are both doing well.
It's just the department stores and fashion buildings that don't fit the times anymore that are disappearing.
If you're moving around by train, Shibuya's become a place you can just pass straight through now.
And since land rent is insanely high, buildings can't stay fully occupied.
There used to be Seibu stores in Otsu and Kobe, you know.
I kind of remember the Kobe one opening and then Seibu going under almost instantly —
about as fast as the Mitsukoshi in Umeda.
I loved the mechanical doll clock that came out on the hour at the second-floor entrance of the Sannomiya Sogo when I was a kid. Bringing that back is probably impossible though.
There was one in Takatsuki too, wasn't there.
Shibuya Sakura Stage
It's just way too far from the actual center of Shibuya lol
Though the cherry blossoms in Sakuragaoka are popular.
these are all pretty much played out by now, right?
Honestly Shiodome's the only real has-been of that bunch.
Though Odaiba's redevelopment flopped too and it's in rough shape.
Inbound tourism evaporates the instant the yen strengthens, and the big-spending elderly crowd keeps shrinking as it ages out. They cut loose the middle class that used to prop them up, so now they can't withstand even a mild downturn — and for the generation with no childhood memory of ever going to a department store, it won't even register as an option once they're grown. At best they'll hit the basement food hall, or just walk through.
Even at ¥100 to the dollar it'd still be cheap lol
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Seibu Shibuya was operated by the Saison Group, a separate company with no capital ties to Seibu Railway/the Seibu Group, which owns the Saitama Seibu Lions baseball team. It’s well known that founders and brothers Seiji and Yoshiaki Tsutsumi had different mothers and a famously strained relationship — a distinction that comes up repeatedly in the thread, since sharing the “Seibu” name alone makes the two easy to confuse. Meanwhile, the recent struggles of department stores are said to stem from stores that failed to hold onto middle-class customers being weeded out, unlike chains such as Mitsukoshi Isetan that have specialized in inbound tourists and wealthy clientele — a trend that overlaps with the split in opinion over whether Shibuya’s overall redevelopment counts as a success or a failure.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Tokyo] Seibu Shibuya Closes After 58 Years, Chants of “Seibu! Shibuya! Seibu! Shibuya!” Ring Out.”
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