Japan by the BookWhat to book, what it costs — with the source
Checked 20 August 2026

What You Actually Have to Book in Japan — and When Ghibli, teamLab and Shibuya Sky Go On Sale

We checked ten of the attractions that “book in advance” lists always name, against what each operator actually publishes. Most of them publish a way to get in on the day — though every one of those comes with a condition, usually that it can sell out. The ones with no same-day route at all are fewer than you have been told — and two official pages contradict themselves.

What each operator actually publishes about getting in on the day

We are not going to give you a tidy number here, because the operators do not give one. This is what each of them actually publishes.

PlaceWhat the operator says
Ghibli Museum, Mitaka “All admission to the Ghibli Museum is by advance reservation only.” and “No reservation or ticket purchase can be made at the Museum.” Tickets are valid only for the date and time printed on them.
Ghibli Park (Aichi) “Advanced reservations are required.” But not for everything: the same page carries a notice about same-day tickets for three buildings in Valley of the Witches. The notice body was not readable to us, so treat park entry and building entry as separate questions.
Katsura Imperial Villa (Kyoto) Guided tours only, and you are told to apply in advance — but there is also a same-day desk. These are two separate allocations, not a contradiction: 480 places a day by application, 70 on the day (10 per tour), and unused advance places are added to the same-day pool. Same-day registration opens at 8:40, numbered tickets are first come first served, and you need ID to collect one. Read the note below before you rely on the same-day desk.
teamLab Planets TOKYO “Tickets are not sold on-site.” But see the note below.
Katsura: the same-day desk will not get you an English tour

The villa runs English guided tours for foreign visitors only at 9:20, 11:20, 13:20, 15:20 and 16:20. From October to February the 16:00 and 16:20 tours do not run, so the English list is four for those five months.

The catch: same-day registration is only available for the Japanese-guided tours. If you want an English tour you have to apply in advance — walking up on the day cannot get you one. Free multilingual audio guides are offered to foreign visitors on the Japanese tours, but availability is limited.

Applying online opens on the 1st of the month three months ahead and closes three days before your date; the guidelines give the example of applying from 05:00 on 1 August for 10 November, closing 23:59 on 7 November. Neither the English nor the Japanese guidelines attach a time zone to those hours. Applying in person at the Kyoto Office runs later — until the day before — though the guidelines warn a permit may not be issuable.

One thing the two language versions do not agree on. The English says the ballot happens if applications exceed capacity for that day. The Japanese says applications are taken in order of the date they were submitted, and the ballot applies only among those submitted on the same day. Read the English alone and you would think applying early gains you nothing. We cannot tell you which governs.

Katsura: who is allowed in, and the 12-year-old problem again

The English guidelines say visitors must be 12 years or over, and that anyone younger — infants and toddlers included — cannot enter. The Japanese guidelines say something different: visitors must be junior-high-school age or above, and children of elementary-school age and below cannot come along at all.

Those are not the same rule. A 12-year-old still in elementary school is admitted by one version and excluded by the other — the same trap as the SHIBUYA SKY child ticket further down this page. If you are travelling with a child near that age, ask before you build a day around it.

Admission is 1,000 yen for 18 and over. The Japanese version makes middle- and high-school students free and asks them to bring student ID; the English version gives the free band as 12 to 17 and does not mention ID. Neither version says what happens if you turn up without it.

Why teamLab Planets has an asterisk

Its FAQ says tickets are not sold on-site. Elsewhere on the same page, the parking section refers to “tickets purchased from the facility’s vending machine”. We cannot reconcile those two — the parking note does not say the machine still sells tickets, so it may be describing past purchases. Either way, the page does not settle whether you can buy on the day. Book ahead and the question never comes up.

When bookings actually open

This is the part that surprises people. The windows are short, and three of them open on a fixed day at a fixed hour — which means being awake for it. Read the middle column carefully: some of these are the schedule for one particular booking route, not a rule for the venue as a whole.

PlaceWhen it opens
Ghibli Museum From overseas the museum names two routes. Route one is LAWSON TICKET online, and that route opens on the 10th of each month at 10:00 JST for the following month — the museum’s own example is that 1–28 February goes on sale 10 January. Route two is a special bus tour by Sunrise Tours (JTB), for which no window is given — and note that it is a multi-destination tour with the museum among the stops, not a second way to buy a museum ticket on its own. Buying to resell is not permitted.
Ghibli Park October 2026 went on sale 10 August 2026, 14:00 JST — two months ahead
Imperial Palace (Tokyo) 05:00 JST on the 1st of the previous month, closing four days before your visit
teamLab Planets November tickets “available starting late-August” — roughly two to three months
SHIBUYA SKY The page says “sold up to two weeks ahead” — far shorter than anything else here. It does not spell out which ticket types that covers, and the child ticket is counter-only, so it has no advance window at all.
Two things we are not going to claim

Ghibli Park published one sale date, for October. It reads like a monthly pattern, but the operator does not say “every month”, so neither will we. teamLab Planets says “late-August” with no date and no hour.

And nobody publishes how fast anything sells out. Opening day and sell-out day are different questions, and only the first one has an official answer.

SHIBUYA SKY has two catches nobody mentions

1 — Child tickets cannot be booked online at all

The child ticket is sold at the same-day counter only. There is no way to buy one online.

Check which ticket you actually need first, because the bands are not what you would guess: adult is 12 and over, the child ticket covers 12-year-olds still in primary school, and preschool children aged 6 are free. Read those first two again: taken literally, a 12-year-old in primary school falls into both bands, and the page does not say which one wins. If you are travelling with a 12-year-old, ask before you book. (The page also gives the preschool fare as free without saying whether that means no ticket at all.)

2 — If it is sold out online, the counter is sold out too

For adults, the operator states plainly that when the website sells out, the counter sells out with it. Queuing does not get you in. (Whether that is one shared pool or two that close together, the operator does not say — and neither will we.)

The counter also costs 300 yen more than booking online. One caveat on the times: the operator’s counter prices are written as “until 15:00” and “from 15:00”, which overlap at exactly 15:00, while the online prices use “until 14:59”. If you are entering at 15:00 sharp, ask.

The six that every guide tells you to book — that publish a same-day route

Each of these appears on “must book in advance” lists constantly. Here is what the operator actually publishes.

PlaceWhat the operator actually says
Imperial Palace (Tokyo) Numbered tickets are handed out at Kikyo-mon Gate at 09:00 and 12:30, first come first served, 300 tickets. Bring valid ID — not a copy.
Kyoto Imperial Palace “The Kyoto Imperial Palace is open to all visitors. No advance application is necessary.” (This is the one people confuse with the Kyoto villas. Of those we have read the guidelines for Katsura, which does require applying — see above. We have not checked Sento or Shugakuin, so we are not lumping them in here.)
teamLab Borderless “They can also be purchased on site, but at different prices.” The price list adds “+200 yen if purchased on site”. Tickets are date and time-specific and may sell out.
SHIBUYA SKY There is a same-day counter — with the two catches above.
Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo “Tickets are also available at our ticket office onsite, however, pre-booking is recommended as your preferred admission date and time may be sold out.” Three conditions that bite if you book anyway: tickets are non-refundable, changing the date or time costs ¥1,500 every time and the page asks you to contact Visitor Services before your original slot, and tickets bought from unauthorised resellers — auction sites included — are not valid for entry.
Toyosu Market tuna auction The viewing corridor takes no reservation. The market admits general visitors from 05:00 — that is the market, not the corridor; the operator does not give a corridor opening time. The tuna auction runs 05:30 to about 06:30. What you can see from the corridor is mostly the frozen tuna: the operator says the fresh-tuna floor is hard to see from there. Some areas do need applying for. (Read from the Japanese page — the /en/ address returns Japanese.)

Notice the shape of it. “Book in advance” and “you cannot get in without booking” are different claims, and the second one is rarer than the internet suggests — rare enough that we could only firmly establish it for the Ghibli Museum. But a published same-day route is not a promise of entry. Every one of the six attaches a condition — a ticket count, a sell-out warning, a counter-only band, an area that still needs applying for. Walking up can cost you money, time, the slot you wanted, or the visit, and no operator publishes how often it costs the last one.

What we could not find out

Sources

Checked 19–20 August 2026. Where an operator publishes in Japanese and English, we read the Japanese and say so.

This page has a shelf life

Opening windows and same-day policies change, and several of the sale dates above are announcements for one particular month rather than published rules. The date at the top is the last time we read the sources.

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