Dotonbori

Before ten in the morning the shutters are down, the canal is empty, the delivery vans are in and you can see that Dotonbori is a narrow, slightly shabby, very old entertainment district built along a canal dug in 1615. The Glico running man is still there and nobody is photographing him. This is the version almost nobody sees and it is the one that explains the place.

After nine at night it is what you came for: the signs lit, the canal black and reflective, the mechanical crab moving its legs above Kani Doraku, the Kuidaore drumming boy, the vast pufferfish lantern of Zuboraya’s successor tenants. Lean on the rail at Ebisubashi, which is the bridge the Glico sign faces, and accept that you are one of four hundred people doing the same thing.

Between about one and six in the afternoon it is a slow-moving crush in daylight, with every sign switched off and no atmosphere to compensate. That is the hour most visitors are given by their itineraries, and it is the reason a steady number of people come away thinking Dotonbori is overrated.

Turn your back on the canal. Hozenji Yokocho is two minutes south: a pair of flagstoned lanes, lantern-lit, with a small temple whose stone Fudo Myoo statue is completely furred over with moss because passers-by have been throwing water at it for four centuries. It is twenty metres from the loudest street in Osaka and it is silent.

West of Ebisubashi the canal walk continues along the Tombori Riverwalk at water level, which is the only place you can photograph the signs without a crowd in front of them. From here the Tombori River Cruise runs a twenty-minute loop for ¥2,000, on the hour and half-hour between 11:00 and 21:00, from the pier at Tazaemon-bashi by Don Quijote. It is free on the Amazing Pass and it is the one thing here that actually benefits from being on the water.

North of the canal, Shinsaibashi-suji is a covered shopping arcade running nearly a kilometre; south, the Namba side has the theatres and the older eating streets. The whole area is treated properly on the Namba and Dotonbori district page.

The canal-front stalls sell takoyaki at a premium for a product that is frequently under-cooked to survive the queue, which is the opposite of what takoyaki is supposed to be. Wanaka at eight pieces for ¥500 is the honourable exception on this side of town.

For okonomiyaki, walk ten minutes to Mizuno, which holds a Bib Gourmand and is open 11:00 to 22:00. For kushikatsu, the serious version is in Shinsekai, two subway stops south. Neither detour is long and both are the difference between having eaten in Osaka and having eaten near a sign.