Takeshita Street is a 350-metre pedestrian lane in Tokyo's Harajuku district that, for several decades, served as the unofficial headquarters of Japanese youth culture. In the 1980s, the "takenoko-zoku" teenage street-dancing groups claimed it as their stage. By the 1990s, it had become ground zero for gothic Lolita fashion, cosplay and the kind of eccentric personal style that reportedly still draws Lady Gaga here when she's in Japan.

The street's character has shifted with time. Overtourism has nudged away many of the locals who once made it genuinely strange, but the kawaii aesthetic, the cat cafes, the otter cafes and the racks of vintage and retro fashion remain.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace how Takeshita Street evolved from Shinjuku's shadow into a global fashion reference point, explaining how Japan's "kawaii" culture grew from a 1970s economic crisis into a worldwide phenomenon.