Shibuya is the home of Bunkamura, a culture and entertainment complex that houses a concert hall, a theater, two movie screens, a gallery, and an art museum. Bunkamura is the main venue for the annual Tokyo International Film Festival, Japan's only international film festival.

Immediately north of Shibuya is Harajuku, which attracts an even younger crowd than Shibuya. The crowd is made up mostly of junior-high-school and high-school students headed for Takeshita-dori, a narrow pedestrian street about 150 meters from Harajuku Station that is packed with shops and stalls offering hip fashions, accessories, and trinkets. On weekends and holidays, when hordes of teenagers descend upon Takeshita-dori from all over Tokyo and the surrounding area, the crowd is so dense that a person can only move forward by baby steps. Until a few years ago Harajuku's main drag was closed to vehicular traffic on weekends, and the pedestrian paradise was the center stage for young street performers. Harajuku has recently also become a magnet for young cosplayers, or costume players, who parade around dressed as their favorite characters from comic strips, animated films, and video games or in imitation of their favorite "visual" bands.