teamLab Planets or Borderless: Which One to Book

Toyosu: a route through water, walked barefoot

You take your shoes off at the entrance and your socks in the locker room, because several works are walked through in water that reaches knee height on an adult. Drawing on the Water Surface Created by the Dance of Koi and People is the room people come for, where projected koi swim around your legs and burst into flowers when they touch you. The Infinite Crystal Universe is a mirrored hall of hanging light points; Floating in the Falling Universe of Flowers is a domed room where people lie on the floor while flowers open overhead.

The garden half is newer and gets walked too fast. A moss garden of ovoid sculptures sits outside, and the Floating Flower Garden hangs thousands of living orchids that rise as you approach; the room smells strongest after dark, because many of those species partner with nocturnal insects. The Athletics Forest and the children's Catching and Collecting Forest are the physical half, added later. The venue's own published exhibition period runs to the end of 2027, which is the honest answer to whether it is permanent.

Azabudai: a museum that refuses to give you a map

The absence of a floor plan is not an oversight, it is the exhibit. The museum's own answer is that it is a world of art without boundaries and that no maps are provided so visitors experience the art in line with that concept. On the floor this means works do not stay put: a flock of projected birds leaves one room and appears in another, a river of light runs under a doorway and continues on the far side, two works meet in a corridor and interfere with each other. You find things by wandering and you lose them the same way.

Universe of Water Particles on a Rock where People Gather is the waterfall wall you can divert with your body. Bubble Universe is the mirrored sphere room most photographs come from. There is a tea house where flowers bloom inside the bowl as you drink, and a Sketch Ocean where a fish you draw is scanned and released into the projected sea. It sits on basement level one of Garden Plaza B, under a Mori development that opened in 2023, and the museum's own general information calls the term permanent rather than limited.

In Toyosu the enemy is water. You go barefoot, the water reaches knee height in places, and the venue's rule is that wet clothing cannot continue into the next artwork: staff ask you to change, and if you have nothing to change into they lend a towel and ask you to dry off. Long trousers that will not roll cleanly above the knee are the commonest mistake in the building, followed by tights, which have to come off in the locker room anyway.

What almost nobody knows before arriving is that the fix is free and unadvertised. Shorts are lent at no charge in sizes XS to 6L, on request from staff inside, and wrap skirts sit beside the mirrored-floor works because skirts and mirrored floors do not combine. Complimentary rental shoes exist for anyone whose sandals have no heel strap. None of this is mentioned at the point of sale, which is why a proportion of every group spends the second half of the route in a towel. The water is chlorinated, with sodium hypochlorite adjusted to standard, which the venue states in the same list as the barefoot rule.

One physical restriction follows from all that water: the koi room refuses anyone with an inseam under 40 centimetres, so most small children go through carried or in a front baby carrier with a guardian of 18 or over.

In Azabudai the enemy is light

You keep your shoes on here and nothing gets wet, but the museum refuses several things at the door that other museums would not notice. Flashing shoes, light-up bracelets and glow sticks are turned away, because they interfere with other visitors' view of light-based works, and that rule catches families with small children more often than anyone else. Drinks without caps, strongly scented items and fresh flowers are also refused. Food cannot come in at all, sweets and chewing gum included, though capped drinks can.

The mirrored floors are here too, so the same wrap skirts are kept beside the works where it matters. Free lockers take anything under fifty centimetres and everything larger, buggies included, goes to the luggage room. Photography and video are welcome at both venues, with no flash at either and nothing over thirty centimetres, so tripods, monopods and long selfie sticks stay in the locker.

Azabudai Hills is central. Kamiyacho on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line, Exit 5, is two minutes on foot and Roppongi-Itchome on the Namboku Line, Exit 4, is six, and the museum states that both are linked to the building by underground passage, so you can follow the signs the whole way without surfacing. In a Tokyo August, or in rain, that is not a small thing. Ginza is about ten minutes away on the Hibiya Line and the lattice tower in Shiba-koen is a fifteen-minute walk south.

Toyosu is out on reclaimed land in the bay. Shin-Toyosu on the Yurikamome, north exit, is one minute from the door and is the right answer; Shijoumae, also Yurikamome, is five minutes; Toyosu on the Metro Yurakucho Line, which is the station most visitors will actually reach fastest from central Tokyo, is a ten-minute walk from Exit 7. From Ginza it is four stops on the Yurakucho Line. The Yurikamome is an automated elevated line with a view over the bay, so arriving along it from Shimbashi is worth the extra time on the clock rather than a penalty.

What each journey lets you build around it

That geography decides the shape of the day more than the museum does. Toyosu is not on the way to anything, so it works as an anchor: an 08:00 or 09:00 slot, out by 10:30, then fifteen minutes on foot to Toyosu Market for a very late breakfast, checking first that the market is open, since it shuts on Wednesdays, Sundays and public holidays.

Azabudai works at either end of a day that is happening anyway. An 08:30 slot puts you back on the street by 10:30; a 19:00 slot ends in Roppongi for dinner. What neither venue tolerates is being stacked against another timed booking in the same half day, because both are one-way with no re-entry and neither will guarantee how long the queue at the gate takes.

Say it plainly first: there is no combined ticket, there has never been one, and neither ticket admits you to the other venue. Anything advertising both is two tickets sold together by a third party.

At Toyosu, tickets are sold online only and never at the door. A ticket bought on the official store can have its date and time changed up to three times, no later than two hours before the slot, and no ticket is refundable, ever. A ticket bought anywhere else cannot be moved at all, which is the real argument for the official store rather than the few yen of difference. Entry is only within the first thirty minutes of your slot.

At Azabudai, same-day tickets are sold through the official site if the date has not sold out, and on site at a $1.30 (¥200) surcharge while stock lasts. Weekend and holiday dates routinely sell out, so that is a fallback rather than a plan. A refund exists only if the museum has an unscheduled closure, and even then it does not cover your transport.

The discounts and the closures

The disability ticket at Azabudai is unusually open: $11.66 (¥1,800) for a certificate holder and one companion, the certificate may be issued by any country, and the Mirailo ID app is accepted in place of a physical card. Both people have to enter at the same time, because the certificate is checked at the gate. Toyosu also prices from $11.66 (¥1,800) with a certificate.

Neither venue has a weekly closing day, and both scatter their closures instead. Reading the two operators' own calendars in Q3 2026, Toyosu is shut on Thursday 1 October and Thursday 5 November 2026, and Azabudai on Tuesday 8 September, Tuesday 20 October and Tuesday 24 November 2026, with an early 17:00 close on 17 November and a run of 22:00 closings through October. Check the date rather than the day of the week, and compare every tier for both on the teamLab ticket page.