What's the difference between teamLab Planets and teamLab Borderless?

teamLab Planets, in Toyosu, is a single guided route through physically immersive rooms, including barefoot walking through real water. teamLab Borderless, now at Azabudai Hills after the original Odaiba location closed in 2022, is a larger, open, maze-like museum with no fixed path, built around the idea of art without boundaries between rooms. They're different enough experiences to both be worth visiting rather than one substituting for the other.

Do I need to book teamLab tickets in advance?

Yes. Both museums use strict timed-entry ticketing sold online, and popular slots — weekends, opening hour, and the final couple of hours before closing — sell out days to weeks ahead in busy seasons. Walk-up availability is limited and unreliable.

What should I wear to teamLab Planets?

Clothing you can roll up past the knee, since several rooms involve walking barefoot through real ankle-deep water, plus a spare pair of socks to change into afterward. Skip tights, complicated layered outfits, and heels given the uneven, soft flooring in several rooms.

Is teamLab worth visiting if I've seen the photos online?

Most repeat visitors say photographs genuinely undersell it, since the interactivity — the way projected light and elements respond to your own movement — doesn't translate to a still image. The photos capture what a room looks like; they don't capture what it feels like to be a variable the room is reacting to.

What time should I book to avoid crowds at teamLab?

The earliest available slot of the day, generally right at opening, gives you the clearest rooms and shortest waits at the signature installations. Both museums fill steadily through the day, and the most popular rooms become considerably more crowded by midafternoon.

Tokyo, Japan

teamLab, and picking the right one of its two Tokyo museums

There are two separate, differently designed teamLab museums running in Tokyo at once, and confusing them is the single most common planning mistake. Here's what actually separates them.

A room of light with no fixed path through it, and no photograph that captures being inside one

Buy tickets ↗

teamLab is an interdisciplinary collective of artists, programmers, engineers and mathematicians founded in Tokyo in 2001, and their digital art museums, rooms of floor-to-ceiling projected light and interactive sensors responding to visitors' movement, have become genuinely one of the most talked-about things to do in the city since the first permanent installation opened in 2018. The work draws on traditional Japanese aesthetic ideas — the borderlessness between artworks, the seasons, water and flowers as recurring subjects — filtered through technology that makes the boundary between visitor and artwork intentionally porous: walk through a room of projected flowers and they respond to your footsteps, wither where you linger, and regrow behind you.

The original Borderless museum, which opened in Odaiba in 2018 and became one of the most Instagrammed spaces in the world, permanently closed that location in 2022. A new, larger version, teamLab Borderless, reopened at Azabudai Hills in central Tokyo in 2024, alongside teamLab Planets, a separate and differently conceived museum that opened in Toyosu in 2018 and has continued running throughout. This history matters because it means there are, at the time of writing, two distinct teamLab museums operating in Tokyo simultaneously, in different parts of the city, with meaningfully different designs — and mixing them up when booking is the most common mistake visitors make.

Both are genuinely worth seeing and neither is a lesser substitute for the other; they're closer to two different bodies of work by the same collective. What follows is not a ranking so much as a guide to picking the one, or both, that suit your trip.

The decision that matters mostBorderless at Azabudai Hills versus Planets at Toyosu

teamLab Borderless, at Azabudai Hills, is the larger and more maze-like of the two, built around the collective's core idea of art without walls between works — rooms flow into each other with no fixed map or suggested route, installations move and drift between spaces over the course of a day, and the explicit intention is that no two visits, or even two visitors on the same visit, will trace quite the same path or see quite the same configuration. This is the closer spiritual successor to the original Odaiba museum, rebuilt larger, and it leans toward wandering, discovery and a degree of deliberate disorientation.

teamLab Planets, at Toyosu, works on a different, more linear principle and is markedly more physical: visitors remove their shoes and socks at the entrance and walk barefoot through actual ankle-deep water in a mirrored infinity room filled with koi, climb through a room of hanging orchids suspended overhead, and cross a warm, soft floor that shifts and gives underfoot in a room designed to feel like walking on the surface of the mind. Because it's a single guided route rather than an open maze, Planets is somewhat more predictable to plan around and photograph, and the water and physical textures make it a more sensory, bodily experience than Borderless's more purely visual rooms.

If forced to choose one, Borderless suits visitors who want the fullest possible sense of scale and the collective's core 'no boundaries' concept; Planets suits visitors who want something more physically immersive and don't mind getting their feet wet. Many visitors with time for both find they're different enough to be worth the separate admission and separate half-day each requires, rather than redundant.

Inside the roomsWhat the experience actually feels like

Neither museum is a gallery in the conventional sense of framed works on walls to walk past; both are entered on foot, at your own pace, through darkened rooms where the art is the entire environment — floor, walls and ceiling all part of a single projected or physically built scene, often accompanied by ambient sound designed specifically for that room. Some rooms are near-empty and contemplative, meant for a few minutes of simply standing still and watching light move; others, particularly the signature flower or lantern rooms at both locations, are dense, disorientating and genuinely crowded with other visitors doing exactly what you're doing, which is part of the experience rather than a flaw in it.

Interactivity is real rather than a marketing claim: sensors track visitor movement and touch in many rooms, and the projected content responds directly — flowers bloom and scatter around your feet, light ripples away from where you stand, digital koi in Planets's mirrored water room scatter from your legs the way real fish would. This responsiveness is what separates the experience from watching a projection; you are, in a genuine sense, a variable the artwork is reacting to, and standing still for a few minutes in a room you'd normally walk straight through often produces the most memorable single moment of a visit.

Both museums are intentionally photogenic, and photography is actively encouraged rather than restricted, which is a large part of why they became so widely shared online — but the single most common piece of feedback from repeat visitors is that photographs genuinely undersell the experience, since neither the movement of the light nor its interactive response to your own presence translates to a still image. Put the phone away for at least one full room and simply be in it; it changes the visit.

What to actually wear and bringClothing, footwear and the mirrored floors

At teamLab Planets, you will be walking through real water and soft, uneven floor textures barefoot, so wear or bring clothes you can roll up past the knee, skip tights or complicated layered outfits, and bring a small towel or expect to use the ones typically provided near the water rooms to dry your feet before putting shoes back on afterward. A change of socks in your bag is a small thing that makes a real difference.

At both museums, several rooms feature genuinely mirrored floors and low, moody lighting, which means a short or flowing skirt is worth reconsidering, and flat, secure shoes are generally more sensible than heels given uneven flooring, low light and the amount of standing and walking involved — expect two to three hours of near-continuous movement at a normal pace, more if you linger in favourite rooms. Large bags, umbrellas and bulky coats are typically better checked at the entrance lockers provided, both for your own comfort moving through tight, dark spaces and because a few of the rooms are technically delicate installations that staff are protective of.

Both museums can produce mild sensory overload — strobing or rapidly shifting light in a small number of rooms, loud ambient sound in others, and genuine crowding in the most popular spaces during peak hours — worth knowing in advance if you're visiting with young children or anyone sensitive to those conditions. Staff at both locations are generally happy to point out a calmer alternate route if asked.

Booking, timing, and where else to goWhen to book and what to pair it with

Both museums operate on strict timed-entry ticketing, sold online in advance, and popular time slots, especially weekends, the first hour after opening and the final couple of hours before closing, sell out days to weeks ahead in busy travel seasons. Book as early in your trip planning as you can rather than treating either as a spontaneous same-week add-on; walk-up availability, where it exists at all, is unreliable and generally limited to off-peak weekday slots.

The earliest available slot of the day is consistently the best choice if you have any flexibility, since both museums fill considerably as the day goes on and the most popular rooms become genuinely difficult to experience without a crowd of other visitors in every frame and every sightline by midafternoon. A late-morning arrival right at a shift change in visitor volume is the next best option if an opening slot isn't available.

teamLab Planets, in Toyosu, sits close to the Toyosu fish market and the Tokyo Bay waterfront, making it easy to pair with a wholesale-market morning or an Odaiba waterfront afternoon. teamLab Borderless, at Azabudai Hills, sits within one of Tokyo's newest major mixed-use developments, with its own restaurants, shops and a public garden worth a wander before or after, and is a reasonably short taxi or train connection from both Roppongi and central Tokyo Station.

Practical info

Hours: Both museums generally run from around 10am to 7pm or later, with exact daily hours and last-entry times varying by season and published on each museum's official booking site — always check the specific week you're visiting rather than assuming a fixed year-round schedule, since both adjust hours periodically.
Tickets: Timed-entry tickets are required and sold online in advance for both museums; walk-up tickets are limited and unreliable, especially on weekends. Adult admission for each museum is generally in the range of ¥3,800–¥4,800 depending on date and time slot, with discounted rates for children and various combination or seasonal pricing occasionally offered — book directly through each museum's official site to avoid inflated resale prices.
Getting there: teamLab Planets is a short walk from Shin-Toyosu Station on the Yurikamome line, or a longer walk from Toyosu Station on the Tokyo Metro Yūrakuchō line. teamLab Borderless is inside Azabudai Hills, a short walk from Kamiyachō or Roppongi-Itchōme stations on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya line, or a slightly longer walk from Roppongi Station.
Good to know: At Planets, bare feet and rolled-up trousers are required for the water rooms — plan clothing accordingly and bring a spare pair of socks. At both museums, large bags and umbrellas are best left in the entrance lockers, mirrored and uneven floors make flat shoes the sensible choice, and a small number of rooms use strobing light or loud sound, worth checking in advance if travelling with young children or anyone sensitive to those effects.

Before you goCommon questions

What's the difference between teamLab Planets and teamLab Borderless?: teamLab Planets, in Toyosu, is a single guided route through physically immersive rooms, including barefoot walking through real water. teamLab Borderless, now at Azabudai Hills after the original Odaiba location closed in 2022, is a larger, open, maze-like museum with no fixed path, built around the idea of art without boundaries between rooms. They're different enough experiences to both be worth visiting rather than one substituting for the other.
Do I need to book teamLab tickets in advance?: Yes. Both museums use strict timed-entry ticketing sold online, and popular slots — weekends, opening hour, and the final couple of hours before closing — sell out days to weeks ahead in busy seasons. Walk-up availability is limited and unreliable.
What should I wear to teamLab Planets?: Clothing you can roll up past the knee, since several rooms involve walking barefoot through real ankle-deep water, plus a spare pair of socks to change into afterward. Skip tights, complicated layered outfits, and heels given the uneven, soft flooring in several rooms.
Is teamLab worth visiting if I've seen the photos online?: Most repeat visitors say photographs genuinely undersell it, since the interactivity — the way projected light and elements respond to your own movement — doesn't translate to a still image. The photos capture what a room looks like; they don't capture what it feels like to be a variable the room is reacting to.
What time should I book to avoid crowds at teamLab?: The earliest available slot of the day, generally right at opening, gives you the clearest rooms and shortest waits at the signature installations. Both museums fill steadily through the day, and the most popular rooms become considerably more crowded by midafternoon.

Skip the queue: tickets & tours in Tokyo Stay nearby