Gift Ichiban

Absolutely loved this cute tucked away shop! It’s filled wall-​to-​wall with stuffed animals, Hello Kitty stuff, cartoon alarm clocks, cell phone charms, a giant stuffed animal Pikachu… and that’s just what’s visible from standing by the cash register. This is a great place for adorable gifts, especially girly stuff.

Love the hello kitty items for my daughter. She had requested to visit for her Christmas gifts and giveaways for her friends.
See you there soon.

This place has a ton of little kawaii gifts and plushies! It’s truly the perfect place to get your Hello Kitty fix on. They also sell other brands like Alpacasso and pokemon… I think I even saw some disney things.
Very cute spot. If you’re a big fan of adorable japanese goodies check this spot out.

Such a GREAT store!
The owner, I’m assuming, is the nicest guy in the world. He offered us a discount (50% off the second item) and marked down a third item from 10.99 to 8.00 because he said that he knows how kids are.
The store is very clean with a great selection of dolls, decorative pillows, hair accessories, earrings, and other little random things you would imagine that these types of stores would have. Any Hello Kitty, or overall lover of everything cute and fluffy, would pass out in this store.
Don’t let the gross street scare you into coming in here, like I said above, this store is super clean. You wouldn’t even know you were in Oakland.

New ownership, and better service. We found all sorts of animation merchandise, and had a great time. The ownership is very, very nice. We will be back!

Chinatown is a nice place to get cute gifts and there are nitty gritty stores that have low quality cute things like Funhouse and Globe on Webster, but Gift Ichiban offers a well organized adorable selection of the latest characters, well made knock offs, a variety of goods, and friendly customer service.
When I’m usually gift hunting in Chinatown, I feel like I’m always getting stared at by the workers and it makes me feel uncomfortable. The staff here, however, are very nice and are knowledgeable about what kids might like. When I went here to get Rilakkuma graduation bears, they kindly removed the price tags for me and said «Yeah, kids love this. They like to hold it in their pictures.» Very personable for Chinatown, to me. Such kind folks!
I really like their selection of goods. They have Pokemon, San X, an animé section, Disney, Sanrio, random unknown cute characters, and more! My favorite character is Sentimental Circus so I was really excited to see these well made plushies of Sentimental Circus alongside with Rilakkuma! So cute!
They offer good deals as well. Last time I went, they had buy one item, get the second item 50% off, and it applied to everything in the store.
It’s hard not to get carried away with wanting all the cute things they offer since they are so affordable and adorable. It’s always nice to walk in here and simply browse their selection. This store is cleaner than the other gift stores in the area also.
Overall, this store is a great place for cute Japanese character gifts with friendly service and affordable prices. Go here for a gift for your girlfriend, sister, niece, friend, little brother, or anyone who would appreciate their items. Yay Gift Ichiban!

the name «Gift Ichiban» gave me an impression that touristy japanese goods were making a foothold in my everchanging chinatown. finally step inside and discovered my impressions were totally off.
Gift Ichiban isn’t daiso-​lite, nor dollar store, japan style, it’s a knockoff of the sanrio/​hello kitty shops popular in many shopping malls in the bay area.
hello kitty on pens, dolls, hand baggage, and the familiar waving «hello kitty» in japanese eateries is present. sanrio kitty is also in da house. there’s a litter of other kitties they all look alike to me.
Gift Ichiban has a buy one, get 2^nd one 50% off storewide sale going on. was thinking of buying a «hello kitty» pen (3.99) for a niece.
i didn’t cuz i couldn’t of any nieces that i actually had. (haven’t been invited to family reunions in years, maybe a decade or more).