AOAO SAPPORO

AOAO SAPPORO occupies three floors of a shopping complex in central Sapporo.

The aquarium is arranged as three zones rather than a single route, and there is no fixed order to follow.

“Connect”, on the lowest of the three floors, puts the machinery of the aquarium on display instead of hiding it. Two plants manufacture artificial seawater, one for the fish and one for the penguins, and staff top them up with salt daily to supply the tanks throughout the building. A second area shows the holding tanks used for health checks and the preparation of food for the animals, with the work visible as it happens. The museum shop shares this floor and sits outside the ticket barrier.

“Scope” is about looking at familiar creatures from unfamiliar angles. Its centrepiece is a Nature Aquarium, a style of planted freshwater tank associated with wabi-sabi aesthetics and the aesthetics of Zen; the permanent installation here is one of only three in the world, after Tokyo and Lisbon. Four planted scenes sit in a quiet Japanese-style room, each one a small functioning ecosystem rather than a decorated tank. Nearby, the Library Aquarium arranges forty-three tanks of varying sizes as though they were shelves, each labelled with things to look for and paired with books about the animals in them.

“Commons”, the top floor, is home to northern rockhopper penguins, which move by hopping with both feet together. Their enclosure is built from hexagonal blocks that can be rearranged to change the shape of the land area, a system the aquarium describes as a world first. The Plankton Room holds sixteen tanks of drifting animals, moon jellyfish among them, pulsing slowly in a darkened space. The Blue Room recreates the sea off Shiretoko in digital art, projected across a twenty-metre screen and onto around 120 square metres of floor, so that visitors stand inside the scene rather than in front of it. The Green Room reopened on 24 July 2026 with a new exhibition as the room of birds, lizards and dinosaurs.

Food and drink are allowed on every floor, including food and drink bought outside, and the top floor has a bakery and bar, Shirokuma Bakery & Bar.