If I could sum up Akihabara in a couple of phrases, it would include “geek heaven” and “fanboy(girl) trap”. Oh, and you could also throw in “gachapon” in there for good measure. If I were a gaming addict or a hardcore anime fan, I’d say Akihabara – shortened to “Akiba” – deserves all four of my four-day stay in Tokyo. As it were, the few hours I got to spend in the area (and only a small part of it, too!) were already overwhelming, at least to me.
Asakusa was the last leg of our HatoBus Sightseeing Tour, and we were supposed to end up at Tokyo Station. However, we had the option to be dropped off at Akihabara. Sil and I were supposed to meet up with our Spanish fangirlfriend Ana after her class, and we decided on doing it at Akihabara.
My first “encounter” with Akihabara was the 2006 Japanese drama “Akihabara @ Deep” starring Narimiya Hiroki. It succeeded in piquing my curiosity, and also gave me a glimpse of otaku culture. (The title of this post is also a bit of a play on the title of the drama. It’s the best I can think of. Sorry. 🙂
When we were dropped off at Akiba, what’s the first thing I spotted?
Yes. Maids. 🙂 They were handing out flyers, supposedly what’s on offer at their respective cafés.
One famous feature of Akihabara is its “maid cafés”. In fact, this hub is where the concept came from, and is where the first maid café was built. Now, there are offshoots in other parts of Japan (and the world).
Basically, these cafés are cosplay restaurants. Waitresses are wearing costumes of maids, and they act as servants. Diners and patrons will be greeted and served hand and foot, as if they’re masters and mistresses, by these “servants”. We didn’t get to experience it firsthand, though.
The two maids that I saw up close weren’t keen on having their photos taken, so I had to do it the underhanded way. Gomenasai~
I did mention this is geek town, right? So just look up, look around, and you’ll see traces of anime, manga, and gaming culture all around you.
This electronics town sure has its share of shops and retails stores that sell all kinds of merchandise, ranging from the cute to the functional and from the practical to the eclectic.
We found ourselves browsing through stuff at the Sofmap Akihabara store. It has 7 floors, and sell everything from mobile phones to cameras to laptops to electronics accessories. They also have areas for Used wares and Brand New ones. I remember being tempted by the tablets and iPads, then better sense won out.
Mainly we checked out the mobile phones, and again I was tempted by au (or was it Softbank?) phones that came in the popular pantone colors. Phew! And then went up to the top floor, which is devoted to Hobbyists and Figure collectors.
It felt like a whole new world opened up when I entered the floor. Haha! I spotted many boys and men browsing through figures, and when I say “figures”, I mean figures. You get my drift.
Gamers will also have a field day just going around the store. Oh, and there was even an area featuring Square Enix products! I could imagine a friend of mine drooling when he sees this.
Gundam fans will also be “entrapped” here.
I was drawn towards the DVD and Blu-ray area, but then I had to remind myself that those don’t have English subtitles, so my wallet was safe.
I then had a blast going through the characters and mini-sculptors of familiar (but mostly unfamiliar. I’ve been out of the loop lately.) anime and manga characters.
I didn’t see any Rurouni Kenshin figures, though. Which is a bad and a good thing, in my opinion. Bad, because “darn, I would’ve wanted to see them, get my hands on them and take them home. I want a Himura Kenshin character figure on my shelves!”. Good, because “wallet = saaafe~~~”.
Tamashii Nations, the top manufacturer of collectibles, had a large area of the floor portioned off for its line of figures and characters. They are obviously more expensive, and it shows in the detail and workmanship of the pieces.
Ana finally located us in this store. The three of us were meeting for the very first time that day, although we communicated via Twitter and Livejournal long before. She’s been staying in Tokyo for several months now, and it was a lot of fun hearing her stories about her experiences of the place, and Akiba, mostly. (Yes, “weird” exists in this country. Haha!)
Ana was instrumental in my “crash course” on the fun and cute that is…. *drumroll* gachapon.
Gachapon are basically capsule toys which are dispensed from vending machine-style contraptions. Put in coins, turn the dial, and a capsule will come out, containing a toy.
She brought us to an out-of-the-way gachapon place, where there isn’t a lot of crowd. I just noticed the sign at the top of this photo. Cure Maid Cafe happens to be the first ever permanent maid cafe set up in Akiba.
The toys are all sorts of cute! Each turn, which results in one gacha, costs 200 yen. I think there are others that cost 300, though. I’m not too sure. It’s not limited to toys, too. Some capsule contain badges, charms and even cellphone accessories. The tiny ones.
This is quite addicting, though. If you’re not careful, you’d end up spending thousands of yen. I stopped at 3. *pats self for having self-control*
She also led us to some fangirl traps in the area. One store at the AKIBA カルチャーズ ZONE, or AKIBA CULTURES ZONE had tons of Johnny’s official merchandise.
I had to mentally resist the urge to buy shop photos. My conversation to myself included lines going, “you don’t have space to keep shop photos!” and “the shop photos you own are only stacked in a box somewhere in your room, would you add to the mess?”. It worked.
There are also official con goods (uchiwas were all over the place!), videos on DVDs and Blu-ray, and even box sets! I spotted Maou and squeeed, albeit silently. I remember when Maou was airing and Naruse Ryou was a fixture of several weeks of my life~ Ahhhhh~ good times, good times.
Random pics of goods inside the idol shop. There was a separate corner for non-JE artists, but they were really mostly AKB48. Well, this IS Akihabara, so AKB48 being a fixture is a given.
Speaking of AKB48, spotted: The Don Quijote store, which also serves as the AKB48 Headquarters (it’s on the 8th floor).
Spotted: the Yodobashi-Akiba branch. It’s also close to the golden hour at this time.
Also spotted: the Gundam Cafe. It is adjacent to the JR Akihabara Station.
You would think that most males would flock to this place, and they probably do, but when we were there, the queue was not at this cafe, but at the one next to it, which is….
Yep, the AKB48 Cafe and Shop. That’s how huge AKB48 among the male demographic is. (I suppose the same could be said with JE artists to the female market, eh?)
We wrapped up our foray in Akiba with a filling mid-afternoon snack (and late lunch). Okonomiyaki, baby!! That much gastronomic goodness deserves a post all its own!! Then we went off to Chiba via JR.
Two more posts and I will be wrapping up my Tokyo series of posts. Ahh, I can’t believe it’s already been a month more than a month since I was there~