Day 4
I'm sure many of you have heard of Akihabara, the geek-culture mecca of Japan. The streets here are lined with arcades, electronics stores, maid cafes, and stores selling all sorts of anime-related wares.

Anime related.

I've seen arcades and manga/doujin stores at places outside of Akihabara, but it was the first time I've seen such a high concentration of them. There were two 'Club Sega' arcades (many of them Eva-themed) located on the same city block, with only two or three other small stores in between them, and I think I counted five 'Club Sega's on the same street on a map.

The arcades were more spacious (and smoky) inside than I would have expected. They were also packed with people. Especially popular were these Gundam EXTREME VS games, which people were lining up to play. The game even had a neat little replay system: replay data would be stored on personal cards that players insert into the arcade machine when they play, and then they can insert the card into a separate replay-viewing machine to watch in between games.

Guy analyzing his replay.

Some of the arcades even had machines for IdolMaster RPGs, (what looked like) VNs, and quiz games. To attract the females, most arcades had a floor dedicated for those photo-booth things, and they were surprisingly popular. The first floor (and sometimes second) is always those damnable UFO Catchers. Prizes ranged from candy to mugs to full-blown figurines. I loitered for a bit on these floors, hoping to see a local get lucky, but I didn't get to see anyone win anything.

UFO Catcher prize bag. Don't give up and keep on whoring those 100yen coins!

Beyond the arcades were the countless manga, doujin, figurine and hobby shops. Popular series seemed to be Infinite Stratos, Shinryaku! Ika Musume and Puella Magi Madoka Magica, judging from the number of posters, signs, and displays. I also saw AnoHana, Nichijou, Hanasaku Iroha, Yuru Yuri, and Black Rock Shooter being advertised a lot. Of the mediums, I enjoy manga the most, so it was a bit disappointing to see all of the mangas being sold be shrink-wrapped. Then again, even if I could open them they'd be useless to me since I can't read Japanese... Regardless, I walked through all the levels of the stores I did enter, even stumbling into some hentai/yaoi floors (enter the floor of a manga store that has only women patrons? Expect BL). The only thing I bought was a Reitaisai SP2 catalog for Sunday, then headed back home for dinner.

I bought my Reitaisai catalog here, on the top floor, which was filled to the fucking brim with R18 material

For dinner I headed to a restaurant called Red Book, which an english-speaking local recommended to me. When I got to the restaurant I thought the local pulled a fast one on me because the place was devoid of customers. This being the only recommendation I could get after 10-15 minutes of asking around, however, I decided to go with it. It ended up being a good recommendation; the food (I got chicken curry) was good, and the chef, Ryo, was a really friendly guy.

Ryo.

Hailing from Yamanashi, Ryo was an interesting guy who I felt had a lot of things he wanted to say. English was not his strong suit, but thankfully he was armed with his smartphone (with a case that made it look like a cassette). He spoke of how Tokyo-ites became 'dim' because they only lived in the city and lamented about how kids didn't recognize what a cassette was anymore. I was excited to find out that he was the guitarist of the post-rock band Qii. I mentioned bands like Mono, té, Toe, and Ryo told me his favorites 54-71 and downy, as well as his friend's bands, Lite, mouse on the keys, and COMBOPIANO. Ryo felt that while post-rock is big in Japan, it's not as big and financially viable as it is in America. He had actually planned a trip to New York last year, which was cancelled abruptly due to the earthquake. We talked for a bit more after I finished my meal, and then we parted ways, wishing each other luck.

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more pictures in my ever-growing japan 2011 flickr set

mapthesoul

Trinidad/Tobago429 Posts

September 13 2011 02:08 GMT

Ryo seems awesome. I also enjoy Downy a lot and I'll have to check out 54-71 as well.
Japan truly makes the best post- and math-rock.

Primadog

United States4411 Posts

September 13 2011 02:15 GMT

Surprised that you didn't get scorned for the in-store photography. Did you went to one of the maid-cafes?

mrmin123

Korea (South)2971 Posts

September 13 2011 02:15 GMT

I loveeeee Japanese post-rock! And fuck pressing 'post' instead of 'preview.' Thankfully I had most of my text in already!

NinjoOb

Canada128 Posts

September 13 2011 02:26 GMT

I was surprised as to how the R18 mangas just blend in in regular stores. I remember wandering into one of these places : the first 2 aisles were regular mangas, the next one was romantic mangas, after that it was an aisle of gay/lesbian mangas and finally 2 aisles of r18 stuff.

Also did you dare to play at the arcades ? I thought I was pretty good at ddr (could pass any song on the hardest difficulty with a decent score) so I figured I'd play a round or two. The salaryman who played before me full combo'd his 3 songs with like AAA score then got to play a sick bonus stage on which he got A or AA. Didn't feel like playing after that ...

NationInArms

United States1553 Posts

September 13 2011 02:27 GMT

They like Infinite Stratos? 0_o Yay for Madoka though!!! As someone else asked, did you go to a maid cafe?

Did anyone notice that the English on the UFO bag is grammatically incorrect? It should be "didn't" instead of "did'nt"!

keiraknightlee

United States301 Posts

September 13 2011 03:05 GMT

This is really sweet

Japanese culture is so awesome, such a delicate fusion of technology and tradition. Old and new, yin and yang. I feel like Japan could have had such a big BW scene if they really wanted to...

cvax

United States7 Posts

September 13 2011 03:35 GMT

Mermaid min! Amazing post!

nanaoei

3358 Posts

September 13 2011 06:08 GMT

love your blog : (

mrmin123

Korea (South)2971 Posts

September 13 2011 11:09 GMT

#10

Why the : (

On September 13 2011 11:27 NationInArms wrote:
They like Infinite Stratos? 0_o

I don't know if they actually like it or not, but I definitely saw a lot of IS merch being advertised, so I'm assuming so. And yes, when I took this picture it was right in front of the cash register and they went into what I can only describe as panic mode. Since then I've been much more stealthy about taking pictures in stores. :>

fanta[Rn]

Japan2465 Posts

September 13 2011 11:48 GMT

#11

LOL i remember taking a pic of a figure for babo... store clerk insta scolded me "NO CAMERA"
felt like a baka gaijin, fuck you babo.

Grettin

42411 Posts

September 13 2011 11:59 GMT

#12

On September 13 2011 11:08 mapthesoul wrote:
Ryo seems awesome. I also enjoy Downy a lot and I'll have to check out 54-71 as well.
Japan truly makes the best post- and math-rock.

I'm not really that familiar with post-rock or anything, but Ryo seems awesome and i gotta listen this stuff! I might even be surprised!

I'm loving your blog and pictures. One of the best I've read lately, even though it's much smaller than other ones!

Noticed those vending machines in 4th picture, have you seen any interesting/strange machines there? I've heard that you can get everything from those lol.

Thanks again!

mrmin123

Korea (South)2971 Posts

September 13 2011 12:14 GMT

#13

On September 13 2011 20:48 fanta[Rn] wrote:
LOL i remember taking a pic of a figure for babo... store clerk insta scolded me "NO CAMERA"
felt like a baka gaijin, fuck you babo.

I got off lightly because when they when they initially started speaking to me in Japanese, I just smiled back and said 'oh, I'm sorry, no photos?' in English, and they responded with 'oh, oh, yes, no photo prease sorry!'. I think an asian speaking English to them catches them completely off guard.

On September 13 2011 20:59 Grettin wrote:
Noticed those vending machines on 4th picture, have you noticed/seen any interesting/strange machines there? I've heard that you can get everything from those lol.

Those things in the picture are actually capsule machines, and they usually spit out keychains for a variety of series (I've even seen lego minifigs capsule dispensors). The vending machines look like normal vending machines, but I haven't seen any crazy ones. Only cigarette and drink vending machines.