I spent part of the day in Akihabara today - the mecca for all things video game, anime and geek. We’re talking serious business here. If you’re a geek for either games, electronics or anime, or all three, then Akihabara is where you want to die - cos you won’t wait long to go to heaven.
I’d been to Aki a few times before, but only quickly and to grab some bits for the house. Electronics wise the place is amazing. The main part of town is dubbed Electric Avenue - and quite rightly so, alongside multi-storey buildings offering everything and anything are little stalls selling their wares, and all next to each other in an area no bigger than Camden town. It’s total crazyness and as much of a sensory overload as Shibuya, but for entirely different reasons.
Akihabara is not all electronics though - it’s also gaming heaven. The biggest and best arcades in the country are there, with floors dedicated to one genre. It’s insane, and constantly packed as well as incredibly noisy as all the arcades boom out their respective audio. And amongst it all are countless otakus playing, including a high amount of seriously talented ones (I guess that talented part depends on where you stand when it comes to games). Alongside the arcades are tons of video game shops selling anything you can think of.
My boy Gary took me around - he’s a bit of a video game geek, well actually he’s an out and out geek, and he knows all the spots, including tiny little places off the radar. We’re talking people’s flats, in undescript buildings, decked out with walls and walls of video games. Software, hardware, peripherals, toys, paraphernelia - you want it, someone somewhere has it. He took me to a shop that specialises in arcades - selling only original arcade boards and cabinet components! Crazy sight. We also went to a capsule station shop. Capsule stations are little machines which dispense capsules with little toys inside. You find them everywhere in Tokyo, outside shops, malls, train stations. The toys can be anything - from little key rings, to Dragon Ball figurines or Street Fighter buzzers. The shop has one floor full of machines and one floor selling all the sets in one pack. So you don’t have to keep trying your luck at the machines. And in between, one floor selling anime clothes, including Dragon Ball outfits :shock: .
Anime is also big in Akihabara - most stores sell anime dvds, mangas and assorted goods alongside games. And if you’re a fan then this also the kind of place you don’t want to miss out. Whilst the anime is not as omnipresent as the games, both go hand in hand in Akihabara and rightly so, considering how intertwined the video game and anime industries in Japan have been in the past.
After about 3 hours of walking around, I felt entirely drained out. I’d never seen so much video game related stuff in my life. From original Japanese Famicom and Master System consoles, to Virtua Boys and rare versions of original games like Final Fantasy. It’s just non stop - where ever you go, where ever you look.
Another thing about Akihabara is that this is the place where you’ll find Maid Cafes too. These are places where you go to be served by girls dressed as maids, complete with fluffy bunny ears, who talk to you in honorific language like ‘welcome home master’. A slightly twisted and disturbing manga fantasy come true. Girls dressed as maids are as common in Akihabara (and I mean everywhere, in the streets, in shops, in arcades) as red phone boxes in London. And while it’s kinda funny in a ‘check this out’ way at first, it’s also slightly disturbing, especially when you see all the blokes staring, taking pictures (or trying to, you can’t actually photograph most of them unless they let you) and generally being geeks around girls dressed as maids.
As they say it’s one of those ‘only in Japan’ things. And come to think of it, Akihabara is one of those ‘only in Japan’ things. A totally futuristic, consumer centric bubble world. Perfect for a few hours’ escape back into some of my favourite geek past times. And the kind of place where I can see myself becoming broke oh so quickly.
And of course I took a bunch of pictures:
Video Game pr0n in Akihabara - Flickr set
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