Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:47 am Post subject:
from Metropolis Magazine
Feature By Patrick Macias
Revenge of the Nerds
The geeks come out to play in Akihabara, and they�fre not ashamed anymore
Mark Oxley
The maid greets you near the exit of Akihabara station. She hands you a palm-sized pocket of white tissues advertising the new café she works at. Before you take another step, an oversized teenager in bad jeans and a button-up shirt blocks your path. He�fs lugging a computer monitor concealed in bubble wrap, made sort-of portable by means of a makeshift plastic handle. The place is crowded. Whole families from the suburbs run wild in the streets, fresh off the Tsukuba Express to peer at Tokyo�fs most unlikely �gmust-see�h neighborhood. Then there are the tourists, dashing in and out of the ticket gate, all of them here to feed their fetishes: anime, manga, toys and video games. Akihabara earned its nickname �gElectric Town�h a good many years ago, but it�fs never been quite like this.
Modern Akihabara was born in the '20s during the early days of radio. During the immediate postwar era, it was a place to buy black market goods, which were hard to come by in a city flattened by firebombing. During the years of economic growth that followed, the area truly became Tokyo�fs electric town, the number one place to purchase hi-fi equipment, cameras and other consumer goods.
During the early �f80s, the area went into decline as large chain stores began to peddle their wares in other parts of the city and in the suburbs. The geeks moved in and remade Akihabara in their own image. It became the place to go for illicit gadgets—spy cameras, cellphone blockers, radio scanners and eavesdropping devices, as well as bootleg Mac and PC software unavailable elsewhere. �gAkiba�h became a messy bedroom writ large (littered with action figures and anime DVDs), not because of city planning or corporate interest, but through the sheer power of the obsessions of everyday people. What emerged was an oasis of technology and fantasy, one that garnered interest from around the world.
Now everyone wants a piece of the action, and over the last few years a noticeable split has emerged right down the middle of Akihabara. On one side of Chuo Dori, Akihabara�fs main drag, are the grungy old haunts of hackers and hardcore otaku (geeks) who subsist on instant ramen and pasta served in maid cafés. On the other side is the brave �gnew�h Akihabara, typified by the monstrous Yodobashi Akiba superstore and NTT�fs towering UDX complex. Which will inherit the future is largely up to you.
So take a jaunt to Akihabara—everyone else is doing it. The place crackles not only with electricity, but also those other Tokyo staples: oddness, novelty and the thrill of the unexpected.
Radio Building
Mark Oxley
Located conveniently across the street from Akihabara station�fs Denki-gai exit, the Radio Building (full name: World of Radio Building Akihabara) is one of the area�fs main attractions: an eight-floor inferno chock full of everything that makes the otaku world tick. Inside you can find the latest toys, comics, idol goods, gadgets, along with vintage items like decades-old video and stereo equipment, perfect for playing those old laser discs and DAT tapes. There�fs also a host of items like stun guns disguised as cellphones and even spray cans of bear repellent—hints of subcultures that probably won�ft be going mainstream anytime soon.
The building doesn�ft look like much like from the outside: A bunch of garden-variety consumer electronics vendors circle the ground level. Unless you�fre looking for an air conditioner or a DVD player, you�fll want to make for the upper floors fast. Soon, you�fll be surrounded by small shops offering all manner of goods, including little baggies containing collectable gachapon, or capsule toys. There�fs also the Hobby Shop Kotobukiya, which hawks boxes of candy toys in bulk, all the better to find that rare figurine or to get an entire set of tiny plastic dinosaurs in one swoop. But this is just the beginning. The Radio Building has it all, so take your time savoring it.
No tour is complete without a peek at the sixth floor, where you�fll find the Volks company flagship store. Here, customers can pick out miniature body parts—eyeballs, torsos and so on—to create customized dream dolls. It all sounds a bit Dr. Frankenstein until you see the beautiful wedding-style gazebo where staff present buyers of top-of-the-line figurines with their purchases in a tear-inducing �gceremony�h—by which point, you may need a hanky yourself.
Yodobashi is one of Japan�fs biggest electronic goods chains, offering the latest gizmos and household necessities at cut-throat wholesale prices. Thus, the opening of the massive Yodobashi flagship store in Akihabara is practically an act of war against dozens of older electronics retailers in the area.
The place is so humongous it requires nothing less than a 150-page catalog just to successfully navigate all nine dazzlingly lit floors filled with cellphones, cameras, computers, you name it. With no trace of the otaku �gdark side�h (erotic games and animation, etc.), it�fs very much a pre-packaged Akihabara for the whole family. This is largely why old-school Akihabara loyalists tend to shun the place, believing it represents a soulless corporate attempt to mainstream their wild otaku world. But it�fs still worth a pop-in, at least just to see the bustling miniature city inside.
On the sixth floor, there�fs Yodobashi-Akiba�fs hobby section, which is devoted to the latest video games, DVDs, action figures, model kits and candy toys. There are 600,000 individual items on this level alone. It�fs also home to the store�fs Gacha Gacha Corner: rows and rows and rows of sparkling new gachapon vending machines. And yes, everything is slightly cheaper �gin here�h than it is �gout there,�h with one notable exception. Go up two more floors, and you�fll find the Gourmet Court Akiba, which offers overpriced alternatives to the cheapo beef bowls and hamburgers that dot the landscape down below.
1-1 Kanda Hanaokacho, Chiyoda-ku. Tel: 03-5209-1010. Open daily 9:30am-10pm. www.yodobashi.com
Gachapon Kaikan
Patrick Macias
Just off Chuo Dori is a storefront called the Gatchapon Kaikan. A harsher contrast to Yodobashi-Akiba�fs bright and cheerful Gatcha Gatcha Corner could not be imagined. This is practically a troll�fs cave, or perhaps a concrete mausoleum, filled with capsule toys. There are 350 different gachapon machines, all of them well worn and some in sore need of cleaning solvent. Like most other places with gachapon machines, you�fll find the usual suspects: Godzilla, Ultraman, Mobile Suit Gundam and Dragon Ball Z figures up for grabs. Garbage bins nearby overflow with soft drink bottles and empty capsules. Loud rock music blares from the back, where the punk employees slouch behind the counter. Hardly sounds homey, so why bother? Like it or not, this is Akihabara how the otaku themselves love it. And you�fre better off in the big chain stores if you fail to see the charm of it.
1F MN building, 3-15-5 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku. Tel: 03-5209-6020. Open Mon-Thu 11am-8pm, Fri-Sat 11am-10pm, Sun 11am-7pm.
MaiFoot
Hairdressers from Maid Style Beautician O-bu (www.o-bu.jp)
Mark Oxley
Maid cafes are quickly becoming passé, and a shampoo and a cut at a maid hair salon (yes, they exist) only makes sense every four to six weeks. Meanwhile, your feet are getting tired from hauling comics, computers and Godzilla knows what else all over the mean streets of Akihabara. The solution is Maifoot maid massage and reflexology.
The experience is as surreal as it sounds. See-through curtains and customers tucked away in makeshift pens make this place feel like a hospital. Meanwhile, pretty girls in maid outfits and cat ears dash back and forth with basins of water and trays of hot tea. The footwork itself certainly is relaxing, but dozing off as the fingers weave in and around your toes is not an option. You are expected to keep up a conversation with the knowledgeable maids, predictably revolving around anime, manga and games.
For \3,000 at Maifoot you�fll get a half hour of foot and hand massage. The fee also includes a complimentary after-beverage. But no matter what your poison may be, it�fs best to book in advance, as a walk-in appointment can take as long as two hours to make good on. Then again, all that standing around on your feet might help make the eventual payoff even more gratifying.
It�fs not enough for some people just to watch anime and manga. Oh no. They have to dress like their favorite characters—sometimes regardless of gender—and then parade around in carefully detailed costumes. But since you can�ft buy a Full Metal Alchemist costume or an Evangelion �gplug suit�h at Mitsukoshi, and making them takes time, the solution is to buy a complete getup, and maybe a nice wig to go with it, straight off the rack. If you�fre not willing to go all the way with the look, Cospa Gee also offers a line of striking designer shirts featuring characters from the likes of Gundam and Trigun that will make you the envy of your otaku circle �c unless, of course, they happen to be dressed as Sailor Moon.
It�fs no secret: Maintaining a proper otaku library of games, movies and other amusements can really put a drain on your wallet. The solution is to save a few bucks by buying your DVDs, TV games and even toys secondhand at a Liberty Store. Items are graded and priced by the amount of wear they�fve received, but you can expect even the cheapest ones to be in good condition. Just look for the signs that say "Liberty" in katakana and have fun fighting over bargains with the other nerds.
Liberty Akihabara Main Branch, 3-14-6 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku. Tel: 03-3257-5546. Open Sun-Thu 10am-8pm, Fri-Sat 10am-8:30pm.
Super Potato
Mark Oxley
It is the graveyard of old video games: forgotten consoles, cartridges and goofy handheld portables discarded soon after Christmas 1982. Racks overflow with ancient titles that briefly entertained—such as Gremlins 2 for the Super Famicom, or Muscle Man Dirty Challenger—before they were passed over for the latest Hot New Thing. Then there is the hardware, much of which looks like reject material from the CIA�fs black budget: light guns, child-sized virtual reality goggles, and robot-operated buddies. Despite the name of the store, there�fs not a potato in sight, but who cares when you can kill a bit of time in Akiba rescuing Ronald Reagan from ninjas in that old chestnut Bad Dudes?
Patrick Macias
You�fll find them in Akihabara�fs back alleys: plastic bins full of random circuit boards and peripherals, batteries, blank DVD-Rs of dubious make and trading cards for idols whose popularity is fading fast. No wonder they call them junk shops. It may look like the nerds are cleaning out their closets, but it�fs actually the modern incarnation of Akiba's black market roots. Prices, on the whole, are dirt-cheap and there are some treasures to be found along with all the trash. Take these rubber comedy ears I�fm wearing right now, for instance �c
Patrick Macias is the author of TokyoScope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion (Cadence Books) and the co-author of Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo-Tokyo (Stone Bridge Press). His daily rants and raves can be found at http://patrickmacias.blogs.com
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 9573 Location: �o�J�i�_ Country:
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:08 am Post subject:
Nice stuff. A town full of geeks. That's a must see. Better get there fast though, since they outlawed the sales of used electronics. There's always the hair cut...
I would prefer samurai girls to maid... _________________
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:09 am Post subject:
tabana wrote:
Nice stuff. A town full of geeks. That's a must see. Better get there fast though, since they outlawed the sales of used electronics. There's always the hair cut...
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 9573 Location: �o�J�i�_ Country:
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:30 am Post subject:
Tu_triky wrote:
hurry up and go to that ramen place in toronto and let us know if there are any cute girls that work there as in aho's experience in hawaii...
I doubt it, but I'll take my chances. In half the Japanese restaurants I've been to, the staff always speaks Chinese, if they're not caucasian. A real Japanese experience. I'll check it out and ask kekkon shite kudasai until someone says hai!
I wonder what happen to Aho. Did he left for Japan, married the ramen girl or did his wife came home while he was drinking beer with the ramen girl and killed him. _________________
I doubt it, but I'll take my chances. In half the Japanese restaurants I've been to, the staff always speaks Chinese, if they're not caucasian. A real Japanese experience. I'll check it out and ask kekkon shite kudasai until someone says hai!
I wonder what happen to Aho. Did he left for Japan, married the ramen girl or did his wife came home while he was drinking beer with the ramen girl and killed him.
if not...he can send me the Ramen girl, cause i could use a good bowl of some noodles and a nice girl
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:33 am Post subject:
tabana wrote:
I doubt it, but I'll take my chances. In half the Japanese restaurants I've been to, the staff always speaks Chinese, if they're not caucasian. A real Japanese experience. I'll check it out and ask kekkon shite kudasai until someone says hai!
I wonder what happen to Aho. Did he left for Japan, married the ramen girl or did his wife came home while he was drinking beer with the ramen girl and killed him.
just go slurp the noodles then...it's a branch of an authentic japanese chain...it's gotta be pretty good i would think...it ain't like eating some cup of noodles.
remember his wife gave birth to his kids in japan so he went over there to visit...he said he was going in february.
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 9573 Location: �o�J�i�_ Country:
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:42 am Post subject:
Ok, then. He must be busy and lacking sleep with newborn twins.
I'll go for the lunch. I never had ramen in a restaurant before. I ate tons at home and in the dorm. I don't even know if they have a ramen restaurant near here, besides the one in Toronto. You can eat food from a country you never heard of, but no ramen. _________________
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Register
Log in
In half the Japanese restaurants I've been to, the staff always speaks Chinese, if they're not caucasian. A real Japanese experience. 
