Day 30: Akihabara

I'm no longer in Tokyo.  I took the overnight bus back to Nagoya, then the train to Yokkaichi.  But let me back up.  Yesterday was a very long day.  Continuing where my last post left off...

After we got cleaned up, we planned our trip to Akihabara in a little more detail, then went and got breakfast at Sukiya (すき家).  It's a common chain restaurant here in Japan.  I had curry rice, because it was cheap, but I soon regretted it, as the hot food was really not agreeing with my stomach at that hour.  It didn't last long, though, so it was okay.

Tokyo Station, shortly after our arrival on Saturday night.  The central station of the biggest city in the world, and it's practically deserted.

My capsule that I slept in.  My friend had the one above mine.

The view out of one of the capsule hotel windows.  The window itself was wide open, and it would have been easy enough to jump or fall out.  This really wasn't a great neighborhood, which was fairly obvious when we got there, but nothing happened, so it was okay.  The hotel itself was also rather unappealing.

The nearby park.  Near the station and the hotel.  It was actually kind of nice.  We spent an hour or more Saturday night wandering around here before going to bed.  My friend was trying to get a group of local people to invite us into a conversation, but it didn't happen.

Another part of the park.

A rocket park.  They really need adult playgrounds.  If there had been fewer people around, I probably would have gone on this one.  When we saw it again in the morning, it was crawling with kids.

Tokyo Sky Tree.  It doesn't look that big in this picture, but we walked closer and closer, and it didn't seem to move much, so that's gotta be pretty far away.

We used the Tokyo rail map we picked up the day before to find how to get to Akihabara, then went to the station and set out.  We arrived probably around 11:00 or so.  The first thing I noticed at the station was that all the ads were anime- or game-based.  That's not common elsewhere.  The second thing was a huge tower labeled SEGA, to which my friend was immediately drawn.  We headed towards it and found ourselves (after a few stops) on the main street of Akihabara.  Both sides were lined with shops featuring gigantic images of anime characters, many of which I recognized (and took pictures of).  The main stretch of the street is probably a little over a mile long, but the shops spread into side streets, too, for roughly a square mile of solid otaku shopping, I'd guess.  Except that the shops had anywhere up to 7 floors each, so multiply that by at least 4.  And I covered ALL of it.  Except the restaurants.  And the technology shops.  But I at least looked in every shop, even if I didn't go in.

Our first open view of the main street.

Looking to the right.

After walking to the right quite a ways, looking across the street.

Persona 4 had a huge ad campaign going here for the newest version, Persona 4 Golden.  There were gigantic posters and murals everywhere.

The stores were divided fairly evenly among anime/manga/related media, PC and console games, and miscellaneous technology (cameras, phones, computers...).  There were also lots of restaurants, including maid cafés.  I didn't stop to eat, though.  I'm not really interested in the maid café thing.  Speaking of maids, almost every street corner had one or more girls in maid costumes or other similar attention-grabbing outfits handing out flyers or other ads for their stores.

I was sorely disappointed at the lack of true cosplayers there.  I think I saw two, plus someone dressed as Saber from Fate/Stay Night to promote the store's upcoming release.  I didn't recognize any but her, though.

The only true cosplay I saw and recognized, and it's part of the store's advertising.  Oh well.

One of the side streets, and there's still this much advertising on the buildings.

They close the main road down on Sundays for a good portion of the day, so people just walk everywhere freely.

Back to the shopping.  The stores had just about anything I could have wanted to buy.  I must have seen thousands each of figures, CDs, video games, mangas, light novels, doujinshi, anime magazines and so on, and hundreds of wall scrolls, visual novels, and miscellaneous other items.  I ended up buying Sister Princess for Playstation, since my friend said he can let me use his Japanese PS2 back in the US since he obviously isn't using it now.  I also tried to buy the Haruhi PS2 roleplaying game, but I found out too late (only after I got home) that the box only had the included figure, and not the game itself.  Very disappointing.  At least it wasn't too expensive.  I also got a White Album Cospa t-shirt for 2/3 off, several music CDs, a Noizi Itou/Zatsuon art collection CD, and a Little Busters! Kud Wafter mini handkerchief.  I planned before even coming to Japan that before I left, I'd have to find an anime handkerchief to buy and bring back.  I'm satisfied with this one.  Surprisingly, the only figure I bought was the one that was supposed to have the Haruhi game.  There were a ton I would have wanted, but the lack of space in my suitcase and the insanely high prices on a lot of them kept me from buying any.  Honestly, I could import a lot of them for the same price or cheaper in the US, if I looked around carefully.

Here's one store that had things that would be nigh-impossible to find in the US.  The entire store was packed with retro games and consoles.  These are original Famicom cartridges.

And here we have Super Famicom.  Including Chrono Trigger over there, for a whopping 680 yen.  That's pretty cheap.  The store also had a guarantee that all the games and hardware worked.

A portion of the Gameboy collection.

Many of the stores had these sorts of labels on each floor, saying what was for sale where.  This isn't the best example.

There were quite a few anime card games around too (the green and yellow sign in the middle is advertising that).  You could buy cards and play in a lot of the shops.

In addition to the labels outside, most stores had the steps show you what was coming up on the next floor.

The stairwell wall posters also gave you a hint of what to expect.

The biggest find and purchase for me, though, was the one thing I had really hoped to be able to get in Japan: The Key 10th Anniversary Memorial Box, which includes all of their Visual Novels through Little Busters! Ecstasy (Planetarian, AIR, Kanon, CLANNAD, Tomoyo After, and LB! Ex).  The reason I wanted this so bad is it's the only version available of AIR, Tomoyo After, and LB! Ex that doesn't have the adult content, and it's a collector's item besides.  I'm pretty sure it has more than just the games inside, but I haven't opened it yet.  I had previously found the box for sale, used, on eBay, but it was over $400!  This one was 8800 yen (about $110), although it's also used.  I actually asked the guy at the counter if he had the game, and he looked it up and said no, but I decided to go ahead and browse anyway, and sure enough, there it was.  It was the only copy I found in all the stores I went to, so I don't think any more of them exist.  I really lucked out.

My spoils.  In the top left, the Haruhi figma (minus game :( ).  The top right has music: Kyon's Sister image CD, Genesis of Aquarion opening CD, Deep Blue Sky and Pure White Wings vocal CD, Bamboo Blade OP/ED CD, Fate/Stay Night: This Illusion, and the Rewrite OST.  I haven't listened to any music from Rewrite, but it's Key, and from my experience they can do no wrong when it comes to that sort of thing.  On the bottom left is my t-shirt, in the middle is Sister Princess, and to the right is the Noizi Itou art collection.  On the bottom is my Kud handkerchief.

The big find.  I can hardly believe it was actually there, but it certainly took some searching to find it.  Also, this thing is HEAVY.  I had to lug it around the rest of the day, and I'll have to figure out the best way to bring it back to the US.

A note if you're planning a trip to Akihabara.  Akihabara is NOT KID-FRIENDLY.  About 3 in 4 stores have adult products.  Of those, I'd say about 20% have them in visually concealed areas or on separate floors.  The rest are right out in the open, usually (but not always) mixed in with all the good products.  You really can't avoid it here.  And, as with everything else in Japan, they never actually check IDs or anything for age, even if you buy it.

Oh, so my friend had to leave around 4:00 to make it home in time to go to work the next day.  I stayed by myself to finish exploring.  The shops seemed to start closing up around 7:00 or 7:30, and by 9, it was basically shut down except for the big ones.  That really surprised me.  I had kind of figured everything would be open until midnight or later.

Akihabara in the evening, as things start to wind down.

One of the two station entrances right there by the main street.  I took this one in, but not back out.

Since I'd seen basically everything at least once already, and run out of money to buy anything else, I decided to call it a night and go to the station.  But actually, I didn't even have enough money on me to make it back to Yokkaichi anymore.  I could afford the bus to Nagoya, but probably not the trains, so I needed to find an international ATM.  I was also on no schedule of when I needed to be back, so rather than take the train from Akihabara to the Tokyo station (where the buses would be), I decided to walk.  It took about an hour, maybe a bit more, counting stops to rest and look at maps.  I didn't actually have a map besides the train system one (and I still don't), and those aren't exactly drawn with complete accuracy in mind, so I just knew I needed to go southish.  The maps you see on the street in Tokyo don't put North on top, though.  Generally they orient it to the direction you're facing.  This is a problem when they forget to put on any indication of which way actually is North.  Anyway, it was a nice little adventure, and I was fortunate that I found maps every couple blocks to help guide me.  I also found an ATM that worked, after three that didn't, so I managed to get the money to make it back.

Even after leaving Akihabara a good 10-minute walk behind me, I still ran into these Evangelion "Keep out" cones.

A cool bridge I passed under on my walk.

Another view of the two layers of bridges.

These were decorations on the bridge.  Pretty impressive.

Oh, I missed one thing.  In Akihabara, on my way towards Tokyo station, I encountered someone from my home college!  He was one of my friends back in my first Japanese class, but he didn't come on the school trip.  Talk about a small world.  We met each other on the opposite side of the planet completely by chance in a fairly densely-packed area of the largest city in the world.  I mean, really, what are the chances?  So we talked for a while, reveling in the unlikeliness of the situation before parting ways.  I'll probably see him back in the US sometime.

So yeah, eventually I made it to the station, and took the 11:20 overnight bus to Nagoya.  I arrived around 5:45am, after little if any sleep, and I worked my way back through the train system to my friend's house.  I've gotten pretty good at navigating Japan by myself, it seems.  Which is a good thing, because I still don't have a cell phone.