I knew I'd be awake slightly earlier today, something just told me that Dan really wanted to see Akihabara, and he was going to get me up early to see it. I was up about an hour earlier than yesterday which wasn't as bad as I expected, again we went to the mini-mart and nabbed some breakfast. (Today I picked up this weird looking Egg/rice ball and some KitKat - Still have not identified what this was!)
We hopped on the train to Suehirocho (Same area as Akihabara.) Once there, we were lost in the never ending cycle that made up this Otaku homeland, It is just an electronic geek mecca! Shop after shop of Otaku related tat at vast prices!
We decided to head to the Crossfields building first to see the Tokyo Anime Centre but it wasn't open yet, so we decided to check out the stores. Now I consider myself to be one with the Otaku in many ways, I've been a "hardcore" gamer since I was old enough to hold a controller! (Cheers dad!) But Akihabara was something different completely, from the displays of "toys" at Mandarake and Softmap. I was forever saying to myself "how much?!" I couldn't take many pictures as most places had a no-photo policy, but stuff like a section of Godzilla's tail from a movie was like £9,000+ (The funny thing is, that it seems that this tail was cut from the final version!) 10,500yen for an Audrey Shevchenko trading card! I don't think he was worth this when he left Chelsea!
I found that most major "Otaku" department stores followed the same format, a few levels of toys, a level of dolls, a level of used/new games and then Hentai porn... and lots of it! Sometimes they may mix it up a little bit and have a floor dedicated to Gasaphon or Anime outfits. If you go down the right alley you'll find something special in Akihabara, if it's Otaku you're interested in, there's everything from Anime collectibles, Manga, Video game shops (New/Used) gasaphon and maid cafes. We were looking at getting lunch at a maid cafe, but once we realised what it actually was we went elsewhere... and by that point Dan had brought enough toys to single handedly save Christmas.
I guess I'm past that stage in my life where these things really interest me as much as they use to, I was never one who really liked Anime, and perhaps that's what stopped me from really seeing Akihabara's potential, sure it looks nice, but under the neon glow of it all, it's all just over priced tat.
We ended up visiting the Tokyo Anime Centre before leaving with Dan's mammoth haul of "toys," the Tokyo Anime Centre was a bit of a hyperbole, as it was mealy just showcasing upcoming Anime... and that seemed to be about that! I ended up picking up a copy of Hotel Dusk 215 on the DS today for about £7 (The American Version!) I found a store called "Trader" which had a few US/UK second hand titles, not bad prices.
We got back at the hostel around 8pm, I picked up some beer on the way home... I'm cool like that! Dan said he wanted to find a bar to get a drink at, no problem, here goes the two hour search for a bar/pub/club (that's not a restaurant!) We ended up walking about 5 miles around Asakusa and the surrounding district, only to come back to the Asahi building by the bridge... just before last orders at 11.30, it was far too upper class for me to show up in sandals, but I took my victory drink none the less. It's not like England, where literally every street in a town/city has an easily identifiable pub, I fear these Japanese ones (outside of Roppongi) are all hidden away in the back alleys among with the 5 seater restaurants! Either way there is still time to get drunk in Tokyo!
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