Geek-Off (Tokyo Day 2)

13-7-6















Today we threw ourselves into the district of Akihabara. Only two stops from our local subway station and we were in geek paradise. An area of a number of blocks - we didnt cover all of it in a day - devoted almost exclusively to a. electronic products and b. Anime related products. Pretty much all space from ground floor up to the 6th to 8th floors are filled with such stuff. I managed to cover maybe 6 bigger stores and three or four small ones. Several stores were just toys and were divided into different departments - cutesy girl toys, Gundam Robots, Anime TV/Film toys, and Ultraman/Masked Rider type toys. The bigger stores usually had a floor devoted to each.







Several stores had departments selling costumes from Anime shows. A big thing here atleast in Akihabar is the Maid Craze. Anime characters dressed in Maid outfits. There are also many Maid cafes in which customers are served by waitresses dressed in said outfits. Customers, we have been told, can be fed their cake by the maids, amoungst other services. Bizarre. We saw quite a number of maids out on the street handing out pamphlets.


Although we actually only covered a fairly small area, Akihabara was pretty taxing with the flashing advertising, crazy Anime tie-in music blasting, and sweaty geeks elbowing their way through the merchandise (me included).

A big thankyou to Em for accompanying me on this mission. Tommorow we`re going to check out Shinjuku - another central area of Tokyo.