Tokyo: Akihabara (Day 2)

This day was originally supposed to be entirely Akihabara, but in all honesty, I simply ran out of enthusiasm for looking at figures, porn, and porn figures after the first fifteen shops. I mean, there was non-porn stuff as well, but there was as much that was blatently pornographic as there was anything else. This may have had something to do with being led around by an anime otaku, but I'm not certain. This kind of stuff was largely limited to just a few buildings we went into, so don't let it deter you from going. Then again, if it's what you're looking for it won't be difficult to find.

I picked up some little omiyage for people, but none of it has shipped yet because I've been lazing around and breaking my computer instead of being productive. I left my room once today to go check the mail, if that gives you an idea of just how lazy I'm being right now.

Okay, so on with the Akihabara! Well, after this picture of a flower I took that morning. My 18-55mm just doesn't do macro well, you know, but I like it and this picture anyway. So there.

We left the house around 10:30 or so, and got to Akihabara within an hour or so, and it cost us about $5 in train fare. We got off at Akihabara station, where we met our guide, a Mr. Kanayama. You can see him posing at left.

We started off wandering around in random stores, as far as I can tell, and I saw a lot of figures that I wanted to buy. This confuses me for two reasons: I didn't think I liked dolls; the starting price for the good ones was about $50. Two of those would be the same as a brand new tripod. Four would be a cheap lens... You can see where this is going, I think.
I'm generally not a big fan of things whose only purpose is to go on a shelf and never be used, so I don't know what I would do with figures if I had bought them. Fortunately, I didn't, so all is well.

There were a lot of figures in each store, and I we visited at least four stores completely dedicated to them, each about... figure the average size of a Radio Shack. In spite of the quantity, I really didn't find myself drawn to many of them. Here are some girls, I think - it's often hard to tell with Japanese people - checking out the scantily clad figures.
Go figure?

But there were a couple that I was very tempted by, such as these Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball figures. Some of you may remember these characters either from that game, or the multi-platform game Dead or Alive 3. A number of people have played it on my Xbox at our Chamith house.
Looking at this picture more closely, I can see that they're supposed to be from the second version of DOA:XBV that's for the Xbox 360. I haven't played it myself, or even ever seen it. I mean, I've only played the actual Dead or Alive 4 for Xbox 360 once, and that was at Sakura-con. Was very thoroughly schooled.

This one was surprisingly low on the creepy figurines list, despite the human-size scale. I've seen people here that look less realistic than this giant doll, though, which I will admit worries me to some extent. Japanese women have a tendency to wear... rather more makeup than one might think. I've checked with at least five other people and they all agree with me, so I'm not alone on this.

I watched Shana and Fate with someone who hasn't been reading this blog lately, but I'm putting these up because I found them and thought they were cool. The Zero figurine is a little bit odd, yeah, but we are talking about a store for otaku, so it's either that or a maid outfit, right?

We wandered around quite a lot, but mostly found more of the same general sort of thing. I mean, I probably have 60 pictures of random figures that I took while no one was looking, but honestly, you can only see so many before you start thinking "Oh, on this figure, only the skirt comes off?" and "Look, it's another random anime character I don't recognize!" Though I would wager I recognized at least half of all the characters I saw. Given I haven't watched but two anime since coming here, that make me feel good as an anime-watching person.

While we were doing the aforementioned wandering around, we stopped for some ice cream, and right next to the place was a place selling some kind of pork-based food. You can see the guy shaving off little bits of pork at left. Interesting method, don't you think?

And here (at right) you can see why it is that I don't want to buy radios (AKA walkie talkies) here in Japan. The cheapest price I see in that whole lot is about $100. For one. Oh, and did I mention that they're not interoperable? They only work with radios from the same brand, and even then only sometimes.

I'd love to get a batch of six or so cheap bubble-pack radios here. They'd be so nice for coordinating groups and meetups. Given the cost of voice calls on a phone, they'd pay for themselves pretty quickly, too. And they're usable in an emergency, unlike a cell phone, as cell networks are so easily overloaded.

Specifics aside, my overall take on Akihabara is as follows:

• If you're looking for anime, manga, or anything related to them - including music and third-party porn - come to Akihabara and you will be at home. You'll be broke pretty quickly, too.
• If you're looking for hard-to-find electronics and have exhausted all other methods of getting whatever it is, come to Akihabara. They have it, I'm sure.
• If you're looking to build something that involves any number of a variety of different random tiny eletronic thingamawhatsits, come to Akihabara. They have more thingamawhatsits than you can shake a doohickey at.
  
• If you're looking for name-brand or popular consumer electronics - say, camera gear - don't bother. Prices in Akihabara are no better than you would get from anywhere in the Western world. They're slightly cheaper than average for Japan, on average, I think. But not enough to make it worth the trip unless you're also coming for sightseeing.

In the end, I can't say that it was a really amazing place, but it's a place that I couldn't not go, given the chance. I'm glad I was able to go, even if the only thing I gained was to be able to say, "Yeah, I've been to Akihabara." I may just mentally add a "... So?" on the end of that.

[This is, I think, the last of my posts about my trip to Tokyo. People keep asking, so here's what I thought of the trip as a whole: It wasn't great, but I definnitely don't regret it, either.]