I was in Akihabara twice this week, so this is a summary of both trips. First off, I have to say that this is not the same Akihabara I visited 28 years ago. It has changed SO much. When I arrived in Japan in 1995, one of the first things on my to-do list was to buy a fax machine. Yes, you read that right, a fax machine. There were no cellphones, or email, and calling was extremely expensive. Having a fax machine meant that I could instantaneously connect with people at home, instead of them having to wait up to three weeks to receive a letter. I also used it to fax friends who were in Japan as well as long distance within Japan was also not cheap.
There was a labyrinth of stalls with everything electronic you could possibly want or need – that part of Akihabara is still there, but it is overshadowed by Anime, Manga, video games and Pokemon. Don’t get me wrong, anime was a thing 28 years ago too, but its popularity has exploded since then. You can’t look anywhere without being inundated with anime character posters. They are everywhere. You can get blue-ray discs, and all kinds of merchandise connected to every anime ever created. The challenge is finding out where your particular show merch is – it is a bit overwhelming, and there are so many anime series to choose from.
There is another addition to the landscape now – Maid Cafes. There are young women every couple of hundred metres dressed up in “maid costumes” handing out flyers to promote their cafe. Apparently there are over 200 Maid Cafes in Akihabara alone. They started in Akihabara in 2001 and have now spread all over the country. Your time slot is usually just over an hour. The “maids” are dressed up in these sort of cosplay costumes that resemble a French maid costume. They role-play as if the clients are the master and\or mistress of the house. You can play games with them, and they serve “cute” food and decorate your food order – for example if you order an omelette – they might draw a picture of a cute bunny with the ketchup squeeze bottle. There are specific rules – you are not allowed to touch the maids, or their clothing, even to shake their hands. It is also forbidden to offer or ask for personal contact information. You also cannot take photos of them with your personal phone, you have to pay for official photos that come as a cute keepsake.
One of the other quirky things about Japan is the vending machines. In Akihabara there are stores just filled with strange vending machines, selling everything from snacks, to collectibles, to stuffed animals, and sometimes it is a game, and you do not always get a prize when you put your money in.
For example, I put 500 yen in a vending machine to try and get a special Pokemon card. There was also a chance you could get a package of 5 cards. I put in the 500 yen and won a card. So got I proceeded to get more change so I could get a couple more cards – one for each of the three boys at home – unfortunately my next two tries were failures I basically got the “sorry try again” card in the plastic bubble that came out of the machine. Here is a photo of the machine with the winning ball
There were also a plethora of extremely weird things you could buy at the stores – a couple are pictured here:
Here a couple of videos of some of the vending/game machines:
Here are some special addition Converse only sold in Japan:
I still have more to write but will put the other places I visited in separate posts even though I saw them on the same day 🙂