Akihabara. The Electric Town. The hyper-futuristic city that resembles a scene straight out of Blade Runner. The Mecca of anime, manga, gaming, and geekdom in general. People make pilgrimages here all the time to discover the wonders it holds. Our group's time had come.
Having had one hell of a night, I woke up not feeling too hot. I had forgotten that the normal group I'm part of had plans to hop a train to Akiba (short for Akihabara) in the morning, so I woke up too late to join them. Luckily, a few others had stayed back too and so we made a last minute decision to jump on the JR trains to the best place in Tokyo. It actually worked out because the other group apparently went to Odaiba instead, which, while surely amazing, would have been nothing like Akiba.
It took about 40 minutes to get there, but was worth every second on that train. Immediately upon stepping out of the gates, we were greeted by giant buildings everywhere plastered with huge anime and video game character-adorned advertisements. We knew we had reached The Promised Land. It was near-impossible to decide exactly what store to enter first because they were all filled to the brim with merchandise from everything imaginable. Regardless of direction we would walk, we were surrounded by shops and buildings that drew us (and our poor wallets) in.
Our first stop was a store called Retro Game (or something like that). Can you guess what it sold? Right from the get go, our nerdism jumped out the window upon seeing the extensive collection of Game Boy (JUST Game Boy, without any suffixes), NES, SNES, and PlayStation games. We found Game Boy Pockets, my first gaming device ever by the way, for the equivalent of about $13. Used Pokemon games were between $10 and $20. It took every ounce of strength for me not to buy a Game Boy Pocket and Japanese Pokemon games on the spot. But you can guess what I'll be doing on my return journey to Akiba :D The prices for just about everything in the store were fantastic and my nostalgia flowed freely until I forced myself to leave.
Once we escaped the jaws of consumerism for but a moment, we made a bit of a journey around the main streets of Akiba. Scouting out the area, I spotted at least 3 giant arcades on the same two block stretch. Truly, there was a heaven, and I was there. Before diving headfirst into one, we found this pachinko parlor that was kinda fancy and happened to have lifesize full body statues of the characters Asuka and Rei from the very popular anime Evangelion. It was kinda cool, though mostly creepy, and the pachinko parlor itself was just as all others: white noise-loud and hazy through all the cigarette smoke. We didn't stay long, which was fine by me; the video games called to me like sirens on the winds~
Our first arcade was a Sega World, and boy what a world it was. 5 floors of amazing, just like previous arcades I've been to like Taito Station. The first two floors were entirely comprised of the UFO catcher/crane games to try and win nice prizes ranging from snack foods to expensive statuettes of anime and video game characters. But the third floor onwards was where it started to get real (yo). All of the games were gorgeous and kept in the best of conditions possible. But for the first time ever, I gazed upon my first Dance Dance Revolution machine in Japan. I knew I couldn't pass this up. I'd never seen DDR X3 vs. DDR 2nd Mix before, but the monster of a machine with gorgeous HD widescreen display made me drool. Denise and I rocked two songs, the first of which was Asaki's "Shizuku", a crossover song I LOVE from another Bemani game. I was totally loving it, though it tripped me out because they redid the difficulty levels in DDR so they're now up to 20. I could have played harder, but it was good because my shoes had next to no traction (they were Sanuk brand sandals). Second song I picked, as good ol' SigSig from IIDX. <333 So much fun. Denise was out after that, totally wiped, but we had a final song, so I was about to pick it myself. Just then, a random Japanese guy watching me walked up and asked if he could play in her place. I obliged, of course, and he got to pick the last song. I forget what it was, but we had fun and I was able to stay alive long enough to reach applause by my gracious entourage. It felt crazy to actually beat a Japanese guy at DDR IN JAPAN. Clearly DDR isn't the thing it used to be there.
We ventured around the arcade some more until we found a Street Fighter IV machine Armand and I could play together on. I came out on top, luckily, but him playing Ken gave me a run for my money. It was down to the last round, that's for sure. Eventually another random Japanese guy came up to the machine and dunked me, but I got off some really cool moves against him before I lost. Pride!! We moved on after that to lunch because we were feeling a bit peckish. Where else better to go in Akihabara than a maid cafe? Little did we know, it would be one of the strangest experiences we'd ever encountered in Japan...
We asked a random maid on the streets peddling her store to take us to her establishment. She quickly hurried us down the street... and down a dark alleyway... down a side-alley... and into a hidden elevator below a tall, 7-or-so-story building. In the elevator were some strange pornographic advertisements. We all looked to each other as we went up thinking "what have we gotten ourselves into this time". As the doors opened, we were welcomed in by a handful of maids, the lady who likely managed the location, and.... no one else. Not a single customer was in the brightly lit cafe stylized to be like a French cafe. Strangely, we weren't allowed in until they determined how many in our party were male and how many were female. The others hypothesized that maybe this meant if it was all-male, they might be taken somewhere special for nefarious purposes, but I'm not entirely sure I was convinced. Either way, it was super-creepy and awkward that we were at this cafe with no one else there. It was creepy enough that Armand actually left after being served water and didn't return until much later on. Though things definitely felt kind of "off", I still was able to maintain a calm composure. We ordered a pricey lunch, even though it came with soup, but realized later on that we should have gotten their special egg omelette dish where they drew YOUR FACE IN KETCHUP on the plate. That would have been so neat! We slowly became more comfortable as other people were brought in and they looped a video on the television that showed the Backstreet Boys having come to the same location and actually sitting in the same spots we were at. Credibility helps wonders. I had a shrimp pilaf dish that was surprisingly good and onion soup. But what happened before we ate the food was the most spectacular event of all...
Upon delivering the meals, our maid hostess recited a script and told us that "Before we ate, we had to help her use the power of 'Maid Magic' to make the meal truly delicious, and we should all do it together". Our looks must have been priceless upon hearing this. She guided us along in forming hearts with our hands, waving said hearts from left to right, and speaking the magic words "Moe Moe Kyuuuun!!~" Just... amazing. The girls were cracking up so hard, tears were shed. I was (barely) able to contain myself and enjoy my meal afterwards. Armand joined later and ordered one of their amazing cheesecakes, as well as a coffee. The maid had him follow the mantra for his cheesecake, but also do another phrase set specifically for his drink. So interesting, this maid cafe experience. It was so funny seeing everyone's opinion of the place go from "We should leave" to "This is AMAZING!". It was actually part of a franchise called Popopure that also has facilities to let customers dub scenes of anime with their own voices. Again, I can't put any more emphasis on how interesting an experience it was.
How can I possibly measure up to that unique type of story? More arcade going! But this time, not for games. Nay, this time I tried my hand at the infamous UFO catcher crane games of Japan. If you don't know, the crane games in the states are NOTHING like UFO catchers. As mentioned previously, UFO catchers can contain rare, expensive prizes, and when you find one worth getting, it can consume you until you finally get it. I found just such an item: a statuette of, honestly, a random girl in glasses I had never seen before, but knew I must own. It seemed easy enough, pushing the ring it was hooked to off a ball that held it up. However, with each push of the ring, it barely inched the whole thing off. I knew it would take many tries, but I would not give up. After about 18 tries, almost $20 later, amidst cries of "JUST ONE MORE TRY!" and "YOU GOT THIS!", I had the most rewarding moment of my day. I had won this random figure and proven myself if not skillful, then resilient in the face of resistance from this UFO catcher. Even the bag given to winners to hold their prizes reinforced this: on it was printed the phrase, "Caught it cause I did'nt give up on it!", inaccurate contraction and all. So much happiness.
Unfortunately, our friend Denise's attempts at winning a Doraemon plush were not as successful, so we ditched the arcade soon after she did some raging over it's difficulty level (and downing $15 in tries). We did some more searching around the area, indecisive in where to stop, but eventually saw a shop's sign that caught our attention. It was referred to as "Love Merci Adult Amusement Park". Yes, we had the courage to step foot inside a Japanese sex shop. And what an interesting place that was.
The first floor held clothing and almost only clothing. It had a decent selection of cosplay costumes, stylized after famous anime and game characters, as well as normal "sexy" clothing. But what was in store for us through the other floors would put these suggestive outfits to shame. The second floor was "Ladies Goods", so I'm sure you can gather what could be found there. In case you can't, lots of dildos. And vibrators. But what was really interesting were the third and fourth floors, dubbed "Mens Goods" and "BIG Goods". Strangely, women were "forbidden" from entering those top two floors for reasons never explicitly stated. Naturally, Armand and I had to do some investigating. The third floor was covered from top to bottom in artificial vaginas, packaged in boxes with anime characters on the front. The sheer amount of these devices was staggering. All three aisles of this floor were covered. Also were some that secreted some kind of fluid I think? Yeah. Pretty unique, as far as I know. The fourth floor, BIG Goods, was initially mysterious based on the name, but we figured it out soon enough. This was where the blowup dolls and such were found. But tucked away in the back corner was the holy grail of all Japan-related items: the infamous used panties so often discussed when talking strange Japanese things. Though not found in vending machines, as many often say they are, these were in plastic containers with pictures of the woman they "belonged" to, with a small black strip covering the girls' eyes to protect their "identity". Who knows how really used these items were, but either way, we found the best prize of them all. We could go back home champions of Akiba.
That is, not until we had eaten at the official GUNDAM CAFE! Yes, you heard right, a cafe restaurant styled after the Gundam giant robot anime that have been released since the late 70s. It wasn't just that the cafe looked so cool and was decorated like the inside of a ship, but the food was super-creative and all of it was inspired by Gundams or scenes from the shows. My meal was a bowl of pasta with chicken and water chestnuts adorned with chicken wings to resemble my personal favorite Gundam, Wing Zero Custom. It was delicious, filling, and so cool looking! I also had a cafe latte that had foam on the top shaped to resemble the Haro from Gundam SEED. So clever. You simply must see pictures of this on my flickr (linked below and to the side of the page).
After our dinner, we headed home once we had walked past the official theater of AKB48, arguably Japan's most popular all-girls music group. They play there every day or so, I believe, to many audience members almost like a Medieval Times performance. You get dinner and a show. The cool thing about this group is that the audience members actually vote in new AKB48 singers over the course of the year so that the group is always changing and hosting fresh talent. Most of the girls who "graduate" from the group go on to become popular solo artists in their own right. It was no surprise that there was a decent line already started many hours before the performance for the night. Maybe I'll go at some point before I leave the country. Just for kicks. Because when in Akiba, do as the otaku do!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djmarmar/sets/72157631499693054/
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