As is the dream of any Otaku, casual or otherwise, mine was
to go to Japan before I moved home from China and back to the US or wherever my
next stop was. In the minds of many, Japan
provides an almost mystical illusion of what could possibly be the coolest
place on Earth.
Well, I'm here to tell you folks, for those with the budget.........
IT REALLY IS (the coolest place on Earth that is). From the second we left the train station
from Narita Airport toward our hotel in Shabuya, I realized 2 things. 1: Every anime I ever watched really had been
taken in some way from Japan's landscape and culture and 2: My girlfriend and I
studied the wrong language.
When we first got off the train in Shabuya we walked past a
small street with an old fashioned local train, clickity-clacking over the
tracks (a famous scene in many animes). We got lost, turned around and given
wrong direction (by people who were honestly trying to help), until we finally
found ourselves in Shabuya's district center. The lights, the sounds, the
signs, the buildings, the cleanliness and.... of course, the outfits nearly
brought a tear to our eyes. We had
finally made it. After 5 years of
talking about how we had to go before we left the Orient, we made it.
It was amazing, 1 in 20 people on the street were dressed up
in anime costumes, or looked like they should have been. Crazy colored wigs, even crazier outfits, and
the shoes and stocking were really what sent it over the edge. They really did look like the people that we
though belonged only to the world of Japanimation.
Our second day there, we saw a group of boys crossing the
road with HUGE horse head masks on, and when we sat down at the Hachiko Statue
across the street we were surprised to see that to our right there was a group
of girls doing a J-pop performance on a small stage dressed in what I can only
call anime costumes. As we looked left
we saw a group of young environmentally conscious men and women dressed in
bright red SPANDEX with masks and horns on wearing a yellow sash that read
something like "DARE TO FIGHT THE EVILS OF LITTER" in Japanese (or so I was told, but was probably mislead).
In the afternoon we went to Akihabrara station to get our
first glimpse of a truly great looking anime street. We started by going to the
Anime Academy, which turned out to actually just be a building where the
academy met and students learned to draw and produce anime with little to see
in the way of products. As we walked out
we saw a woman dressed in a gothic anime outfit that looked very mysterious
until we realized the person in the dress....... was a man.
We walked up and down the main drag, seeing tons of posters
and advertisements with anime characters, but very little actually sold anime merchandise,
and those that did usually had a GIANT collection of hentai and other
pornography in the back (I imagine to supplement their income), until we
finally found a store with about 1002 meters (900+2 ft)
of anime merchandise, and when I went to see what was upstairs I realized we
had finally stumbled across our first anime mall.
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| Outside |
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| Inside |
*** This is a warning to everyone going to Japan who things
Japanese style product will be much cheaper there ........ THEY ARE NOT, or at
least not sizably.***
There were THOUSANDS of figures ranging from key chains to
life size figures (most of which were the standard 10cm or 25cm figures (4 or
10 in) and not a single item was under 5 EURO (7 BUCKS), which included key
chains. However you could not argue with
the quality of MOST of the products. The
majority of the figures looked as though they had been hand painted while
looking at the real character. The
detail was spectacular. There was
shading for light, roots were different color than tips of hair, and every
color was exactly where it was supposed to be (most if not all MUST be done by
hand). Alas were could purchase nothing as the price tag on anything we wanted
was usually over 100 Euro ($130).
So we left in a bit of a frump only to be immediately perked
back up at the sight of a MAID BAR.
That's right, girls, dressed like anime maids, serving food, playing
games with you, and singing Kareoke all for the enjoyment of their (mostly
male) clientele. The girls were all
funny and nice, and one even tried very hard to speak English with us (I
imagine their hiring process doesn't require a strong English test). Hysterical,
cute, and expensive are the 3 words I would use to explain it all. We were charged basically $40 for ice cream, pancakes
and 2 drinks (and a STEEEEEEEEP surcharge for the entertainment), but we left
happy, and red from embarrassment knowing we had done it once and therefore,
NEVER needed to do it again.
The final, and most amazing Otaku style place we went was
NAKANO BROADWAY. By far our favorite
place, was just as big if not bigger than the place in Akihabara, and with much
better prices. We spent half the day
looking through figures and merchandise old and new, from Sailor Moon and
Tororo to DURARARA!, Sword Art Online and some of this seasons new favorites. They had one store dedicated entirely to the
history of "Japanese Robots and Space Rockets", several manga intensive
stores and old video games (too bad you can't use them on Foreign versions of
Game systems...... or read them). My
favorite was a picture shop on one of the higher floors that sold cells from
classic animes which included Sailor moon, and my personal favorite original
Princess Mononoke cells with some really cool scenes and characters.
In the end we only ended up buying a few figures (generally
the ones on sale), from some lesser known anime series like Guilty Crown. After an AMAZING bowl of SPICY MISO RAMEN
made by an old couple just outside NAKANO BROADWAY we decided our thirst for
anime had been quenched ........... at least in Tokyo.
For another point of view and in my opinion GREAT READ (not
just because she's my girlfriend) Visit SIMONA'S POST
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