I want to go to the mecca of videogames, but is Akiba still like that? Or has it changed?
https://strawpoll.com/NPgxEPGwQZ2
Is Akihabara as nerdy as the rumor suggests?
I want to go to the mecca of videogames, but is Akiba still like that? Or has it changed?
https://strawpoll.com/NPgxEPGwQZ2
yeah - there are still plenty of videogame, anime and electronic outlets. Sure the Sega building and other places shut during covid, but there's still enough to browse through
Have you been there yourself?
Just once before covid. Plenty of manga/doujinshi outlets too.
I want to temper your expectations. Akihabara is good, and so is Den Den town in Osaka, but Akihabara had this sort of legendary reputation in my mind and the reality was far more disappointing. It's just some streets lined with businesses and girls handing out maid cafe flyers. There isn't really any magic.
Seconding this.
Check it out but temper your expectations. It's not that impressive unless you have something very specific in mind to purchase that's hard to find usually.
>There isn't really any magic.
No shit it's a commercial street for hobbyist businesses. What do you think it is, some fantasy land where a cute meido sucks you off while you drink matcha and read e-girl doujinshi?
I thought that
God that sounds amazing. The elites literally do this, think about it.
>What do you think it is, some fantasy land where a cute meido sucks you off while you drink matcha and read e-girl doujinshi?
Yes, unironically. I expected to walk through a neon cyberpunk dystopia full of bright billboards plastered in anime girls and the like. I'd walk down a seedy back alley and be ushered into a place that I'm only getting into because an otaku acquaintance vouched for me.
I'd be ushered into a room where I'd down a complimentary Real Gold before putting on a VR headset. It'd boot up and display the room I'm in like AR - a cute e-girl would enter, we'd chat for a bit and then my zubon would come off and the degeneracy would begin.
I'd stumble out of the den of debauchery at around 1AM, and wander the cold dark streets of Akihabara until I found a karaoke place to dip into. A random group of men, knowing the score, would invite me to their booth and we'd sing anisong for four hours straight until we hit the magical time (5AM) and then we'd part ways and take the Yamanote home.
i mean it's only a matter of time.
I wish, Akihabara will only get worse not better.
There are Japanese girls there. At least some of them HAVE to be magic girls.
I was there last month, and Club Sega is technically still there as a company called "Gigo" or some shit. Akiba is cool but I think Nakano Broadway was better for a hardcore anime enthusiast.
Still is but the east side of the station is almost fully gentrified now, basically just office buildings. Some of the big indie otaku stores like tora no ana have permanently closed too. If you want that stuff now, my advice is to go to Nakano Broadway
>Nakano Broadway
my friend swears by this place. i'm on my first trip here, will visit..
its not bad, i havent been to akihabara yet so cant compare those two but i liked it more than den den town in osaka, more niche and secondhand stuff so if you’re looking for something old and rare you might find it there. also entirely indoors which is nice in this heat.
i mean that's point isn't it? anything that is popular you will know about and is easily available online. if you travel you want to browse and discover some obscure artifact or artisanal product. I will go to akiba but I will concentrate on second hand stuff see if I can find something interesting.
>i mean that's point isn't it?
well yeah, i wasnt saying that as a bad thing
I went to both and enjoyed Nakano more. Akihabara was really fun and had tons of unique cafes and a Warhammer store but there were more tourist trap stores and the arcades were overly busy. Nakano the headquarters for Mandarake and they are a secondhand store. Granted I'm a boomer who enjoyed Kyoto. The area surrounding Nakano was really chill and had great food without being busy. There's also a JoJo's themed bar there that you need reservations for and I wish I had gone to. Citraba was a craft beer and lemon sour place that had good drinks and snacks. There were a few maid cafes and the whole feel of the place was just well lived in. Pic is one I took while walking around at night. I wish I could have sent it to the couple in it but I didn't know how to approach them without seeming extra autistic.
>JoJo's themed bar
sold! thanks anon.
you have to reserve over twitter at least one month in advance their handle is @DIO_JOLYNE
Be advised that this place opens at noon. It's also mostly disconnected Mandarake stores from the second to four floors with most catering to a specific niche. There are some non-Mandarake shops and non-otaku shops there too but many units are just empty. With all the available extra space, I wonder why Mandarake doesn't consolidate onto a single floor.
Probably before Covid they took whatever spots they could get. It would be nice if they were consolidated. There's a big grocery store in the basement but the real treats are the small restaurants and fish mongers who sell super delicious sushi for like 1300yen. Check out the Nakano Broadway website and see if it has what you're interested in. There's definitely more stuff in Akihabara and I recommend both if you can
thanks for the advice anon. i'm being surprised how tokyo is old school in a lot of ways. not really the advanced country i was expecting, very cool still.
I went there twice and was pretty brain moronic going into it, having just been to Akihabara like an hour before. Still thought it was pretty cool, as another anon said it's tons of tiny shops that specialize in specific niche things. I remember on the second floor there was a store dedicated to onaholes that I had to get my parents to wait outside for. I felt like the general prices for games and models was cheaper than Akiba but that being said I also felt like a lot of the shit in Nakano were knockoffs being sold at temptingly good prices. I recommend NOT doing both in one day like I did because you'll just be overwhelmed with all the anime junk you've been seeing all day. 1 full day (8am to 9pm) in Akiba and another day (or half day) around the Nakano region, ending in the Broadway, Is personally what I'd recommend.
i went today, it was pretty cool, I liked some of the vintage stuff you can get on the top floor and the anime cells, vintage mangas and stuff like ultraman and taroman. had my first ojisan striking up a conversation wanting to know about the world. There was a store doing some more edgy alternative books, so I bought an ichiro iijima one from there (i have no idea who this is, i bought it cos the cover looked cool). I was going to go to akiba today but will probably wait until another day for that
oh and does anyone know what those books in the top left of the pic are?
Nice! Glad you had fun. Man I totally forgot about all the toys and books there too. Good call on leaving Akiba for another day, as I said before even though it's small you really need to spend a full day there just to get it all out of your system.
Google says the third from the left (top shelf) is a "detective notebook"
yeah it just dawned on me to use translate. found listings on mandarake website https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/listPage/list?categoryCode=02011807&lang=zh
interesting.
I had no idea Zelda had such a flabby ass. Since when?
You could end up locked 23 days if japanese police wants
>he's moved onto spamming japanese threads now
mods can you ban this fearmongering spammer already?
>arrive in japan
>shit no more money
>steal 100yen food item
>spend better part of a year in jail
fricking kek
Well yeah if you act like a Black person, get treated like one.
That's one HELL of a lardy arse...who is that?
Oh that's Zelda. The BoTW version has a fat ass
It's worth your time but don't get it into your head that it'll be some kind of religious experience or something
Went there in 2009, it was still very much about video games.
Went back in 2012 and you could tell it was getting degen. There were less video games and more hentai/porn stuff.
I imagine its only changed more over the years.
Nakano Broadway generally has better deals on otaku merchandise compared to Akihabara and is also the headquarters of Mandarake. Not only that many Japanese otaku are saying that Ikebukuro will become the future successor of Akihabara due to the Akihabara town council being anti-otaku in recent years. The Japanese otaku allege that the Akihabara town council are attempting to turn their city back into a normal business town.
What else do they have besides otaku shit? shooting themselves in the foot.
>nerdy
Back to /r/girlgamers femoid. c**ts like you ruined gaming. Hope you get raped
It's trash for games but great for anime/mecha.
for weebs it's heaven. For normoid 'gamers' maybe not so much
what makes it "heaven" for weebs? It seems completely out of date now. You can get all that stuff online much more easily, or in smaller stores with cheaper prices. Most of the people in Akihabara are tourists going there to gawk at the freaks. Going to Akihabara seems like going to Woodstock and expecting it to still be 1969 there.
>You can get all that stuff online much more easily
shipping and taxes
>smaller stores with cheaper prices
where?
Was there just 3 days ago. It's very very small, at most 5 or so blocks full of weebshit, maid cafes and arcades. You'll find what you're looking for, but don't expect a spectacle or a huge event.
and then a couple of blocks half full of weebshit, it sprawls out a fait bit
I went there with a weeb girl. I thought it was boring and that she was moronic.
Hell no, and I went there in 2017. Called it the exact same thing word for bloody word (mecca of videogames) and while I still had fun, I don't think it's deserving of the name. Like another anon said, it's really small. You get out the train station to your left, face a Sega arcade (which isn't there anymore) and that one block is pretty much the crux of it all. There's still more down the road a little and over the other side of the highway but it's still insanely tiny. That being said, a lot of the stores are upstairs or downstairs in multi-story complexes. If you don't real moon runes, good luck finding where you want to go lmao. Best store I found was a second hand retailer next to a card shop. Best prices in town and the 3rd floor is fully dedicated to hentai, doujinshi and porn. We're talking the kind of shit that'll get you stopped at customs.
Anyway I'm blabbering on too much. Spend a VERY solid two days there (one to look around and get your bearings, another to do what you planned to do the night prior) and you'll have a great time. Don't visit a maid cafe unless with friends, it's just more fun that way, otherwise it's one hell of a sad experience. Jap arcades have moronicly high level players grinding in them so honestly don't pay them any mind and play whatever you want. Just keep expectations low because if you go in with anime mecca in mind you might be slightly disappointed.
It's much smaller than you imagine and you will end up being disappointed.
Akiba changed after the murders. All of the little stalls around the station selling diodes and leds also being moved on didn't help. But the brutal murders was the main reason.
In short what many of the people ITT are saying I would agree with. There's plenty to do mind (more so if you speak japanese) but it's not sprawling or anything.
For vidya this place (35(dot)7038414,139 (dot)7712314) had a store on the first floor when I was there in 2019. It's packed with games. I got Kirby Air Ride for about €45. Super Potato is also there and don't underestimate Hard-Off (there's a shop in Akihabara) for some bargains.
No. Don't believe anyone that says it is. I went there and it's not really worth the visit. It's literally just a street with slightly more nerd shops and arcades than the rest of Japan. It's a total doozy.
It has become a place for normies to gawk at for an evening to tick the "weird japanese" box
Akihabara in 2023 is unironically 30% white people, 20% chinese, and 40% some sort of latino-black hybrid. I work near the area and have watched it rapidly change since borders opened. It was always full of tourists even before covid, but now it's just tourists and westerners who take pictures of random asians not realizing they're not Japanese. It even has fat boomers with their grandkids wandering around now. It's one of the most touristy places in the world these days.
Virtually the only Japanese people who are still there are the maids doing their song and dance routine for foreigners. The weeb shops are absolute scams these days. Old games that sell for 2000 yen in any other part of the country are going for 15000 just because it's Akihabara and morons will pay.
yikes, i thought the ones in nakano broadway were expensive. and i paid way too much for the chainsaw man plushy i bought, but hey do you have any tokyo recommendations for this kind of stuff other than nakano or akiba?
>Complains about white people in Akihabara
>Works there
Frick I hate weebs.