22 Days in Japan, Day 4: Akihabara, and Eight Sentences About Roppongi

The Roppongi area in Tokyo is pretty much *the place* for foreigner nightlife. So of course, I go there during the day. And at 11am, it’s not a very touristy place.

I wander about Roppongi Hills, the area’s lavish mall, walk under a giant spider statue, and stray into the Mori Art Museum’s gift shop. Some impressive artwork there. Unfortunately, impressive is synonymous with pricey, and $1000 artwork is a just a tad out of my reach. I did, however, spot a few intriguing pieces for the low low price of $150. I’ll stick to my $30 per day budget, thanks.

After lunch I take the Hibiya line back up to Akihabara.

It’s drizzling when I stepped out of the station. I pass by a large group of (mostly males) huddled around at a street corner playing with their Nintendo DSes. Outside. In the rain. That’s dedication, man.

I walk down the street a bit to Yodobashi Camera, Tokyo’s (and probably Japan’s) premier camera, electronics, music, lighting, movie, and toy store. This huge, round building is the Japanese equivalent of Best Buy, except it makes the latter look like one of those tiny stalls in Asakusa selling chopsticks. It is gigantic, even freakin’ gigantic. To be more precise, it is seven floors of retail bonzai, with a bonus restaurant floor. It’s a shining example of how over-the-top Tokyo can be.

But seriously, it is big. You could spend a day in here, and never even come close to finding what you’re looking for.

TVs, DVDs, laptops, and air conditioners didn’t really do it for me, so I end up on the video game/toy/instrument/bike floor. I can now say with certainty that I have never seen so many capsule machines, figurines, and Gundam robot models in one place at one time. And hell, I haven’t even made it to Akihabara’s main street yet!

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Akihabara (“Electric Town”) is Tokyo’s anime, gaming, and electronic mecca. Huge banners featuring doe-eyed anime characters (and Dragon Quest) line the tops of buildings. This is the same Akihabara where you can find cafes with teenage waitresses dressed in maid costumes, or six-floor arcades filled with crane games, video games, and lots of cigarette smoke. I opt for the latter.

Japanese arcades are very, very different from arcades in the USA. For one, they’re not in any danger of dying out any time soon. You could say that arcade operators in Japan evolved, whereas the same operators in America simply closed up shop and sold used cars instead. There’s multiplayer gaming (imagine eight people duking it out in a huge robot arena while a big screen projects the battle in real time), a whole floor dedicated to fighting games (and the arcade machines have controls on opposite sides, so you can’t see who you’re playing against), lots of music rhythm games (which figures, this is the home to DDR after all) and a first floor filled with crane games. THAT is an arcade.

The flip side is that, like most things in Japan, games are expensive. They’re typically 100 yen to start (some games are 200, some really really old games are cheaper) which is around a buck and change. The same game in the USA would be fifty cents.

I attempt to finagle my way through a drum game and managed to fail out on the second song. Uh okay, I obviously don’t fit in here.

Skipping my wandering around Akihabara and poking through random stores, I have dinner at the Akiba ICHI building (also called Akihabara UDX, also called Akihabara CROSS FIELD, also called…) home of the Tokyo Anime Center. Alas, the center is closed, but there’s still several floors worth of slightly pricier meals here. There’s a nice ramen shop “Ramen Kouryu” tucked in the back of another restaurant where you can customize your ramen to your liking. More importantly, they actually speak English.

When I get back to the train station, there’s an even bigger group of (mostly males) gathered ’round the corner, immersed in their video games. New inductees in the Nintendo DS Street Corner Fan Club include middle-aged guys in suits.