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Let's Visit Akihabara! Part I


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grooven



Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 1424
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:23 pm Reply with quote
Thanks so much for the article! I love seeing pictures of trips and sights in Japan and to see how much has changed over time. Makes me want to be there right now Very Happy I wish I went into the Sunshine mall i always skipped over it. But it looks like fun Smile Reminds me of the Odaiba malls. I can;t wait for more and especially the cafe photos!!

I love how they are so organized at times with series. It makes shopping easier. But other places are such a cluster Anime dazed. I noticed one small thing, the display in K-BOOKS is Joker Game not Bungo Stray Dogs, but they do look similiar-ish and the fujoshi love both!. i never got why Joker Game was so popular there, even in some of the polls.
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Talniir



Joined: 29 Mar 2017
Posts: 9
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 12:36 am Reply with quote
Very jealous of your time in Japan. Especially with loved ones. I'll be going alone sometime this or next year and will take all your advice. Hopefully they let me take my Corgi Ein (I know....) overseas but I doubt it..... idk. I'm iffy about leaving her at a boarding house. She'd hate me for it.
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jenny10-11



Joined: 25 Jun 2015
Posts: 98
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 1:57 am Reply with quote
I'm heading off to Tokyo in a few days (Sakura! Sakura!) and while I was planning to hit up most of these places (or already have on my last visit), you gave me a few new ideas of where to go, and reminded me of why I should revisit some old places. Thanks for letting us share your trip!
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 2:14 am Reply with quote
Thank you once again for all the photographs!
I like to hope that you sampled the Indian restaurant close to your apartment, but each to their own. The animal gatcha were especially appealing—you found a miniature Olive!
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 2:31 am Reply with quote
Loved the AmiAmi displays - Spiderman on a Segway and Guts driving a panda. Delightful!

Even before I read the comment, I was going, "Eww, eww, no, eww," at the pictures of the Mexican food, so I'd say you made the right call. They might not actually taste bad, but if you went in with your mouth ready for Mexican and got whatever that tastes like, the dissonance would probably ruin any goodness of the ingredients.

Thanks for all the pics! Now I don't have to go.
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Jason_F



Joined: 11 Jun 2013
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 6:07 am Reply with quote
Ok I have visited Tokyo several times and went to Nakano Broadway, Akihabara, Robot Restaurant, Harajuku, Gundam Front so I am wondering if Ikebukuro is worth seeing? It is the one otaku spot that I haven't been to.
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jymmy



Joined: 11 Nov 2011
Posts: 1244
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 7:55 am Reply with quote
Very nice write-up. I laughed out loud at your comment about the ufotable café in part 1.

The Ghost in the Shell movie was far from the atrocity Dragonball Evolution was. It wasn't really a good adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, with most characters being barely recognisable as their movie/SAC counterparts, but it was a decent film overall.
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Brand



Joined: 30 Jan 2006
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:38 am Reply with quote
My friends and I felt pretty much the same about the Robot Restaurant. It seemed like a fun thing to do but for $80 and not including dinner we passed.

Nakano Broadway was one of my favorite things we did while there. I hadn't even heard of it before being there, we had a rainy day and we were looking for something to do inside and I came across it online. But as a Persona/SMT fan it was really neat. Because the mall you walk through to get there is so much like the mall from the original Persona and then Nakano Broadway is so much like being in the mall in the original SMT it isn't even funny. I also loaded up on candy there to bring back as gifts for my friends.

We actually stayed at the Hotel Gracery, which is the hotel with the giant Godzilla head on it. If you were staying there you were allowed out on the landing to see it up close.


I also took a picture of the same Mexican restaurant. Though we also didn't eat there.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 2046
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:31 am Reply with quote
Jason_F wrote:
I am wondering if Ikebukuro is worth seeing? It is the one otaku spot that I haven't been to.

If you are interested in fujoshi shows/stuff then it is ABSOLUTELY must go to. If you're not interested in such, then it is less appealing (still worthwhile tho). Jump World is in Sunshine City and is kinda fun if you're into SJ titles (One Piece, Dragonball, Naruto, etc) and there's a nice Aquarium on top of Sunshine City. If you've been to Akiba, then the major stores are also in Ikebukuro (Animate being the BIG one, but also Gamers and KBooks and a Mandarake). Again, the "main" focus is fujoshi shows/materials, but there's standard otaku fare also. There's also Yodobashi Camera, Lab1 and various other eletronics stores just like Akiba and a DonQuixote. Also, if you're in that area, you can take the local lines out to Nerima, where a lot of anime/manga professionals lived/work and Toei is out there. Most of the stations on the (I think it's "Nerima") Nerima Line have specific anime markers in them because of the Toei/anime affiliations.

EDIT: Also, the "Dragon Quest Lawsons" has been that way for a while now. One really notable thing, normally when you enter a convenience store in Japan it plays an "entry chime", but the DQLawsons plays the "entering a dungeon" sound. Laughing
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Neohybrid_kai



Joined: 29 Apr 2011
Posts: 143
Location: Indonesia
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 2:49 pm Reply with quote
Laughed in tears at Shinji and Ayanami t-shirt (10/10 would wear while listening to track 25-26 over SDAT player). Very enjoyable article, I've been to Japan twice and even though its literally costs years of saving, I won't mind visiting again. Hours flies by at Nakano Broadway, there's just so many nostalgic (and weird) things. Those youngsters might enjoy browsing the latest hip in Akiba but its Mandarake that keeps me coming back, though I'm curious whether there are people who would buy those super old and expensive stuff, I mostly went to hunt old manga I used to read from scanlation (especially series that's got dropped halfway) and second hand figures in awesomely cheap price (like that Mikuru in the article, price usually dropped quite significantly if it had no box). I didn't bought Kaworu but I did buy Giorno Giovanna figures.

Those Maetel cosplay stuff are supervised by Leiji himself, I think its an exclusive Mandarake product, since they dedicate a special page just for that on their web (I could be wrong though).

A Galaxian arcade and Link, somehow looks fitting. Looking forward to ComixWave article.

Brand wrote:

Nakano Broadway was one of my favorite things we did while there. I hadn't even heard of it before being there, we had a rainy day and we were looking for something to do inside and I came across it online. But as a Persona/SMT fan it was really neat. Because the mall you walk through to get there is so much like the mall from the original Persona and then Nakano Broadway is so much like being in the mall in the original SMT it isn't even funny. I also loaded up on candy there to bring back as gifts for my friends.


I'm an SMT fan as well and one of the thing in my bucketlist during my trip is to listen to SMT III Nocturne OST while walking around in each correspondent area. It was hilariously fun.
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epicwizard



Joined: 03 Jul 2014
Posts: 420
Location: Ashburn, VA
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 4:27 pm Reply with quote
I wanna visit Akihabara someday!! Very Happy
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nobahn
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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 5120
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 5:29 pm Reply with quote
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capt_cardor



Joined: 06 May 2007
Posts: 14
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 6:50 pm Reply with quote
Wow! What a great trip and your article was humorous, informative and very, very interesting.

Thanks.
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iamtooawesome



Joined: 02 Feb 2015
Posts: 351
Location: Thailand
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:56 pm Reply with quote
Beautiful sceneries specially during night time, the lights are just so pretty in Akihabara. In Ikebukuro there's no doubt that Animate is the best place. Sunshine city is as usual is filled with I7 things it was just before the bandai visual tour, and I'm so jealous you went to Namja town I want a namja yoi keychain from there. I hope I can visit Japan someday thanks for sharing us your fun experience!
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TsukasaElkKite



Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 3945
PostPosted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:28 pm Reply with quote
I loved my trip to Japan back in 2006. Even though I was only there for a week, I saw a ton of stuff that had been on my bucket list for years.
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