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INTEREST: Asagaya Anime Street to Close After Failing to Draw Crowds




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aodmisery



Joined: 07 Feb 2004
Posts: 75
PostPosted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 9:12 pm Reply with quote
Isn't Akihabara already anime themed
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unready



Joined: 07 Jun 2009
Posts: 399
Location: Illinois, USA
PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 1:04 am Reply with quote
aodmisery wrote:
Isn't Akihabara already anime themed


As described in the article, Asagaya Street is a government-created district to be an alternative to Akihabara's shopping district.

Akihabara is in Chiyoda (east of Shinjuku and Shibuya).
Asagaya is in Suginami (west of Shijuku and Shibuya).
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Greboruri



Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 374
Location: QBN, NSW, Australia
PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 3:27 am Reply with quote
Went there in late 2015. Five of the 14 shops were unoccupied and the remaining ones that were still open were rubbish. It was an absolute waste of time and train fare going out there. You cannot manufacture something like Akihabara or Nakano Broadway. There was nothing of real interest for fans there that they couldn't get elsewhere.
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sailorstarsun



Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 170
Location: Japan
PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 7:32 am Reply with quote
Honestly, did Tokyo really need another anime area anyway? Maybe they should try something like that in literally any other city in Japan.
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omoikane



Joined: 03 Oct 2005
Posts: 494
PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 10:24 am Reply with quote
sailorstarsun wrote:
Honestly, did Tokyo really need another anime area anyway? Maybe they should try something like that in literally any other city in Japan.

Actually, they could. It's definitely big enough for multiple areas (as it already has). The issue is always in why and how it's executed.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 3:12 pm Reply with quote
sailorstarsun wrote:
Honestly, did Tokyo really need another anime area anyway? Maybe they should try something like that in literally any other city in Japan.


The stated purpose was to drive people closer to the areas where most studios are located. Considering how epically far from the rest of the anime shopping in Tokyo that is, yeah, this wasn't an inherently bad idea. Suginami is kind of a dead zone for tourism and shopping as is, so something like this probably could have worked if implemented in a different way.
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ranran-001



Joined: 25 Oct 2018
Posts: 533
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 4:35 am Reply with quote
I've seen a program recently on shopping districts in Japan and it highlighted the fact that the internet, as well as the general way in which people are consuming media has created many deadzones where their used to be streets lined with shops. Think of it as the same problem small towns in the U.S. with a main street are facing as one by one they go out of business since many customers prefer to buy online, or go to larger department stores like walmart.

This article on ANN sounds like one of the revival projects that same television program talked about. The government most likely picked an area that used to be a busy shopping district years ago and tried to revive it by turning it into an otaku themed shopping area. The show I watched never got into how successful the revival attempts have been, but there have been hints that these revivals have not been successful yet.

I can't say for sure if that is indeed what is going on here, but it sounds like this could be what the local government was trying to attempt.
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Mikasa_su_casa



Joined: 01 Jul 2016
Posts: 120
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 12:49 pm Reply with quote
This is the kind of thing the Japanese state thinks it's important to spend money on when they could be trying to get single moms get out of poverty?
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Compelled to Reply



Joined: 14 Jan 2017
Posts: 358
PostPosted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 8:15 pm Reply with quote
relyat08 wrote:
sailorstarsun wrote:
Honestly, did Tokyo really need another anime area anyway? Maybe they should try something like that in literally any other city in Japan.


The stated purpose was to drive people closer to the areas where most studios are located. Considering how epically far from the rest of the anime shopping in Tokyo that is, yeah, this wasn't an inherently bad idea. Suginami is kind of a dead zone for tourism and shopping as is, so something like this probably could have worked if implemented in a different way.

Suginami is out in the suburbs, so that doesn't help. It also certainly doesn't help Nakano is two stops east.

Mikasa_su_casa wrote:
This is the kind of thing the Japanese state thinks it's important to spend money on when they could be trying to get single moms get out of poverty?

It's likely a local government project, not national. Single parent poverty is an issue everywhere, which no country has yet has success in addressing effectively.
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