Forum - View topicINTEREST: Ikebukuro on the Rise, Akiba on the Decline with Otaku's Next Generation
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Yune Amagiri
 Posts: 936 Location: France |
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16bit Sensation - Another Layer -'s alternative 2023 where Ikebukuro became the main otaku sector wasn't so absurb finally.
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Swissman
Posts: 768 Location: Switzerland |
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During my first trip to Japan in 1999 I visited Ikebukuro many times. That's where I first discovered Tora no Aka, Lashinban and the Animate headquarters. Back then, Ikebukuro wasn't know yet for its otome road. I visited Akihabara as well. I experienced it first and foremost as an electronic town specialized in PC parts. There were no huge signboards for otaku culture properties yet, no maid cafes and especially hardly any western tourists. The atmosphere was more relaxed back then. Now it suffers from overtourism.
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Nojay
Posts: 112 |
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Akihabara has certainly changed since I first visited in 2007 but the Yodobashi Camera and Bic Camera flagship stores show no sign of trade falling off. The Black Tower (Mandarake) is as elbow-bumping crowded as ever, ditto for the main Book-Off store south-east of the railway station. Losing Toraoana and Animate is a bit of a blow though, I must confess but this is 2023 and I no longer fly home with a suitcase full of manga and doujins as I used to.
The PC parts stores are drying up but a few still linger and there's even still a couple of the electronics junk shops around, plus that S/H camera store on Chuo-Dori run by (I think) an Indian guy and his wife. Hard-Off (the Book-Off second-hand hardware offshoot) often has interesting bits and pieces for the electronics scavenger and at ridiculously low prices in many cases. The electrical parts stalls under the station are still in business, I got some (genuine Hakko) soldering iron bits there on my last visit. Tourists, yes but more noticeable are the coachloads of Chinese tourists buying Japanese-made rice cookers and other domestic items at the various tax-free stores to take home with them. All of these stores now employ Chinese-speaking staff and a lot of the signage in Bic Camera and other stores are in Japanese, English and Chinese these days. |
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VORTIA
 SubscriberPosts: 941 |
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Ikebukuro being the go-to for female otaku is old news - Otome Road was a thing in the 90's!
There's no doubt Akihabara hasn't bounced back from Covid, but I don't feel like there's a real new Akiba. Things overall are becoming more diffuse. |
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fencer_x
Posts: 278 |
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Otome Road isn't even a thing anymore. It used to be you could walk that same stretch of road and hit like 10 different shops all catering toward female otaku, but when Animate moved their flagship store from its original location to its current one, suddenly the strip lots one of its biggest draws (even if the new shop is only like 2 blocks away). And then the pandemic hit, and most of the kbooks shops closed or downsized massively, such that now I rarely head over that way unless I'm already going there for Sunshine City or something. Although another notable draw for Ikebukuro now is that it's the only place left with a brick-and-mortar Toranoana (and that one of course caters pretty much exclusively to female otaku). Having been in Tokyo for 16 years and a frequent visitor to Ikebukuro for all my fandom needs, it's been rough seeing its decline as a place to go and browse anime/manga shops. With the pandemic, so many shops closed with all their goods moving online. I LOVED spending an afternoon and emptying my wallet browsing shops as I found things I never knew I needed. Now, all that good merch is gonna sit online, unseen, until someone who specifically wants it goes out and looks for it. I agree that Ikebukuro is overtaking Akiba as the place to go for all things fandom, but they both feel like they're in a death spiral. Please bring back brick-and-mortar shops (especially secondhand goods)!! |
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Amiantos
Posts: 342 |
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Huh the animate closed/closing is that what this article is saying?
From what I saw it's still open with no notice of closing and ANN doesn't cite an announcement. Friend was there earlier this year and said he was pretty certain it was open and got another friend going next week and I'm having him check. Unless it was a smaller one in akiba that closed. |
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Neohybrid_kai
 Posts: 144 Location: Indonesia |
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The charm of Akiba lies on its second hand obscure otaku shop, especially for old otaku. I literally spend a day long browsing those shops and found so many magical things; a moefied sanrio figure, stuff from 80s-90s anime, even eroge from win 98 era I played the bootleg version during my teen bought from shady store lol (I'm too young for PC98 era). Unfortunately my wallet can only do so much and I understand those stores caters to very niche market (I'm amazed they could last tbh). Of course I'm happy with the state of anime fan today, I just hope that those kind of store still exists next time I visit Akiba again.
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Greboruri
Posts: 378 Location: QBN, NSW, Australia |
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They really could have just gone to the Animate website and confirmed that it hadn't closed. The article they linked to specifies the merging of the two Akihabara stores, not the closure of Akihabara Animate. It's not just Akihabara and Ikebukuro have a lot less shops than pre-pandemic days, Nipponbashi in Osaka has also been hit pretty hard. |
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AP24
Posts: 144 |
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I was in Tokyo recently, I did feel Ikebukuro has risen and Akiba declined as an otaku district compared to the previous time I was there.
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ValkyrieZeroZeroOne
 Posts: 432 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Why is it undergoing renovation? It only opened in March of this year. Visited it in early May and it was still brand new. |
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Nigel Planter
Posts: 67 Location: London, UK |
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"Unfortunately"? Seems like a reasonable grievance that tourism is ruining a local economy and the living experience for the locals. Hawaii is facing a similar problem. And I know Japan's been having an issue with foreign tourists recently like all those streamers who were stealing food/skipping train fares and harassing people in public. |
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 476 Location: Oakland California |
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Earlier this year I worked on an Ikebukuro Station Area page for the web supplement of my book Tokyo Stroll. I quickly discovered that the web pages that existed before the pandemic were dramatically out of date. Many of the shops in the area relocated to smaller digs, merged branches, etc. The result was that, for now at least, my page seems to be the most complete source of information for the shops in the area. Note that the focus of the shops is still very much for female fans and cosplayers.
http://www.koyagi.com/TokyoStroll/TSIkebukuro.html |
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Wasureta
Posts: 52 |
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My first trip to Akihabara was in 1997 and the mix of anime/electronics was about 50/50 as far as I can remember. Since then, it skewed more and more toward anime. I don't think anime has lost much significance, but maybe it caters more toward tourists now. I do feel that there are more maid cafes now than before. There seems to be more maids on the streets. Some of the smaller anime stores have closed during the pandemic and the store space remained empty tho.
I haven't explored Ikebukuro much since 2008. That's when I first heard of the term, "Otome Road". Once I heard it, it all clicked for me as I wondered why there was so much BL and female customers roaming the stores. I did feel out of place. I think the biggest change is in Nakano Broadway. I remember spending entire afternoons roaming the various stores. On my last two trips, 2019 and earlier this spring, I only needed a little over an hour to check out the stores. I'm not into vintage things. Mandarake seemingly took over the entire mall. Mandarake and used Rolex shops. |
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