{"id":5438,"date":"2013-04-21T20:22:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T03:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/?p=5438"},"modified":"2013-04-21T20:28:43","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T03:28:43","slug":"arriving-at-otaku-central","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/2013\/04\/21\/arriving-at-otaku-central\/","title":{"rendered":"Arriving at Otaku Central"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I stepped off of the train, it was immediately clear to me that Akihabara does not appeal to the general taste of Tokyo’s homogenous culture; it caters toward a highly specific niche.<\/p>\n

There was a bout of heavy rain so I threw on my hood and turned my gaze to the neon signs on each looming black tower, most advertising\u00a0anime\u00a0<\/em>I had neither heard of nor seen before.<\/p>\n

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Other Puget Sound students enjoying the sights and sounds of Akihabara.<\/p>\n

I realized then that even for the most seasoned\u00a0otaku<\/em>, Akihabara represents a place of mystery, where something new and inviting need only be plucked from a store’s cornucopian selection of\u00a0anime<\/em>,\u00a0manga\u00a0<\/em>and video games.<\/p>\n

It is the place where new fans are born.<\/p>\n

My first stop was the nearest Book Off, a ten-floor megastore where I was able to find used\u00a0manga<\/em>\u00a0versions of a few of my favorite\u00a0anime<\/em>, including\u00a0Naruto<\/em>,\u00a0Full Metal Alchemist<\/em>,\u00a0Death Note\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Attack on<\/em>\u00a0Titan<\/em>, all for roughly $10.<\/p>\n

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Here is a store’s display for the gruesome\u00a0shonen<\/em>-turned-anime<\/em>,\u00a0Attack on Titan<\/em>, which depicts a post-apocalyptic universe wherein humans live in high-walled cities, fighting for their lives against droves of hungry Titans.<\/p>\n

Finally having pulled myself away from the store’s beckoning shelves, I met up with some other\u00a0students on my program and checked out a similarly vast\u00a0anime\u00a0<\/em>merchandise store.<\/p>\n

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My friend Eva’s pigtails fit right in with this particular store.<\/p>\n

The building itself had eight levels, one for\u00a0anime\u00a0<\/em>soundtracks, one for posters, plush toys and other memorabilia, one for\u00a0shonen and shojo manga<\/em>, one for clothing and cosplay outfits and even one level was devoted specifically to hosting card game tournaments.<\/p>\n

Miraculously, I walked out having not purchased anything, but that was mostly due to the merchandise’s steep prices (one of my friends spent $40 on a figurine from the\u00a0Final Fantasy\u00a0<\/em>series).<\/p>\n

From there, we walked over to the central area to take a look at the Gundam Caf\u00e9, inspired by the sensational\u00a0mechanime<\/em>,\u00a0Gundam Wing<\/em>, where\u00a0food such as “Heero Yui curry” and various Gundam-themed merchandise were sold.<\/p>\n

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This is a view from outside the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

While others were purchasing gifts for friends, I also dipped into the building next door where gamers ferociously waged war on each other, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the online\u00a0Gundam Wing<\/em>\u00a0arcade.<\/p>\n

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I would have stayed and tried a game but I resisted the urge so that I’d be able to afford the day’s main event: attending a “neko caf\u00e9,” or cat caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Found not only in Japan but also throughout Asia,\u00a0neko\u00a0<\/em>caf\u00e9s are often expensive but well worth the money for any avid cat-lovers like myself.<\/p>\n

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Some other students and I had decided on a place nearby,\u00a0Neko JaLaLa, where each of us spent around $10 plus the price of a drink to spend thirty minutes with some seriously sociable cats.<\/p>\n

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I decided on beer because I mean really, what could be better than beer and cats?<\/p>\n

Perhaps beer and cats and catnip, which the caf\u00e9 actually had, though I unfortunately didn’t have the cash to buy some.<\/p>\n

I particularly bonded with a cat whose Doppelganger was nothing short of Garfield himself.<\/p>\n

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He was a fat, orange tabby with an ambivalent demeanor that seemed to inherently mirror the comic genius of Garfield’s own character.<\/p>\n

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“Maybe I’ll pounce on it… I guess that could be worth the effort,” he seemed to be thinking as the store clerk toyed with him.<\/p>\n

Having tired ourselves out, as well as the caf\u00e9’s ten or so cats, the five of us walked back to the Akihabara station, boarded our trains and went home.<\/p>\n

At last, matching the spirit of my new feline friends, I allowed no time to waste\u00a0before brushing the raindrops from my whiskers and taking a well-deserved catnap.<\/p>\n

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As I stepped off of the train, it was immediately clear to me that Akihabara does not appeal to the general taste of Tokyo’s homogenous culture; it caters toward a highly specific niche. There was a bout of heavy rain … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":5439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[266,265,264],"class_list":["post-5438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tommy-stone-14-japan","tag-akihabara","tag-tokyo","tag-travel-blog","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5438"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5445,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5438\/revisions\/5445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}