Article "Akihabara's awful truths"

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fo20070927pm.html

Has some informative parts but I had expected a more open approach instead of just dividing between otaku and the "straight" and "sane". Go on and share your own opinions. And read the part about Hey Arcade after the main article.

 

I have to say that it's very sad what is happening to Akihabara these days. back in the early to mid 90's, Akihabara was a fantastic place ! Games for every possible system, really strange looking characters out and about, games playable on the street in mass volume unlike today. But what mad it so special was the shear bizarreness of it. Akihabara was like nothing else on the planet. The last time I went there was in 2005 which I must says was a massive kick in the nuts. Many small quaint game shops had turned in to boring DVD shops. The big boys had erased that special feeling of walking from floor to floor looking for the odd games in those small narrow shops. All that had gone. Even a park that I used to play football in with a few Japanese near Akihabara station is now that F*ing what ever center. sad days :crying:

yakumo

 

Akihbara is an encapsulation of the dork market. As such, you're basically blaming Akihabara for becoming shit, when you should be blaming:

a) Companies for making lame games
b) Consumers for buying them
c) the whole world for selling out

The reason you can't find games for every system (unless you look hard) is b/c Akihabara has never been, and will never be based on anything more than commerce. The shops there are there for one reason: money. (It was a hotbed for not only electronics, but for wares in general right after the war as it was one of the least shit-fucked parts of Tokyo.) It's a fact that those old ass games take up shelf space. A new used PS2 game will sell 3x over for twice the money before a PC-Engine or Famicom game will.

The only semi-unexpected changes I see now that I didn't see in the mid to late 90's is it's cleaned up and it's far easier to navigate. Does nobody remember the 2.5 meter wide "hallway" from the Yamanote line to the main gate wickets? It took 10 minutes to walk 50 meters on a Sunday.

Is there more porn? Yes. Is there more porn everywhere else? Probably. This is Japan. The family video store features porn where girls are tied up and sodomized w/ a broom stick until they shit all over the floor. Of course, her beaver mosaic'ed out b/c that would be crossing the line.

Are other parts of town getting worked over and losing their flare? Sure. You can't even park your bike on the sidewalk in Shibuya-ku or Shinjuku-ku anymore. WTF is that about? You can't go through Yoyogi Park on a weekend without some dipshit banging on a drum thinking he's some type of artist/musician. Never mind all the smoke and lame ass guitarists and pop singers with a power generator and a microphone.

Back to Akiba: I kind of liked the quaintness of the skaters at the now gone basketball court, but all of those evil restaurants and coffee houses... I'm sorry, those are a blessing. If you don't think so, you obviously never had to go take a shit in the area in 1999. You had McDonalds or Mr Fucking Donuts and that was it.... and they were always both packed. I remember having massive turtle head one day and had to run like 3 blocks to make it to the Mac. OF course, I bought no food as it's dog food (as I claim in other threads. )

Don't get me wrong. I wish it was the way it was... sort of. That's to say the change isn't all bad, and it's definitely not unique to just that area.

EDIT:
Nakano Broadway

That place reminds me of the third world. Musty and dirty doesn't make it better. Mandarake has a monopoly on the retro games market in that area and their prices show it.

 

Oh no, Akihabara has changed over the years. Gosh, someone should remind people that there is this thing called progress. During the 90s in London, you could go down the west end and buy import games from a large number of decent shops (back in the time when you could find import games in places like Hamleys and even Virgin Megastores...), go into a number of decent arcades and even visit a few shops that didn't have import games but were pretty good anyway. Nowdays there is an import shop singular and even that is getting less imports and there aren't any decent arcades. Most of the shops have turned into super markets or PC component shops selling over priced crap or things at their RRP and haggling is not existant.

Akihabara has changed but seriously it's still not that bad, you can still find games on every system, although shops are getting out of stocking games for the old systems as they aren't making enough money. A lot of the decent shops have closed or relocated, Maxload was a great little shop as was the original trader before it moved across the road under the railway lines, there were a few other shops too but they seemed to have ceased selling games and now sell DVDs and the like. There is an increase in Maid Cafes and dodgy porn shops but as Gaijinpunch said that's happening in most places too. It's sad and I would like to have seen Akihabara during the 80s ear of Famicom and computers but I never will.

Nakano Broadway is basically Mandarake, although there is a great F1 store there and a racing cafe too and there are a few other shops selling collectables and the like. I quite like Nakano found it quite peaceful as there is a nice park nearby.

Probably the only thing I don't like about Akihabara are the large number of idiot tourists and resellers who either don't attempt to learn any Japanese or whip out shopping lists and check prices.

That tour guide in the article too could do with being taken outside and being shot a few times.

 

There's a lot of these, and something I never used to do. I went into Super Potato to pick up a game for a shmups user last week. There was a white dude in there with (no shit) a multi-page list of games and a pen. Kind of sucks the fun out of the hobby if you ask me.

 

I was eating pho when read this, I started out happy to see the word porn but after "sodomized" I had to leave lol

 

I guess by the time I go to Tokyo, I might not be able to find anything below 128bit consoles.

 

For some it's part of the fun. During my times of Super Famicom obsession you could have seen me standing in Trader 2 with a list of games and checking which were rare and which not and for how much they went. Being surrounded by games, finding the ones on the list and discovering obscure titles was great.

Yeah, I wouldn't have needed a list for that but it helped. After two or three times I got bored and left the list at home anyway...

 

You have to know where to look, and most of all, be extremely persistent. Games aren't moved to sell obviously, as they don't have enough coming in (you can probably thank the internet for that one), but I generally tend to buy at least something each trip that is either worth it to me, or I can flip over for some extra dough. But yeah, you really shouldn't be going for the value. You go for the selection.

One of my old bosses rented said video in a Tsutaya (Japanese Blockbuster for all intents and purposes). That wasn't a hypothetical scene.

 

lol, i tought it was not real, too much absurd

now everytime i will see harry potter my mind will fly to this scene :lol:
btw what was this movie's name? i want to shock some of my friends:icon_bigg

coming back to the topic, i just think that akiba is shifting market, instead of offering goods for computer geeks, now is more oriented to pornography and anime goods

 

Akihabara is still full of PC component and computer shops, as well as shops selling electrical goods and even electric items (like cable) still much much more then the number of anime and porn shops. The number of shops selling retro games has fallen but the number of shops selling games has stayed about the same.

Then again most people that visit akihabara don't even know whats south of Kanda river or north of Suehirochoo station or even what is east or west of Akihabara...

 

And should they? W/ the exception of Nippori and maybe a few stations closer to Shinjuku, Akiba/Kanda is the lamest part of the Yamanote. Take Akihabara away and you have a bunch of businesses.

 

mmmhhh, ok

once i read an article that was pointing out how manga and anime stores were replacing electronics store, maybe it was referring to little retailers only

 

manga and anime stores have long been (always?) the minority. There are way more PC shops. There's probably more "shit" shops than anime shops.

 

And what pray tell is a "Shit" shop?

 

Just general computer crap. Look at the row of booths right by the station. Just buckets of wires, nuts, bolts and all sorts of other garbage. There's quite a few places like that away from the station as well.

 

Some of us, do find those kind of stores useful and more importantly cheap. One of those lovely stalls sells ICs, not sure where I would have found a 74HCT138 otherwise...

A lot of shops that have closed in Akihabara due to redevelopement have been the shops selling cheap food. There has been a small increase in the number of 'import' stores in Akihabara (ie those selling US / European games...).