[Blog] Japan trip Part 2: Akihabara (Patreon)

Well, I took a lot of time to write the second entry, but life is happening... (what an excuse really) :P

Before anything, sorry if I kick the dictionary and the rules of writing :P

Before traveling and seeing it with my own eyes, I always thought that Akihabara was something like an little town inside the city, but it ends up being smaller than that. It's still big and impressive, but less than I thought.

However, that changed a bit when I discovered that every building with a shop was a shop with 5th to 8th floors.

I was at 20 minutes walk from my hotel from Akihabara, but I used a lot the Akihabara Station. This station is big, not as big as Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto ones, but more than a normal one. I believe you saw a lot of pictures of the columns with ads there. Looks like I did not make any photo of that, but I took one of the outside where you can't see that. I'm a genius!

At the right of that photo is, a bit more far, the Akihabara street starts. Before that, there's a little alley in form of T that ends in one part at the side of this photo, in the other at the other street that it's "out of Akihabara" and the long part ends in the Akihabara street.

This alley is full of secundary shops that sell things for the value of a eye, but sometimes you can find something you can't in normal shops. There's also more than just figures. For example, I found this one:

After that alley, you will find the famous Akihabara corner where a lot of games are advertised.

And the main street. You can see people in the street because was Sunday. On Sundays, at 12:00 the street becomes a pedestrian one. It happens too in another street near the center of Tokyo where even the restaurants and bars put their tables, it's something curious.

Back to Akihabara and with the reference of the image above, both sides are full of shops and also there are another 2 streets at both sides, tinier and shorter, of course, that are part of this district.

Between a lot of figure shops, you can find some of the known ones. In the main street is the Amiami physical building shop. I was there a lot. In the side street there's also de Kotobukiya building shop and also the Mandarake one... Mandarake has two entire buildings -_- One dedicated to figures, mangas and +18 stuff and the other... to tell you the truth, I did enter it, the first floor is full of pokemon and anime cards. The japanese love the cards gaming, it's somenting incredible.

I could keep talking about more figure shops, but that can be a boredom. Let's talk about the funny stuff, the +18 things. Every fucking building has a +18 floor if not more. Amiami has the last floor, the 8th, full of +18 figures. There I found the Imaizumin figure, but I ended up buying it online (and sent to my hotel), because the have the completely exposed one and I didn't like it, that one is just too simple.

There is also one shop that is "hidden" in the main street, Melonbooks, is in a... basement? A -1 floor. This one has a lot first hand mangas, doujinshi and novels. A section of the shop is also +18. I don't really get why is that hidden. You can think about "it's because it has +18 stuff inside in 1 floor" which is true, but then, why the fuck there's a sexshop building in the main street!!?? I can't find the photo, but it shines a lot because it's the only shop that has the full red front. I don't get the difference and why one is hidden and the other is not. Maybe is just a matter of space.

As said, some building shops are focused on DVDs (with +18 floors where I bought my hentai DVDs), others are just full of "anything" merchandizing like keychains, pads, etc and others are just figures.

One thing that catched my attention is that the majority of the shops, figures and DVDs, are sencond hand. It's not like the second hand of other countries where the product is practically destroyed or at least have a lot of damage or micro hits in it. The japanese take a lot of care of everything. They don't usually get the figures out of the box (something that for me is really strange as I have showcases) and the product is just new but someone else a part from the shop has taken care of them.

The only thing that put me in the verge of wanting to puke was something I found but don't know where. I know it was on Akihabara, but dunno the shop. Some of the shops, a part from the hentai series, have javs, literally real porn but with some with a lot of acting. Until that is all ok, but in a part of one of the shops I found the image of a... let's say, tiny actress with flat chest. I believe you know what I mean. That scared me until the point of running out of the entire shop, not only the floor. I do not tolerate that animated, imagine in real life.

Changing the topic, in Akihabara I ate one of the best Kare Raisu (curry with rice... I believe this annotation is unnecessary) I ate in Japan.

(I got used to take photos of the places where I ate)

One curious thing, in most of the places they don't have Fanta (I do not drink Cola nor alcoholic drinks), they offer you "orange juice" and the give you a bottle of the typical Cocacola drink, but with a "Fanta" without gas, I believed is said a still drink. On the other hand, they have a lot of tipes of tea which are not for me.

And to end this blog, I'll just shop the nonfigure and +18 things I bought there. You practically have seen all of them.

Koakuma Kanojo and Kono Koi (starting from left to right and from top to bottom, the 2 and 4 ones) are from Melonbooks, so they where completely new ones and both were the last ones in the shop at that moment. The censorship of them is minimum.

Fela Pure (1), Itadaki! Seieki (3) and the cheerleader ones are from Mandarake. Fela Pure from the Saporo Mandarake and the other from the Akihabara ones. Then again, there's almost no censorship.

And the DVDs are from diverse shops from Akihabara. They are censored, but I could not see them yet because... I don't have a dvd reader in the pc.

And the Joshi Luck collection!! I only miss the "3 years later" which I could not find anywhere, sadly. The first one is a compilation with the things animated, but with some other new scenes. The ones animated are practically a 1 to 1, but with a really nice animation, not like certain studio that steals some of the nice doujinshis there in the Internet.

Let's end this here :3

Next blog... might be Japanese food and some curious things about it.

Stay tuned!!!