Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Japan Day 6


Today we went to Akihabara; Anime, Manga, Videogames & more. In other words, the nerd center of Tokyo. And it definitely delivered on that title. First we went to the "Gundam Cafe" which honestly wasn't all that special, we got these really cool looking coffees there, but they were really just plain coffee in the end and cost more than a coffee any where else. The cafe itself was pretty small and there were just some gundam statues and figures strewn across the place. When we were about to leave some guy stopped us and told us to check out the bathroom, this man was a savior as the bathroom was the sweetest part of the cafe. You pressed some button on the wall that said "activate" and the whole room went dark, then two giant gundam eyes began to slowly glow brighter and brighter as the sounds of a mech coming to life grew louder and louder until the toilet seat mechanically rose itself up and you prepared yourself to lay a steamer into the Gundam's waste receptical.



We then went to a Maid Cafe, one that we were escorted to by one of the many maids handing out flyers in the street. At the cafe we paid for overpriced food and drinks that had a cute unique design to them. We then were told we had to do a spell over the food to make it taste better, we had to cup our hands together like hearts and say some voodoo chant about love and food. Then we were given a chance to dub an anime with one of the maids. Me and Alex did the two main voices and Tom narrarated the opening, we had another maid with us doing the third voice. I'm not sure where she was from but she was neither American nor Japanese. Whatever it was a good time, lots of fun dubbing it over. We got a DVD of the final version with the voices synced up but watching it again later we realized it really sucked... whatever it was fun to make. I have the footage but it is a bit too long to post on here.



Of course we came across tons of anime, manga, and hentai shops every which way. Even being there for a good 6 or so hours we didn't go to probably half of the anime/manga/game shops there. There's a lot to see! Another one of the highlights was "Super Potato" a retro game store with 5 floors of games from every video game console you can think of and even with a retro arcade at the very top floor which had an arcade version of "Moonwalker"!



We checked out the arcades in the area afterwards but it seemed as though the arcades in Ikebukuro were bigger and better. In any case Akihabara is everything I dreamed it would be and more, so much to see and do!

Tomorrow, Sony building + Hakuhinkan Toy Park + Ueno Park

Later

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