Brian, Galen and myself posing with some random girls at Tokyo Tower.
I have two friends. Well, I have more than two friends, but for now, I will only tell you about two of them. So let me tell you about them.
In April of '06, Brian tagged along with Mayu and me on our annual trip to Japan. Galen is in the Navy stationed in Misawa in northern Japan. Galen came down to Tokyo to meet up with Brian and me and we had quite a great time together. Mayu, Brian and I arrived at Ikebukoro Station by the Narita Express train and checked into House Ikebukuro, our hotel. We met up with Galen that night at Ikebukuro Station and began our otaku shopping expedition in Tokyo together. We visited some game centers in Ikebukuro since those were the only places open that time of night. The next morning, we met up in Akihabara.
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Morning in Akihabara, before everything opens up. It's so quiet before anything is open!
Two great Akihabara game centers: Taito's Hey and Club Sega.
Yay! We found Galen in Club Sega.
Left: Neat-looking Gundam game, but I've never played it. Right: S@Y is another Akihabara game center.
Left: Inside Friends, a great retro game shop. Right: Yodobashi Camera Akihabara!
Left: We ate lunch at Coco's Curry House. Right: Toys Golden Age.
Inside Toys Golden Age.
Liberty's Figure Hobby-Kan is amazing!
The first floor of the Figure Hobby-Kan building.
Left: lots of neat stuff from the Leijiverse on the first floor! Right: there's a whole floor just for gatchapon!
Oh yeah, and there's a floor dedicated to plastic models!
We met up with Mayu at Snoopy Town in Harajuku. Update: As of at least 2009, Snoopy Town is unfortunately no more! It's been decreased to a single part of Harajuku's Kiddy Land. :(
Harajuku's famous Kiddy Land! Mayu and I love this place.
You can spend a long time in Kiddy Land. Each floor has its specialty.
The four of us returned to the Ikebukuro Station and visited the Keroro Gunsou shop inside the train station. Then we headed to the Ikebukuro Sunshine area for some more evening fun.
The Sanrio Gift Gate is a multi-level shop for all things Sanrio. Buy yourself a Hello Kitty toaster! On the right is a big game center.
We went to the underground shopping mall. All these pictures are taken of Moe Garden, a shop that specializes in Studio Ghibli merchandising. Mayu likes this store a lot. The last picture is a Sanrio shop.
Left: Ikebukuro's Animate store is ginormous. Right: the Sega Gigo game center.
Left: Brian posing with Sonic outside the Sega Gigo. Right: Lots of Rilakkuma goodies!
More Rilakkuma goodies in UFO Catchers at the Sega Gigo game center.
Manga no Mori bookstore. Soon after this, we called it a night and parted with Galen, who returned to his capsule hotel he was staying at.
The next morning, we tackled the Nakano Broadway Building.
Many of the stores don't open until 11am, so we first went to the Namco game center, one of two game centers in the Broadway Building.
2D gaming! Shmups! Nice!
Left: Retro games at the Namco game center! Right: Tekken.
Arcade boards on sale in the Broadway Building.
Left: Boogie Man's Case rents cubic spaces for individuals to sell their collections. Right: Mandarake's Gatcha Heaven has tons of anime figures.
Step one: Get a Kasumi costume. Step 2: Get a busty beautiful girl to cosplay as Kasumi and pose for pictures. Step 3: You're on your own from there.
Left: Robot Robot is a neat toy/figure shop. Right: a gatchapon enclave. (HA! I just used the word "enclave" in a sentence!)
Galen's checking out Pony in Nakano Broadway.
On the left are kobito from Seiji Fujishiro's artwork as 3D figures!
On the left are Galen and me looking at posters. a Macross poster for me and a Kimagure Orange Road poster for Galen! Right: I pity da foo' who don't eat my cereal!
On the right is the incredibly awesome Dendrobium from Gundam 0083!
So many Mandarake locations, each with their own specialty!
Gundam!
"Rocky Road!"
The Nakano Broadway Building is awesome. I hope by now you realize this. It was around this time when Mayu left us to go to Shinjuku's bus terminal to travel to her family's place in Nagano-ken.
That evening, we returned to House Ikebukuro to retrieve our luggage. Brian and I then checked into the Yoyogi Youth Hostel. After that, I took Brian and Galen to Shimokitazawa.
I took them to this awesome Korean BBQ (yakiniku) restaurant, Maruki. Galen introduced me to makkori, a really sweet Korean alcohol.
The next day, Brian and I strolled through the Meiji Shrine park, the back door to which faces the street near the Yoyogi Youth Hostel. It was a path I've walked many times before, and it was a nice break to see nature after the past few days being surrounded by urban technology. Plus it's a way to get to Harajuku Station for free. We teamed up with Galen and visited Tokyo Tower.
Left: Brian's manning the guns! Incoming fighters! Right: Me with some visiting junior high school boys. I told them I used to be an ALT in Himeji. Made me nostalgic for those days...
A trip to Japan isn't complete without piloting a killer robot. Brian got to do it.
We also visited the imperial palace grounds and Ameyoko Street in Ueno. Later we visited the historical museums in Ueno park.
Our next destination for the evening was Odaiba, the artificial island in Tokyo Bay. We boarded the Yurikamome monorail to get there. On the right is the Fuji TV Building. This day was spent seeing the sights of Tokyo. We took a break from all the nerd shopping.
Our first stop the next day: Asakusa!
Back to Akihabara! There's just no way you can see everything in just one day.
Brian and I wanted to go back to the Hey game center. Espgaluda II was the big game there.
Neat Macross stuff in Akihabara!
We checked out the Try store. Brian buys arcade PCBs. I wanted to get the Sakura Taisen slot machine!
Left: In front of the S@Y game center, we saw this crazy guy tearing it up on Taiko no Tatsujin blindfolded! He attracted quite a crowd. We parted ways with Galen as he was returning back to Misawa that night. Right: I showed Brian the splendor of Shibuya at night! We walked up and down the streets there. Plus we stopped by the Mandarake there and also a game center or two.
The next day in Tokyo was our last. After lunch at a kaiten sushi restaurant in Harajuku (alas, as of 2009, Kappa Sushi is no longer in Harajuku :( sadly), we grabbed our suitcases and otaku shopping loot and boarded a bus to Nagano-ken at the Shinjuku bus depot to reunite with Mayu.
The first place we found was the Fuji TV shop. There's Inoue-kun from Dokodemo Issho!
Left: there's Mina from the Densha Otoko opening animation! Right: an Ultraman shop!
Donguri Kyouwa is a Ghibli/Miyazaki-dedicated shop. On the right is a pretty cool dragon from Ged Senki, loosely based off of Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea novels.
Yay for neat Miyazaki stuff n things!
Left: The NHK Character Workshop! The big display in the front is for Zenmai Samurai. Right: But for most people, NHK brings to mind one character: Domo-kun!
On the right you'll see a Snoopy Town Mini, a much smaller version of the big store in Harajuku.
Here are stores dedicated to TBS anime and Nippon Animation anime characters!
Left: And finally, there was a Lego store there too. Not pictured was also a Tomica shop! Right: I also attacked the Nakano Broadway Building. There was a new Asobit City shop there. (Note: as of at least 2009, this store is gone. The Akihabara location still remains, however.)
These were displays at Asobit City. Check out the awesome Votoms and Megazone 23 mecha toys by Yamato!
Mandarake! Fate/Stay Night is super popular these days.
Figures, figures, and more figures!
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"Every time I meet a man, he's either married, gay, or getting killed by a giant octopus." ---MST3K