Furu Anime Panikku

As expected, a visit was once again paid to the holy otaku mecca. One can never get too much of Akiba. This time, however, anime shops were not so much of the day’s focus. Sure, we went to shops such as Animate, Gamers and the like, but the interest that day was the electronics shops. After all, Akiba isn’t named Electric Town for nothing.

Before I begin on the techie stuff, I would like to introduce someone whom we met for lunch at Akiba.

Gotoh-san was someone who Windbell had worked with online. I’m not really sure exactly how they got acquainted though. Lunch was at a Pasta cafe near Akihabara station. We were conversing over lunch mostly in Japanese, and it felt quite good when I could answer some of his questions without much pausing. Still it’s still barely decent. Looks like I need to grind much more to level up my Japanese.

Now that the introduction’s done, let’s begin. This was my first time stepping into an electronics shop in Akiba. My past few trips to the Holy Land were really brief, so I only had time to shop around in the Radio Tower, Gamers and a few areas around the JR station.

Most of the smaller electronics shops were not located along the main road, so we had to go into the various alleys in search of them. I myself was not expecting to find anything that would make my part with my beloved cash, so the visiting of the various shops was basically window shopping. It was time well spent.

39 Mikus~!!!

In the various shops, I saw things I would never see back in Singapore. Things along the lines of a pair of glasses which you can view the video output through, USB powered god-knows-what, as well as flight stimulation gear. The shops here made me realise how pathetic Sim Lim Square back in Singapore is. We seriously need a localised Akiba back in our sunny dot.

I got into a little trouble with the following USB device plugged into the laptops as shown above. I lifted up a laptop, trying to feel how light it was, and the USB thing came out. An alarm started sounding and almost immediately, one of the shop’s staff came over. I was quite shocked by the sudden alarm, so I just stood still and kept apologising. That’s quite a good way for preventing people from stealing laptops, since the alarm itself would scare the hell out of the shoplifter.

The Kotobukiya shop in the Radio Tower was closed for some reason, but I managed to stick my camera beyond the gates to take a picture of an Eva Unit 01.

Also, here’s the Revoltech release board just outside the shop. Gurren Lagann’s scheduled to be released on 15th May, while Razengan’s scheduled to be released a month after, on 15th June. You can see the coloured completed version of it right below Gurren Lagann. Both are to be sold at a price of 1995 yen, which is really worth the dollar or yen, in my opinion.

Akiba at night

Time really passes in the blink of an eye when you’re shopping for stuff that you really like. Money flies equally as fast too, although I did not really buy much. Just a figurine and some character goods. That’s all, really.

Dinner was settled at Pepper Lunch. Singapore has it too, but apparently, the beef here tastes juicier than back at home. The pricing is around the same range, though.

After dinner, the remaining time was all spent at Yodobashi Akiba. That place is total ownage. It has almost any electronics that you would ever want. The pricing is rather competitive too. The only thing I hated about that place was the stupid song that kept looping for hours. Imagine a song chanting “Yodobashi Akiba” into your head. Horrible, I tell you.

I managed to play around with some of the demo DLSRs as well as test out a few headphones. Remember the ATH-SQ5 which I mentioned in the previous post? That was where I spotted it. Sweet, isn’t it?

The day ended with Windbell purchasing a ton of lens caps for his friend back in Singapore. It was with his purchase that I realised that debit cards could be used in Yodobashi Akiba. Man, now I’m more than tempted to get that ATH-SQ5!

Looking at electronics instead of the usual anime stuff is quite a refreshing change, although both are under the huge categorization of Otaku. For those going to Akiba in the future, you should try going to such shops selling all the techie stuff. You’ll never know what you will find, so it’ll definitely be as exciting as hunting for anime goodies.