To find your way around in Japan proved to be not-so-easy if you don’t know the language. There are, however, many nice people who can help you. Lucky! Your best bet would be to ask a uniformed person, like a police officer or a guard of some sort. When Yosh and Kajfa’s Japan trip began to draw to its end, they realized that there wasn’t enough time to get around to all the places they wanted to visit. So then came there saviour and friend, Kazu, and guided them around Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuya.

SQUARE ENIX

Shinjuku’s business area was quiet this day, and not a single person could be spotted walking the streets. Kazu, a miniboss at Square Enix (a game developer company known for the Final Fantasy- and Dragon Quest-series) explains to us, as we get closer to his place of work, that all the salary men lie unconcious somewhere, after the obligatory friday-drinking-party with their clients.

Despite being a major company, Square Enix doesn’t display or show their logotype on the building where they have their head quarters. It’s rather discreet and can be missed easily! You wouldn’t even be able to tell that it was Square Enix’s HQ if you were standing in the entryway. Unfortunately, the company has extremely strict regulations regarding visitors, who are forbidden to enter as a measure to protect themselves (the company) from spies from other game developers. Quite a let-down for Kajfa, who’s always loved S-E games, but works at a Swedish game developer company.

As consolation, Kazu took us to the special Square Enix’s store. It’s not as awesome as the company itself, for sure, but we couldn’t help getting as excited as small children when we saw…

All these Slime plushies from the Dragon Quest games! And you could of course find bigger plushies of Moogles and Chobobos from Final Fantasy. Cuuute!

This 50 cm tall Tonberry wasn’t for sale, unfortunately. Yosh even contemplated on booking an extra seat on the plane for it to get him home!

It goes without saying that there were other cool collectibles for sale! Here, we see keyblades from Kingdom Hearts.

When we found this Vincent-jacket, we thought we had found the coolest object in the store. Little did we know …

That they had a sleeping Sephiroth under the glass floor! In 1:1 scale even!

Sephiroth is one of the most loved characters in the entire FF-series, despite being a villain. As visitors in the store saw him, they let out Oooh-s and Aaah-s in delightment and reverence! Interestingly, many of the visitors chose not to step on the glass above Sephiroth, but instead took longer, more complicated detours. Yosh was one of them.

COLORFUL HARAJUKU

After our emotional meeting with Sephiroth, we headed to Harajuku, the part in Tokyo which is known to be a gathering point for teenagers dressing in the most peculiar and cool fashion. On the picture is the charming entry to Harajuku’s subway station.

Warning for claustrophobia! Kazu took us to one of the most popular streets in Harajuku, and the mere thought of diving into the mass of people made us scared! But as we are brave tourists, we did it anyway.

Left: A girl in kimono holding an umbrella. People dressed in kimono wasn’t a rare sight in Japan.

Right: Some guy with a cool hairdo.

Left: Girl with styled hair.

Right: Guy with a funny expression.

More pictures! Up until now, we hadn’t seen that many strange fashion pieces. There were a lot of people dressing differently than what we are used to seeing in Sweden, but still not being very noteworthy.

If anything, it was what they showed the stores that was impressive. You would think that they were selling masquerade-costumes!

The clothes weren’t even that expensive! It was so cheap, that we were thinking of buying one of these home just because we could …

And to think that these were the less extreme pieces …

When it was time for us to decide on the wackiest and most spectacular outfit for sale, this one took the prize, without a doubt!

THE BIGGEST CROSSING IN THE WORLD

Shibuya, known for its nightlife, the trendy teenagers and last but not least, the world’s biggest crossing! Just as you emerged from the subway station, you were greeted with the big billboard-ad for Japan’s own competitors in the athletics championship.

Yet another ad for the Japanese athletics. Here depicted as samurais.

On our way to the crossing, we saw a couple of sumo wrestlers walking past us. Cool!

We found a girl, who, from the back, looked like Misa Misa in Death Note. Natural Cosplay?

We reached the crossing! But … where are all the people? What a let down…

Huh?! As soon as the lights turned green, people from everywhere rushed over us! Where did they come from? It was empty just a moment ago!

Just for fun, Yosh rushed into the huge crowd of crossing people. Come on, you can’t just look at it when you’re there!

Summary

Well well well, this was the last blog entry about Yosh and Kajfa’s Japan trip. During this intense week, we managed to exhibit our pictures of Carolina Klüft at her press conference in Osaka, visit the holy ground of otaku that is Akihabara, spotting cool clothes in Harajuku and walking the biggest crossing in Shibuya. There are lots to experience in Japan, and we definitely plan to go there again. Hopefully, with the whole studio next time!

If you’re a lover of anime and games, you’ve most likely heard of Akihabara at least once. Akihabara, or “Akiba”, as the otaku lovingly call it, is one of the world’s largest shopping districts for games, anime and otaku memorabilia. We’ve heard friends and acquaintances shower Akiba with praise, being the place where you can “wallow in rairities, find long forgotten gadgets, meet cute girls in maid cosplay and see grown-up men dancing to anime theme songs in the middle of the street”. Yosh and Kajfa took a trip to the paradise to experience it with their own eyes.

MAIDENS - FRANSKA TJÄNARINNOR

Oh! If this isn’t the very maid cosplay that we’ve heard so much about! This was the first thing the couple saw when they got out of the Akihabara station. These two maids were giving out flyers to passer-bys. Good start!

They weren’t shying away from the camera at all! The maids have somewhat become a symbol for Akihabara and the otaku culture. The hysteria and fetishism surrounding girls dressing up as servants is a known otaku phenomenon.

As we wanted to investigate this maiden phenomenon further, we went to a maid café with our Japanese friends Kazu and Taka. Photography was unfortunately prohibitied inside the café. Though we can still tell you how it was; tidy, clean and with cutely decorated, all interior running in a shade of pastel pink. We were welcomed by a maid who walked to the rhythm of melody, taking us to our table. Here, we would find our prejudices against maids and otaku fulfilled. The menu told us that we could order some sort of omelet, topped with live lettering by a maid writing “LOVE” on it. Nearly all the customers were men, and they all looked like Densha Otoko from the drama series with the same name. From time to time we could hear maids letting out a small scream when she squirted cream on herself or a fellow companion. It is apparently some kind of fanservice offered to the guests. And to top it all off, the guests can buy a DVD, packed with pictures of the maids working in the café, and comfortably watch it in their homes. The otaku aura was so strong that you could actually see it!

Two maids on their way home after a hard day with flyer-passing, fanservice and handache from writing in ketchup…

Still want more? Chill! Just take a trip to your closest arcade hall, locate the UFO-catcher machine and get the maid outfit for your girlfriend (or for yourself!).

THE STORES AND ITS RANGE OF GOODS

Noisy noisy! You really know when you’re in Akihabara. You constantly get attacked by sounds from all directions poossible – signature melodies to games, anime opening songs and electronic blips and blops – all mixed together in a sound range close to pain, all played by stores trying to get your attention. In Akihabara, you can find store after store towering up into the sky, all dedicated to games, anime and otaku stuff. The floors closest to the ground have a rather wide and innocent range of goods. But the higher you get, the more extreme and obscure things you will find.
Left: An anime and manga store, floors piling up to the sky.
Right: Game store, also with many floors.

Inside one of the stores. The walls are plastered with anime posters, not leaving a single inch of empty space. It can make your eyes bleed from trying to figure out what they actually picture.

Left: Taking the escalator up, or the stairs down? Are we in an amusement park?
Right: Taking the stairs up will lead you to Sergeant Keroro, greeting you welcome to the floor.

The Keroro bunch jostling around in one of the cases. You can find figurines from most anime and games all over the place in Akihabara. The variety and range is HUGE!

Even the game stores pride themselves in their wide range of games! Stores like these are dedicated to the newest games, second hand games, retro games and hobby-made games!

There were “figurines” in 1:1 scale to be found here and there.

Left: The dream girl of many otaku. Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Right: Many guys’ dream guy, Snake from Metal Gear.

Yosh prefered something softer, like, say, a totoro plushie!

The otaku take care of their territory well! No one’s that been inside Akiba will come out not knowing what it is. Many stores carried a specific type of gifts, most often than not some kind of food, packaged with a clear message of where it comes from. We found this, for example, in a game store. It’s a chocolate box saying “Otaku’s sacred ground” and “Limited to Akihabara”. To the left, a can of coffee with Evangelion motif is pictured.

DANCING GROWN-UP MEN?

Yosh and Kajfa didn’t manage to catch any of those on pictures, because everytime it happened, the couple was paralysed, struck with surprise. They’ve seen big, grown-up men standing in front of store monitors, waiting for an anime song to play, only break out into dancing and singing as soon as that happened, as if being on ecstasy! Sometimes, men in suits suddenly stop in front of a store, eyes fixed on the monitors, in order to catch a glimpse of the current popular anime running on TV (in Yosh and Kajfa’s case, it was Lucky Star). You could see them breaking out in smiles, somehow forgetting that they’re standing in the middle of a store together with a bunch of other people, behaving as though they were alone.

People weren’t dancing in game shops, but many of them gathered around by the monitors outside, to see the trailers of the newest games or to flash their gaming skills.

WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?

So far, most of the people pictured have been guys. It is simply because the majority of the people cruising in the stores have been guys. On the streets, however, the spotlights are turned to the girls, perhaps because they dress upp in anime-fetishism-related clothes. The above picture features a girl, who had put a huge canvas on an empty wall in Akihabara. Dancing to Japanese pop music, she drew on it. Someone taped her performance and crowds of curious men started to gather around her.

Saturday evenings seemed to be the time of street performances in Akihabara. Girls with ambitious equipment singing to a crowd are literally everywhere. On one street, you can find up to 4-5 different ones entertaining the passer-bys. Many of them manage to gather a crowd of their own. The girl on this picture even had her own band, and they had quite a large gathering. But that was nothing, compared to…

This girl’s crowd! Men with cameras flocked around her. Some of them were practically lying on the street, in order to catch the perfect panty-shot. She had a really large gathering despite her mediocre singing.

These girls clearly had superior singing skills, yet there weren’t anyone watching them, despite only standing a few meters from the girl with the really short skirt. Surely there must be a formula for success in singing? The one with the shortest skirt wins!

BYE BYE AKIBA!

We celebrated the end of our Akihabara-expedition with dinner at a sushi-go-round restaurant. Plates of sushi are rotated on a conveyor belt, and the guests are free to take any plate to their liking. Different kinds of sushi have different price range. To make it easy for the chef and the guests, the price is indicated on the kind of plate the sushi is on.

The cheapest plates cost a dollar or less, while the most expensive ones landed on $2-3. We tried everything inbetween and drew the conclusion that the expensive salmon didn’t differ that much in taste compared to the cheaper salmon.

Summary

Well, what can we say? Rumors as well as biases were proven to be true, and one can safely say that our Akihabara-expedition was a success! In the next blog entry, Yosh and Kajfa are going to take us to Shinjuku to take a look at Square Enix’s store, to Harajuku to check some cool teenagers out and to Shibuya, to feel the pulse at the world’s largest crossing!