@homecafe - A match 'maid' in heaven

Today I was lucky enough to make my first trip ever to Akihabara, famous electronics haven, otaku gathering point, and home to a ton of maid cafes. For the uninitiated, maid cafes are simple restaurants where pretty girls in incredibly cute maid outfits serve you food and have cute conversations with you in Japanese. As you can probably tell, cute is a word I will be using heavily throughout this blog entry. This trip, which I made with my friend Hikari, was the first time for either of us to go to a maid cafe.

There is a strict no photo policy! Food photos are fine though

The maid cafe we chose was @homecafe, considered by many to be the original maid cafe. Currently @homecafe is so popular that there are different locations all over Akihabara. We chose the original (本店) location on the fourth floor. In that building alone, 4 of the 7 floors were purely dedicated to @home maid cafes. Hikari and I were both pretty nervous waiting in line, which even during the least busy time was still impressively long.

Yes, that is four floors of @homecafe and a goods shop

After finally making our way into the maid cafe amidst cries of いらっしゃいませ！ (irasshaimase!) we were seated in a packed bench with elbows touching. Surprisingly the guests were roughly fifty percent female and fifty percent male. Even getting in to a maid cafe is about 500 yen, and combined with the dessert set, which includes a dessert, drink, and photo with a maid of my choice, the total came out to about 2100 yen. Not cheap, but its not every day you get to be referred to as お嬢様 (ojou-sama) either.

My 'Tsundere' parfait. Half sour (tsuntsun), half sweet (deredere)

Upon receiving my dessert, complete with the necessary "moe, moe, kyun!" and heart shaped gestures, Hikari and I ate our desserts, until "Sarah Ojou Sama" was asked to come to the front stage. I was pretty nervous, but luckily my Japanese hadn`t failed me yet. After some negotiations on which set of ears to wear, (I chose bunny) and which pose, (I chose heart), I took a picture together with the maid of my choice (つなさん）．Hikari and I had to leave soon after, as due to the popularity, there is a strict one hour time limit. After being presented with bronze membership cards, and called Ojou-sama one last time, we were led from the maid cafe. An expensive outing, but one that can only be found in Japan, and is truely worth experiencing at least once!

Otaku - A Diversity of People

As discussed in the first post, when the word 「おたく」was first put into use by Akio Nakamori, it was used to describe a very negative and very specific stereotype of individuals. Unkempt, foolish, withdrawn, awkward. For many people, this still seems to be the common conception upon hearing the word 「おたく」. 

However, my experience with おたく individuals could not have been more different. I had the opportunity to see and spend time with a variety of individuals who would be identified as おたく. Their situations were diverse, their personalities rich and unique. Today I would like to share just a few of those experiences with you all.

To start, let's look at a broad example and return to the classic おたくgathering point of Akihabara. However, each of these locations hosted a wide array of individuals. Young, old, various professional workers, students, male, female. There was no limit to the variety of people there.

The streets of Akihabara.

INTRO. ***This friend has always identified as an おたくfrom the start of our friendship. She passionately watches アニメ and reads 漫画, plays both Nintendo and Playstation games, and has a love for photographing cosplay. However, she is so far from the stereotype depicted by ****NAME. She is an active participant of her university's photography club, and has just begun the third year of her philosophy degree. And she is very stylish and good-looking!

Here is a nice really blurry photo from behind from which you will never guess her identity. I respect her privacy.

Though she is Japanese and lives in Japan, our friendship was born in the year she was studying abroad at my high school in Calgary! Honestly, she has done some incredible things! And more than that, her personality is delightful. She is easy to talk to, kind, fun, and well mannered. Upon first impression, I think many people would never suspect to hear her refer to herself as an おたく. But she is a prime demonstration of both burning おたくpassion and a rich and developed persona. 

Wait, no, I mean personality. I need to sleep. But please take this picture anyways.

I do not think she is the only individual like this. I have no doubt that there are many more おたく whose enthusiasm for their interests does not stop them from actively participating and enriching the world around them.

My final example, the father of my host family, is undeniably a true おたく, with the shelves of his room filled with manga, watching anime on Sunday mornings. But not only that, the mother of the family laughed with me that even though she wants to travel, the father never wants to go because he cannot read "Jump" magazine outside of the country haha. Furthermore, I experienced his manga knowledge first-hand when he took me to "Book Off" and gave me some recommendations...

しまった…

However, what stood out to me about him was not his passion for manga, but his passion for his family. He worked late throughout the week, but it was evident that on the weekend he let his love for his family overflow. Happily helping his son with homework on Saturday morning, dancing to Micheal Jackson with the mother, solving Professor Layton puzzles with the daughter, and even towards me, the honorary family member, watching anime and watching 嵐's variety shows with me (I love 嵐!) and proudly sharing stories and photos of his family. 

When people think negatively of おたく, I think they often look only at what they appear to be an irregularly strong interest, and forget the rest of the individual. But to me, this father was a powerful example of how おたく are also people, and can be full of such kindness and wonderfulness and goodness.

It seems I'm coming to the end of this blog. I'm not good at conclusions by any means, but I suppose if I could say one thing that I hope everyone could take from this post and this blog is to not look down on others due to their interests, or for any other reason. Each person has a story and it would be a shame to miss out on any of them. This blog is focused on おたく, and I certainly hope that people will apply this to them, but to all people, as well.

That's all I have to say! Thank you all for reading!

And good night......

Nakano Broadway for your Broad Otaku Shopping Desires

Nakano Broadway is a shopping mall located in Nakano, just a short transfer away from Shinjuku on the JR Chuo Line. Inside this mall is one of the most concentrated otaku shopping districts outside of Akihabara. Here you can find many hobby shops featuring items from anime, manga, idols, figurines, cosplay, electronics, clothing, military, and even model trains. There's something for every breed of otaku here! Leading up to the Broadway is a long strip mall filled with various other shops as well. Its a very convenient location for shopping that is not as well known as Akihabara or Shinjuku.

This corridor of shops is like a runway leading to our main destination, quite exiting!

I found out about Nakano Broadway after my roommate's host family took him there. He mentioned that cheap anime goods are sold there and that was all I needed to start organizing a trip there the next day. I'm a huge sucker for discounts and cheap, quality goods; plus I had been having trouble indulging my anime merchandise desires at Akihabara due to the high prices. Therefore, this is the perfect shopping mall for me in that regard, and I had no trouble spending over 4 hours in there. In fact, I ended up leaving only because shops start closing quite early around 7-8pm!

Two small figurines I got for around ￥1400. Normally these are in randomized boxes so it's hard to get the ones you want, but these were second-hand, so I didn't have to worry about that.

It is natural to compare Nakano Broadway to Akihabara because they cater towards similar consumers. However, there are some major distinctions between the two otaku centered locations. Akihabara is very well known, even among western non-otaku. But that makes it a major tourist attraction with some inflated prices and very busy crowds. The variety available here is incomparable though and there are many unique shops here with merchandise you can't get elsewhere.

A unique shop in Akihabara that sells artwork from various online artists, including my favourite artist, Kantoku.

Nakano is a more concentrated and condensed version of Akihabara. While the selection isn't as big, the stores covers the majority type of items that one would be looking to purchase in Akihabara. Stores are tightly packed and usually cater to a specific interest rather than giant multi-floor buildings. Since it is all concentrated in one location, its a lot easier to navigate than the many city blocks of Akihabara's Electric City. It is much easier to check out every store here than in Akihabara! There are also some unique sights here, and I managed to catch an artwork gallery display for one of my favourite series, Little Busters.

Never would I have imagined seeing Little Busters displayed in public in such a formal setting, I love Japan.  Full album.

Nakano Broadway has many stores dedicated to selling second-hand goods. The biggest one is Mandarake, a chain retail store that sells anything Japan and otaku related. The Mandarake here spans multiple floors and has a store dedicated to each otaku subculture. Otakus usually take good care of their collections, and so these second-hand goods are of very good quality. If you don't mind having used goods (that look pristine), I would highly recommend checking out these shops to find a great deal.

One unique type of shop I found is a rental box shop. These shops feature a bunch of locked cubes that individuals can rent to showcase and sell their items. When you want an item, you tell a store attendant to unlock the box, and after inspecting the item for damage, its yours! This is a unique way for sellers to have a small shop without having to physically attend it. It's much different than trying to sell your goods online and having to meet up with the buyer in person, which is a common method for western individual sellers. I found many unbelievably cheap items here, probably from sellers trying to get rid of their goods as soon as possible. Take note that most items do not come with the original packaging anymore, so getting fragile figures home can be quite a tricky ordeal.

These cubes contain many items ranging from literally anything from figures to posters to books.
Prices are listed on each item as well.

I hope this short  introduction to Nakano Broadway has inspired some readers to explore this unique location. It is one of my favourite destinations in Japan now after just visiting it once due to its highly concentrated yet easy to explore stores. The prices are great and I look forward to visiting it again once more before leaving Tokyo to indulge my final shopping desires.

Are otaku and collectors one and the same?

In Canada, I've met quite a few collectors. One of my friends is an avid Evangelion figure collector, who explicitly saves all the money he can for his expansive collection. Another collects old games, specifically targeting second-hand game stores to collect the rarer games at lower prices. As a child myself, I collected Pokémon cards, and ended up with well over 700 (not including energies).

Even looking at more famous examples, Jay Leno comes to mind; he is an American comedian worth gazillions of dollars, and collects cars of all kinds.

Jay Leno stands among just a fragment of his massive car collection. [Source: Corbis Images]

However, when I came to Japan, I expected that collectors would not be easy to find. Because of how harshly Japanese culture looks at otaku, I expected them to be "in the closet". That is to say, they would hide their collection hobby, and keep it to themselves, even if they were participating members of society. As a good example, in a previous blog post, we featured an otaku who had purchased 5,500 copies of a new album (which works out to around 8,250,000円 or $81,100 USD). While not exactly a collector, these are the types of extremes I expected collectors to go to in Japan.

However, I was wrong.

While in Japan, I participated in a home stay wherein I had a chance to spend 48 hours with a Japanese family. One of the members of the family, a 12-year-old boy, was an avid Battle Spirits card game player, and had collected what I estimate to be well over 2,000 cards. He also turned out to be the Kanto Prefecture Battle Spirits champion. But he was far from keeping it to himself; he was very proud of his awesome collection and had a ton of friends to play with! I was even given the chance to meet some of his Battle Spirits buddies, who also seemed to be very outgoing.

Though I didn't take any pictures myself, this is a typical Battle Spirits tournament environment. [Source: Exteen]

I also took a second trip to Akihabara and Nanako Broadway recently, with a smaller group, and spent more time intimately checking out some of the stores. While I was looking for figures of Hunter x Hunter, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Sword Art Online (yeah, I guess I'm a bit of a collector myself), I realized that everyone around me was sort of a collector, too. In each shop, there was someone looking for a neat collectable or rare item, be it from Star Wars or Sailor Moon, or just a replica of a real-life assault weapon.

But again, those who were shopping in these stores (myself included!) were just normal people fulfilling an inner desire, just like a connoisseur would enjoy eating a delicious 5-star meal.

It's interesting at this point to make a curious distinction: The term otaku is an odd one that does not have a consistent meaning. In the West, we are more than happy to call an anime lover an otaku; in Japan, if you say otaku, there is an immediate connotation of being a hikikomori, as we've previously explored.

However, in reality, having spoken to otaku, heard the word used by students and even teachers, and observed the behavior of people in otaku hotspots such as Akihabara and Nakano Broadway, I've come to realize that the term actually lies somewhere in between.

Though not as well-known as Akihabara, Nakano Broadway has a lot of anime and other media for sale and is a very popular destination.

In reality, even in Japan, "otaku" appears to be akin to the English term "geek", which also has no concrete meaning due to its varying use over time. That said, it's usually used to describe a person who has very unusual tastes and often goes to great lengths to enjoy such tastes, such as collecting, attending conventions, or immersing themselves (excessively) in their favorite media.

Just like geeks, not all otaku are hikikomori, and with the exception of a few (such as the aforementioned idol otaku), most just seem to be regular people who go a little further than most with immersing themselves in their favorite media.

So, are otaku and collectors one and the same? Well, no, not really. Not all otaku are collectors, and not all collectors go to the same extent as otaku. But I'd say that it's safe to assume that many otaku also become collectors in order to enjoy their favorite media to the maximum. In the end, this leads to a great overlap between these categories, and blurs even more the line of what an otaku truly is.