PM of Japan is “Cool old dude” ?

I snapped this picture in Akihabara yesterday. The guy in the cartoon is Japan’s Prime Minister, Mr. Aso, with a huge grin, saying “I love Akiba”. While I don’t doubt his liking Akihabara – it is one of the hustling parts of Tokyo’s economy and pretty popular with tourists I believe – it is the first time I see anyone call the guy “cool”. Now, I have heard the “old dude” title pretty often but by itself that seems to imply the opposite of “cool”…

Arcades in Japan (part 1)

Japan is home to many cool pieces of technology and arcades are no exception. Now one thing I need to make sure I mention - by arcades I don't mean your typical "move the stick and press the button" type of machines. There is so much more from IC-card based football/soccer simulations to touchscreen offerings letting you pinpoint where to make your next "strike". I will try to write about different arcade machines I see (though keep in mind most of -extra cool- ones have a "No Photos" sign on them...).

Game: Half Life 2

Type: First Person Shooter

Location: Taito Building, Arcades Floor, Akihabara

Today I saw a few cool arcade machines in Akihabara which of course is the capital of this sort of thing and one of them was extremely... interesting. Half Life 1 was one of my favorite games on the PC when it came out a while back. I played Half Life 2 on PC and the consoles but never saw an arcade machine of the game before. Come to think of it I don't think I have ever seen a first person shooter as an arcade machine but here they were in Akiba, four of them linked together for deathmatches. There are basically two controllers and two pedals - left controller allows for moving in a given direction and turning while the right controller, which is a joystick allows changing weapons, aiming, and shooting with both primary and secondary modes. Pressing the left pedal lets the player crouch while pressing the right is for jumping. I know it sounds complicated but after the first few minutes it does not feel as awkward or difficult as it might initially seem. There is the option of using an arcade card (like I mentioned before) in this game which lets users record their stats and any special weapons they may have gained. The game allows choosing a player class (soldier, ranger, scout, sniper, etc...) and gender for your character. The class determines your attributes such as the types of weapons you start out with and your speed.

Two weeks on, life is returning to normal in Akihabara

It was two weeks ago today around this time that Tomohiro Kato (加藤智弘) rammed people walking on the street at Akihabara and proceeded to attack the survivors and onlookers with his knife - an event that left 7 dead in one of the safest cities in the world sending shockwaves through the country. I was at Akihabara yesterday to see how/if things are different two weeks on. The good news is it looks like people have returned (for a few days after the attack the people seemed very hesitant to go to Akihabara) but of course this does not make the event any less painful. The picture is of the intersection that the attack took place in.

The attack took place on and around the big intersection close to the train station as it was one of the few through roads which was open to vehicle traffic around the area (now the whole practice of closing the street to traffic is scrapped). There is now a makeshift memorial close to the intersection. Passing people stop and get in line to pray in front of the memorial. They also leave unopened bottles of drinks (water, coke, tea, etc..) and snacks (chips, and even a mellon) as a part of the tradition. It was such a touching sight with so many people taking the time to pray as they pass by. I kept my prayer very silent and from a relatively far spot as I did not want to interfere.

Knife attack in Akihabara (秋葉原)

It looks like a crazed 25-year old drove his truck into pedestrians walking on the road at Akihabara today (on Sundays the place is closed to traffic so people can freely go around and shop as well as perform on the street wearing outfits reminiscent of anime). The guy did not stop there and proceeded to attack people who got close with his knife. Slightly less than 20 people were injured with I think 7 casualties so far. Given that I like Akihabara quite a bit, visit there once a few weeks, and was there yesterday this is extra scary. I am not sure what was his problem but I know, for the police, it must be very difficult to be prepared for something like this. This won't stop me from visiting the place or anything but... scary...

Robots, robots, everywhere...

I mentioned the seeming infatuation of the Japanese with all different kinds of robots. One really needs to keep an eye out because robots really do show up in random places, trying to get the attention of people passing by. I took this picture in Akihabara passing in front of at least 10 of these robots on the street. For the cute little girl all of the craziness of Akiba seemed miles away as she spent a good two-three minutes completely focused on the robot, trying to get it to respond to her.

You might say "Well, of course there are robots. This is Akihabara. It's full of electronics stores." While you would be completely right, the store these were tied in front of was a... sandwich stand. Only in Japan...

Would you like a private room for an hour?

Here is a picture of a very interesting store I came across while visiting Akihabara （秋葉原）. The service they provide is renting you a room basically for up to 12 hours. You get all the amenities in the room - digital TV, DVD player, magazines to read and of course internet access. The store is open 24 hours a day so I guess one could also spend some of that 12 hours sleeping but there was no sign of whether or not they also provide you with a bed but I don't think they do. Still - this is something I see for the first time in my life. I guess there is a need for the service :)

I was on Fuji TV!

I was in Akihabara on Monday, taking advantage of the long weekend when a nice reporter lady stopped me to do an interview for Fuji TV. It was a good 5 minute interview with quite a few questions ranging from my favorite spots in Tokyo to "funny experiences with Japanese culture". Unfortunately I forgot to ask when it would be aired but at least I managed to get a picture out of it as a souvenir :)

Akihabara Electric Town (秋葉原)

Akihabara, or Akiba as the locals seem to prefer calling it, is basically the capital of anything and everything electronic and electric in Tokyo. May be that's why they call it the Electric Town. Its fame is well beyond the borders of Japan - I heard about it when I was back in the US - so I know I had to go see it for myself now that I happen to live in Tokyo...

Getting to Akihabara from Kichijouji (吉祥寺) is pretty painless. One can take the Chofu line local directly there for example but since this is a local train it makes lots of stops. I instead took the Chofu Rapid from here to Ochanomizu (御茶ノ水) which takes about 25 minutes, and then took the local JR Chofu-Sobu train from there to Akiba. The whole trip takes about 30 minutes and costs ￥３８０. On an unrelated note, Ochanomizu seemed very pretty from the train with a river going across it. I might check it out if/when I get a chance.

Once you get out of the train station, the first thing you realize, I guess if it is during the weekend, is that there are lots and lots of people. It is kinda like Shibuya (渋谷) from that respect but here people are not just on the sidewalk but also on the road. Just like Ginza (銀座) they cut off the traffic to let people roam around. This does change around 5 pm though and the traffic is left back in.

There are lots of stores with "Tax Free" signs designed to attract tourists. Basically, if you are a tourist you can buy things a little cheaper is what they mean. Of course that's assuming you were't paying more than you would somewhere else to begin with... Since they get a lot of tourists the big stores (and they are big, they all have at least 5 floors) have people who can speak different languages. In fact, in the last store I stopped at I heard someone talking in Turkish trying to sell memory cards to some tourists from Turkey. They also sell equipment designed for overseas usage. This means what you buy from there would work with both 110V and 220V but more importantly it would have and English user interface and manual. You can even find game consoles and games for other regions as well as computer software like Vista and Office in English. I even saw computers with English OSs for sale. I bought a region-free slim DVD player which also plays DivX and DVD audio.

Of course they do not just cater to foreigners in Akihabara. There are lots of trading card collectors browsing stores as well as manga enthusiasts. I even went through a store dedicated to building models. One floor was purely robots, another trains, yet another warships and warplanes and yet another lots of different kinds of guns.

One quick hint - even the most benign looking store might have a floor dedicated to... well... pornography. So don't be surprised if you find yourself surrounded by animated porn when in the previous floor you were looking at something very innocent. If you don't want to be surprised just check for the number 18 - even if you may not understand the rest of the sentence the number is a good hint.

There are huge buildings filled with arcade games of all sorts. Some of these are your typical arcade games you can find pretty much anywhere but I saw some games that are built completely different. Leveraging the IC technology that they use in Suica and putting that together with collecting Trading Cards, Sega and other game makers built arcade machines that require you to use Trading Cards to play. For example, there was a soccer game where you use the cards to determine the players you will field. The better your cards are, more competitive you become in the game. They also have huge versions of the "claw" machines where you try to adjust the claw and get it to pick up and give you items. In the US the biggest item I saw these things to pick up was a kid's soccer ball. Here, they have claws picking up huge stuffed toys and various other things including medium sized nude models of characters from video games and anime and electric tie racks.

I feel like the 4-5 hours I spent there was not nearly enough. I will definitely go back to give the place a more through checking may be next week.