I was about to say yesterday – my last full day here – was a lazy day in Akihabara but that’s absolutely not true! The day was nearly ten hours of shopping and gaming and dropping stuff off at the hotel for little breaks since it was so bloody hot!
It wasn’t quite Sunday busy, but Akiba was pretty crazy yesterday with both locals and tourists. I surmise this is because a lot of stuff is released on Friday and fans have to be there at the start. For example the station Atre mall started its new collaboration yesterday (Stein’s Gate), a new MtG set was released yesterday (Modern Horizons 3), Game centers had new Demon Slayer acrylics which caused long lines at the machines and a whole bunch of new Kuji lotteries began yesterday as well.
I spent some time exploring the original version of Akihabara: the postwar black market electrical town which still exists behind all the anime and game madness. It’s always puzzling how a shop dedicated to transformers can remain in business, but there it is next to others exclusively selling thins like capacitors or cables or unidentifiable components. The owners look as old as their stock, but above photo notwithstanding most of these stands seemed fairly popular with customers yesterday.
Of course I played loads of games, especially retro ones.
And it was time to throw away money into crane games as well, albeit ones with small prizes since luggage space is all but gone.
I think I’ve got a game center post to do. Look for that next.
I almost collapsed once or twice due to a mixture of exhaustion and the extreme heat and humidity. But as much as I wanted to rest in my room the call of Akiba just outside the window was impossible to ignore…
Last days of vacation are always a bit melancholy, but I had a fun one yesterday 🙂