Robot Claw

Akihabara

June 12th, 2024

Getting the most out of Akiharaba (‘Akiba’) is hard work. I’ve been here dozens of times – indeed tonight will be the 21st night I’ve stayed in the center of Akiba – and even I can’t hope to visit all the shops I’m interested in on a single day.

So when the heat was as oppressive as it was today, I felt sorry for the tourists I saw so obviously overwhelmed and too hot or tired to be able to do much about it. They were wandering around like zombies, looking like they didn’t even know where to start when they were surrounded by the sorts of shops they probably had dreamt of visiting for years.

And yet, they were me once. I recall back to our first Japan trips: I’d spend a few hours in Akiba once and have the time of my life. I didn’t even know that many of the stores I always visit now even existed, but I still had a great time on those days Akibawas our destination. I’m older and wiser now and my goals and experience in Akiba shopping are very different, but I’d like to think I’m still as starry-eyed as I was 22 years ago.

Today I lazily toured the shops and game centers of Akiba. I couldn’t buy much since I’ve mostly ran out of space, but it’s always fun to look at insanely rare video games, beautifully sculpted and painted figurines or professionally built model kits. Akiba is full of all this and more.

Today I played many crane games (and even won a few things). I played lots of retro arcade games. I had my favourite Japanese meals for lunch and dinner and before I knew it the sun was setting. Did I visit every shop I wanted to? No chance, but I’ve got two full days left 🙂

Only here would you see a Colonel Sanders statue cosplayed as a wizard to celebrate a KFC x Final Fantasy XIV collaboration! And only here would you see two girls cosplaying as shrine maidens pose with said statue for some photos. And as I was watching my attention was caught by a guy in the distance wearing what looked like a grass skirt and wearing a ludicrously tall hat (taller than himself). Who was he and why was he dressed so outrageously? I’ll never know but I do know it’s just another day in Akiba.

I love it here 🙂

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The Heat Has Descended

June 11th, 2024

Yesterday I returned to Shinjuku and Shibuya to fill some shopping requests. I set out to arrive when the shops opened, which meant rush hour on Tokyo trains!

When we first came to Japan train pushers (men that pushed people onto trains) were still a thing, but these days the trains are more frequent so they’re not required. However at rush hour the trains still fill to near-bursting, and you can tell from the above pic why I waited for the next one.

When it came it filled up very quickly, and then the compression began. The strategy is to back onto a full train, pushing your way forcefully inwards compressing those behind you. For such a polite society people can be rather extreme in the way the push themselves onto trains, but I suppose Tokyo commuters get used to it. I was a human sardine for a few stations, until we reached Tokyo station and most got off.

There were heat warnings all over the news and even in the trains yesterday. The ambient temperature wasn’t too high (about 85F) but the humidity was incredible and walking outside for even short distances was draining. It was a day of shuffling from air conditioning to air conditioning 🙂

My shopping was a great success, although some of the things I purchased were heavy so my arm was tired when I got back over seven hours later!

Naturally I spent a few hours in Akihabara shops and arcades as well. In Hirose arcade I put ¥100 in the Ultraman shooter and it didn’t work so I asked an employee to check. One thing led to another, escalating up the chain with each employee getting older until this:

It turns out the coin got stuck somewhere in the machine and he had to almost get inside to free it! While he was doing this, I saw a bee fly out from behind the machine! I didn’t want to alarm him so I said nothing and hoped there wasn’t a nest in there somewhere. He fixed things, gave me my ¥100 back, and gave me 4 credits for my patience 🙂

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Lunatics Only: Handhelds

June 10th, 2024

In the last few years I’ve noticed an increase in the amount of LCD and VFD handhelds appearing in Japanese retro game stores. Where once these were overlooked by most retro gamers, they’ve now become sought after amongst collectors of my vintage and prices continue to rise.

The kings of this category are of course Nintendo Game & Watches. We all had them in the 1980s, but most were tossed away. Very rare are surviving boxes, which is why the Flag Man (second from left) in the above pic is over $750. I recall many years ago seeing a full set of these in a store window in Mandarake. These days a full set would be worth tens of thousands of dollars!

I own a few of these, and they’re in great condition. Seeing these prices today for poor condition examples was a bit eye-opening!

The game on the right is one of several licensed LCD games, this time based on the anime Aura Battler Dunbine. It’s very likely a poor game – Nintendo cornered this market for a reason – but its high price (~$260) would be all about the license. Some of the licensed Bandai LCD games sell for almost as much as the rarest Game & Watches, especially the old Gundam and Ultraman games.

Here’s a shelf of old VFD games. They’re not very expensive (~$30 each) but I’d wager many have screen or capacitor issues and of course they all lack boxes, which would likely at least triple the price. If I had space I would have taken a risk on at least one of these.

We used to own the Scramble machine on the right (and I bet Bernard can remember the tune as well as I can) and we played it like mad baboons. It was one of the best selling VFD games worldwide, which is probably why even boxed the unit I saw today was only ¥6600. Had I the space, I would have purchased it in an instant. (Also check out that so-bad-it’s-good art on the Lupin box!)

The above is the sort of thing I love seeing in the retro game shops of Akihabara and Nakano: an amazing looking VFD I’d never heard of but absolutely would have wanted as a child. The theme is Ancient Greece with monsters, the box art is beautiful, and the game graphics are very detailed for its time (you can watch the original Japanese advert here). The price was about $300 which is obviously too high for me but there’s some Japanese guy my age who had this as a kid that’s going to buy this without hesitation 🙂

I don’t think I’ve ever blogged something like the above before: a ‘junk’ item. These are common in the retro game shops, and the term is used to describe something that is known to be broken but can also be put on items that simply are not tested (which often means presumed to not work).

This one is an LCD pachinko game – or rather was a pachinko game. If it had worked, I probably would have bought it for several times the ~$5 they were asking.

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Shop Till I Drop

June 10th, 2024

It rained overnight and as I headed to the laundromat this morning (at 5 am!) it was still coming down. I washed all my clothes and wrote postcards, and by the time everything was dry the rain had ended and the humidity was off the scale. Typical Japanese summer!

These past two days have been almost exclusively shopping and since I’m in my favourite shops on the entire planet you can appreciate I’m having fun 🙂

Today I took the train to Nakano Mall which I visit every trip and many times I wished I could take more than two suitcases back because I saw so much I would have loved to buy.

I saw the above arcade game today, and I can’t recall ever seeing it before. It’s a music game with a full keyboard control method, so you’re ‘playing the piano’ as you play the game. You have to hit keys to match the notes coming down the screen and it’s a lot of fun! I only played once but that was three songs and the game lasted maybe 20 minutes! As you can see, I nearly mastered it. I reckon a music game fan with actual piano experience (such as SFL) would love this!

This relentless shopping cycle will continue – with a few notable asides – the rest of this week. Kristin’s given me her list now, and you can bet I’ll hop all over Tokyo to so my best to fill it (and of course pick things up for myself too).

As usual I’ll blog what I bought when I return, and I’m going to do a few dedicated posts for some of the more interesting things I see in shops this week. In fact I think I’ll do one right away…

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Let’s Talk About Stamps

June 9th, 2024

This post is dedicated to Sue, who (I think) wanted me to send her an eki stamp, and this gave me the idea to blog about rubber stamps!

eki stamps are rubber stamps available at virtually every train or transport station in Japan. Travelers can put these stamps into a stamp book as a record of their journeys, and they are very commonly collected. The first few times we’ve visited Japan we’ve done just this, but in recent trips I usually just put them on a postcard if I have one handy.

The above photo shows the two stamps available at Kinugawa station, and the imprint of the Tobu (as opposed to Metro) Asakusa station stamp.

Eki stamps are so popular in Japan that many other attractions including shopping centers and amusement parks have them as well. Both Tobu World Square and Edo Wonderland had them, but I didn’t have a postcard on me to collect the imprint.

Sometimes time-limited stamps exist to promote tourism or attract customers. An example of this is currently underway in Kinugawa: there are six demon statues around town, and next to each is a little wooden ‘house’ containing a stamp. The idea is to have fun finding all demons and collecting the six stamps. I found four in my wanderings, and put the stamps on postcards.

Another example are six bookstores around Tokyo currently having rubber stamps for the manga Frieren available free to use, and the sign next to them humorously says each time you use one you unlock a fast travel to that bookstore. These stamps are very cute, and I got one in January and another today. I wonder where the other four are?

Another common use of stamps is for a type of bingo or treasure hunt, and there’s one going on right now in Akihabara. Nine stamps related to the series Quintessential Quintuplets are available at various shops in Akihabara, and if you stamp them on the (free) bingo card you can get prizes. This is of course a way to get customers into shops, and it’s clever since 5 stamps are free but the other 4 require you to buy something. So everyone can get at least one free prize (a sticker) but if you spend money in the shops you can end up getting much more.

If you read yesterday’s blog post you will also remember the maze also used rubber stamps as a record of completion, which is the same basic idea.

Of course all these rubber stamps can be used to stamp anything you like, and reports say a handsome and wise young Australian was seen today putting one of the Quintuplet bingo stamps onto a postcard…

And then there’s this incredible rubber stamp at the reception in my hotel. It’s a three-colour design created by successive application of three different stamps. A plastic guide is provided to make sure the three align, and I’m sure you’ll agree it looks great! While using the stamp is free, it’s actually an advertisement, and you can order your own (in multiple designs with whatever text you like) for only $200!

You may have guessed with all the talk of mad postcard stamp applications, but some of you will be getting a card with a stamp on it. I’ll let you wonder which one, but so far it’s not the hotel one since it’s specific to this hotel rather than a place and I’m not sure you’d be interested. But it’s so cool if you want it, just text me or leave a comment (and don’t delay for obvious reasons).

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