Tokyo: Part Two. Akihabara.

Continuing on with the re-telling of our Tokyo odyssey, we come to day two of our trip! The first day was just getting settled in the hotel and everything, so this was the first day we really spread our wings and started exploring the metropolis. We decided to start with a district of Tokyo called Akihabara, which I think might be my new home. It is the nerd capitol, the gaming temple, and the home of all things electronic, anime, gaming, strange and unfortunately perverted. There are nine-story department buildings filled with nothing but TVs, DVD players, cameras, games, and DVDs and CDs. Stores that sell giant Alien replica heads, beautifully crafted sculptures of video game and movie characters, giant stuffed adorable animals, whimsical music boxes based on beloved children's cartoons, and statues of girls with physically impossible breasts wearing next to nothing, all under one roof. It's an amazing place, both wonderful and awesome and strange and sometimes terrifying, all at the same time. But enough prattling on, let us begin a more linear tale from this point on, complete with pictures taken by yours truly. Friends, I invite you along with me on a magical tour of Akihabara, the Geek Mecca.

I wish I had taken videos of us just walking up and down the streets of Akihabara. It's really hard to convey the surreality of it all with just this one picture, but in general, games are much more a part of main-stream culture in Japan. In Akihabara it's everywhere... All the billboards are game related, there's not a single TV show or car dealership advertisement to be seen. The Club Sega in the picture above is a seven story arcade. I don't think arcades even really exist in America anymore. Even rental lockers are game-themed, as shown by the Persona 3 lockers pictured below.

Aaron and I were just wandering around for a good hour, just looking around and pinching each other randomly to make sure we were still somewhere on planet earth. Eventually we got more used to it though, and then we remembered where we wanted to go: Super Potato.

Super Potato is a three story game store, devoted exclusively to older games, or "retro" games as they are more commonly called. Anything before PS3, Xbox360, and Wii's release can be found within these hallowed halls. The top floor is a retro arcade, complete with a donkey kong machine and a life-size Mario statue, pictured above. Also present and 'representing' is Solid Snake, pictured below:

He stealth-kills anyone who fails to get the high score. The first two levels are all filled with games, with the first floor being the absolute oldest systems, and the second floor filled with systems and games that today's teenagers might have heard of, in whispered, revered conversations between their elder, more skilled gamer friends.

Aaron's blurry head made a cameo in this picture, but it should still express the amazing quantity of games this store had on hand. This isn't even all of the Dreamcast games.... it's just the first section.

Similarly, this is a picture of the first part of the PSOne section. The amount of STUFF crammed into this store was unbelievable.

Wherever free space exists in Super Potato, it is promptly exterminated, and filled with gaming-related merchandise and memorabilia. The picture above showcases some of the more adorable free-space killers. It was an absolutely amazing store, and we spent a good few hours in this store alone. I bought a game I've wanted for my collection since time immemorial: Castlevania Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine, a steal at $50 bucks U.S., with not even a fingerprint on it. I also found the first Vanillaware game, one of my favorite game companies. They make Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade if you are unfamiliar with them. Before Odin Sphere they apparently made a game called Princess Crown for the Sega Saturn. It was also recently ported to the PSP. Both versions are now safely in my possession. I think I actually cackled with glee when I left this store, it's just that kind of special place.

Between breaks for lunch and dinner, most of our time was spent shopping in Super Potato and countless other small stores scattered around the area. The rest of our time was spent in arcades. I have a thing for UFO catchers, or claw games. Japanese UFO catcher prizes are especially adorable, and I spend a tremendous amount of spare change playing them. To my credit, I'm pretty good at them and have caught quite a few cute plushy things up to this point. Aaron enjoyed finding arcade machines that he hasn't seen since he was 8 years old and playing the crud out of them. All in all, Akihabara is an amazing place, and I can't wait to go back some day. I wish I had taken more pictures, but the problem with Tokyo is it's so crowded that if you stop walking, you will die. You will be trampled to death by 500 Japanese salary men before anyone even notices you fell down. It makes taking pictures difficult, unfortunately. I did however manage to take a picture of this store's display of Persona 4 goods, which is one of my dad's favorite games, so that's good.



Before I end this post, I would like to share with you my absolute favorite thing I bought in Akihabara. It's actually the coolest thing I've bought since I've been in Japan, and possibly even before then. But I'm getting ahead of myself, first let me tell you why this thing is so amazing. When I was a little girl, my family would often visit my grandparent's house on my mother's side, since they lived in the same state as us. I have many fond memories of sleeping wherever we could in their house, with me and my cousins lying parallel in sleeping bags on the floor of the living room. As we weren't usually in an actual bedroom, we could hear the sounds the house made quite clearly. My grandpa Heinz was particularly fond of old clocks, and there was quite the variety of grandfather, grandmother, and cuckoo clocks in their house. Childhood to me is giggling with my cousins in the dark, and listening to the entire house sing and chime every hour. Since then, I've always wanted a nice clock like that, and in the gaming capitol of the world, I found one that suited me. 'My Neighbor Totoro' is a Japanese children's cartoon, that is beloved the world over. It's one of my favorite movies, and I love the giant, round Totoro forest creatures that the movie is named for. Without further ado, I present to you my Totoro cuckoo clock.

Don't mind the blurry bottom part of the picture, it's the minute hand swinging back and forth. This clock was incredibly expensive, but honestly I don't regret a single one yen coin of it. Every time it chimes, I'm eight years old again, and that, truly, is priceless. Below is a video I took of it in action. It chimes like this every hour, with the little white totoro peeping the current hour. Best thing I ever bought.

Next up: Day Three! Look forward to it!