• Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I haven't been to Akihabara (or Tokyo at all) in my one trip to Japan, but I have been to Osaka's smaller equivalent Nipponbashi Den Den Town.

    It's very much a town of contrasts and alongside the mostly fine but usually expensive hobbyist shops and the completely unproblematic electronics stores, there's the horny sections of weebery.

    An uncomfortable experience ngl, which also extends to a lot of women on the streets advertising for at least partially sexualized establishments like maid cafes etc.. Some of it aimed at tourists, but by necessities of language barriers, mostly for local weebs.

    A minor interesting thing was how it was basically impossible to find any merch etc. for anything older than a year or so except for the huge shows and surprisingly, old mecha. Everything moving extremely fast, jumping from cash cow with waifus to the next.

    Indeed, as much as it would fit the bit, the only Azumanga related stuff I saw was the comic itself. 😔 Pretty good music stores though.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      We spent our last night in Tokyo going to the Golden Gai, a charming little stretch of tiny bars attached to a beautiful little nature walk in the center of the city.

      The only problem was wading through three story tall ads for sex work that fill the surrounding neighborhood.

      It's not just weebs. The city is an incredibly horny place in parts.

      • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Yeah, that's Kabukicho lol, the red light district. Kind of an infamous place (and the setting of the Yakuza game series!), even if it lost some of that reputation over the years.