WARNING: A bunch of hardcore NSFW pics ahead, all of which you have to click a link to see, though a couple of pictures that I’ve decided to post might still be too risqu? for some, so proceed with caution!
Day 9: Akihabara (the return)
Once again, the day started with yet another move to yet another hotel. From inside the cab…
This time we moved to a hotel located in the heart of Shinjuku’s business/administrative district, meaning we were no longer surrounded by bars, restaurants, and shopping centers but government office buildings.
When I noticed that this new place was actually more expensive than the previous place (which was really strange considering that it was bigger and closer to the center of the city, which you’d think would make it more expensive… also, for something similar in Manhattan, such a room would cost $200+ a night, but the Toyoko-Inn asked for, get this, about $90 US which is fucking NUTS… again, everything was mad cheap in Tokyo), I simply had to ask Hide what the deal was. And the explanation given was long and totally confusing to all of us. By this point, the theory was that the Magma fest was in such heavy financial disarray that bad checks were being issued. So we’d stay for a night, and a check would be issued, which would bounce, but we’d be gone by then. It was starting to get pretty frustrated, and pretty much everyone in my party was starting to feel the same way. Seven hotels in nine days? A good chunk of the time was spent packing up, moving, and checking in, as well as getting lost, and the mass confusion on top of that was getting thin.
But anyway, it was the last day in Tokyo, which meant my last chance to check out Akihabara one more time. And since I was flying solo, I could dig nice and deep into the shit…
First, I went along with Joe and June to the JR train station. It was a totally beautiful day, and many futuristic looking office buildings all about. The area may not have been at all touristy, but there was still plenty to gawk at…
But after one quick train ride, I was back in the middle of otaku-city…
I basically walked down the main drag, Chuo Dori, and popped into every game store that caught my eye. Most places sold current software on the first floor, such as (current release) PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, DS, and Wii games, and upstairs was where the older and “classic” stuff was contained…
… It didn’t matter what it was, PSone, Saturn, Dreamcast, Neo Geo CD, Super Famicom; there was always a section for it.
Though my favorite had to be the cool game posters that were plastered all over the place
… That last one is for some DS game that I recall lots of folks on gaming boards on the States freaking out about. Something to the effect that “It may look all perverted, but its not! Its just another lame attempt at some stupid American video game journalist is make Japanese gamers look stupid and perverted!”
It was rare whenever you saw a bare spot on the wall. Here’s the inside of an elevator of another shop…
Many game shops also sold anime and manga. Here’s the manga portion of one such place…
… As you can see, the emphasis on animu chicks is quite heavy. You can’t avoid it, even if you take the stairs…
Some awesome PaRappa PSP covers that I planned on getting at the end of the day but totally forgot…
This Patlabor anime for the PSP features popsicle stick characters!
Here we are at the eight story super comic shop that I previously mentioned…
They also had entire floors dedicated to doujinshi manga, which means self-published comics to you and I. Imagine the mini-comic section at Jim Handley’s in Manhattan as big as the rest of the store, and more. Pretty amazing. Though much of the selection fell under the category of porn. Which is why I couldn’t take any pictures; the section was TOTALLY packed with pervy-types and I don’t think they would have been too happy to see a camera.
There was also one floor dedicated to doujin games, such as Big Bang Beat, which I’ve previously mentions, and has its roots in porno comics…
Virtually every place had a 18 and over section, usually in the basement, or on the upper floors. And these sections were often VERY clearly marked.
And upon entering, my mind was completely blown by the scale of it all. I had never seen so surrounded by hentai comics and DVDs and games all at once, let alone believe so much actually existed. I’ve posted NSFW pics in previous entries, but the following pictures are simply off the scale, yet they don’t come close to conveying the true degree in insanity (a lot of times, I simply couldn’t take a pic of the really GOOD stuff). Hence why I’m simply linking to them. Remember, definitely NSFW:
- A hentai DVD, both front and back.
Though I will post one h-game cover because its not that risque, plus its just so ridiculous that it has to be shared…
.. I almost got myself a copy of BOY MEETS WIVES, but I’ve learned from experience, the crazier/funnier/awesomer looking the hentai cover, the more of a let down it is.
Back to games, here’s a store that sold arcade boards! As well as cabinets. When I make my first million, I’m coming here to get an Astro Cade cab and a Radiant Silvergun board…
Some shumps at another place. You wouldn’t believe how fucking pissed I still am for not picking up DoDonPachi Daioujou. The Ikaruga Appreciate DVD was also on my list…
Hey look, the sequel to Vib Ribbon!
And for years I was obsessed with Groove on Fight, which is why I picked it up. Yeah, I know the game is mediocre, but that under cleavage Range Murata character is just so hawt (plus he did the character designs for the rest of the game too). Too bad it too got lost while I was moving from hotel to hotel as well….
All along the streets, girls dressed as maids could be found…
… Maybe it was due to the time of the day, which was the middle of the afternoon, or all the AAA ones actually work in the cafes, because most that I saw, like this one, looked extremely awkward and embarrassed. Hey, a girl’s gotta make a living.
Soon it was time to hit the arcades! Club Sega to be exact. Where pretty girls, at least real life ones, were hard to come by. This was perhaps the closest I saw…
Among the things I hadn’t seen up till that point were these Gundam arcade cabinets that fully enclose the player and offers a massive, surrounding display and booming audio…
I forget the name, but there was this 3D polygonal fighting game that had a fantasy theme. The character designs and overall look was very reminisent of certain Square titles, like Radiata Stories or the new Mana game, if you catch my drift…
Not surprisignly, since it was Club Sega after-all, there was a whole section dedicated to Virtal On…
… Much like Virtua Fighter 5, there was this huge TV set up to highlight the best matches.
But the one arcade title that totally caught me by surprise was something called the Shmups Skill Test…
… I’m really sorry for these piss poor pics. Anyhow, I had never heard of it before, and since returning, I’ve asked all the shmup aficionados I personally know about it and each one of them is completely in the dark as well. Basically, it?s a series of tests, presented in the form of short exercises to flex one’s various shump related skills, like dodging, hit box targeting, and the such. Kinda like Brain Age… but for shooters! Each game is packed with all sorts of references and in-jokes… one had you simply shooting at tokens, with the boss being some old sit-down, 80′s bar-style Space Invaders machines, pictured in the first snapshot. In the third is another game in which you have to shoot the garbage into the trash bin. I couldn’t really understand what was going on since it was heavy text-wise, at least the in-between rounds, analysis portion of the game. But yeah… Summer Carnival 2007?!
