Akihabara (anime)

Aside from electronics, Akihabara is known as a center for all things anime related. Cosplaying girls and a guy were promoting various stores by handing out flyers or small packages of tissues (So far none of Japan's bathrooms do towels and some also don't do soap like in the stations so these serve a very practical purpose as well).

I didn't bother going in to most of the anime shops as they were basically shelves stacked floor to ceiling with inventory with signs posted about release dates for upcoming titles but it was pretty cool seeing large buildings plastered with huge banners.

Notice how the blood covered Gloomy Bear is the one closest to freedom? I wonder if he cannibalized his friends to get there...One of the machines inside just had bloody bear arm keychain/bag attachments.

Akihabara (tech)

Akihabara is famous for it's electronics stores and anime. On the main road, Antec has its shown showroom not unlike an Apple store (though it was closed today). Places like Sofmap sell tons of new PC parts, and there are even real electronics stores that are stacked floor to ceiling with meters, tools, electric adapters, and spools of every kind of wire imaginable.

The back streets are where it gets interesting. Store after store has bins of used or extremely low cost parts, obviously binned from recycled PCs and laptops. Some of the stores even just listed the brand, part number, and price lists on huge signs out front which made shopping convenient. Guys were checking prices via cell phones and calling people to verify if something was a good deal or not. And, even though Nintendo's been taking legal action against the some developers (or importers?) of hardware that allows pirated games to run on the DS you could certainly find multiple types of them for sale here. Those usb2/sata/ide adapters were even the equivalent of about $10 at some places.

Finally on the tech front, walking behind I think the main Sofmap store, they honestly had a poster on how to properly wire up RJ-45 keystone jacks! Ok, enough on the tech...

On Business models

秋葉原 or Akihabara is filled with niche businesses catering to all sorts of things. While wandering around I thought I'd stumbled across a lolcats sign of some sort before realizing that it was a literal cat cafe. For 800円 you get a drink and can play with cats for half an hour. You of course aren't allowed to bother the cats and if they're sleeping you're supposed to leave them alone, etc. but it's definitely something different than your typical Maid Cafe, or Starbucks.

We need a Sofmap...

Ok so this is the computer geek in me talking but Sofmap is a cool store. It's like a corporate mom and pop computer shop with a ton of inventory. You can actually pick up and handle almost everything except memory/flash and CPUs but even with those you can see them and they mark the stepping so you can be extra picky if you want. Prices seem a bit higher on systems here than in the US even taking into account the exchange rate but they have a great selection. They stock every component needed to build a PC, and even some, er, creative things. For instance, they had a very specific plush bacon and lettuce cheeseburger thing that you kind of sandwich dirty CD/DVDs in to clean them. The manufacturer makes several different burger versions. Oh, and a Lucky Star Konata flash drive. Buffalo makes them, along with a lot of questionable NASes.