On my second last day in Japan I headed back to Akihabara to check out what I considered to be a super-geek store. Now, the area is already known for having a lot of the geek shops–video games, manga (adult and otherwise), anime, hobby figures, etc. This one particular store though seems to consolidate it all into one shop. Back in 2006, we’d gone to a branch of the store out in the far west of the city. Being that they opened a store closer to where I was located, I thought I’d check it out.
I wandered around looking for the building being unsure what to expect, but when I saw a tall black tower I knew that I’d found it. I was a little unsure about walking in. Why? Hmm…maybe I was suddenly hit by a little bit of self-consciousness. Did I want to be seen walking into such the place? Then it occurred to me that no one would ever see me again. Point! So, I started wandering around. Eight floors of geek-wares. Second floor had costumes and anime cels. The third floor had all sorts of manga and artbooks. I made a feeble attempt to look for a particular title, but I got lost amid all the kanji. I found two artbooks that I wanted though so I purchased them. In the other location, they put the contents in these heavy black bags which were designed to hide the contents. Now, that’s dead useful if you purchased something pervy, or mildly embarrassing. Thing is, in carrying a black bag, you’re sort of giving away the fact that you’re carrying something that you don’t want broadcast. This time, they put my purchase in a paper bag and taped it shut with three pieces of tape. Still opaque, but branded with the company’s name. I think such a bag still induces curiosity if you recognize the company, right?
So, again, why is an opaque bag important? Well, the fourth floor of the building was purely hentai. There were so many illustrated boobies and flying fluids. It was fascinating. This floor was actually the most popular floor in the building from what I remembered. There were a lot of guys perusing thing, pawing at the good, collecting piles and piles of…whatever. It all caught me off guard. As I walked up to the fifth floor, I saw a sign describing floor contents. I couldn’t make out all of the details, but I noticed that the fourth floor (the floor I was just at) had kanji for “men” on it. The fifth floor had kanji for “women” on it. Well, I wasn’t in the mood to face a full floor of men loving men, so I headed for floor 6. I don’t recall exactly what was on the floor. I think it was a full floor of doujinshi. Floors 7 and 8 had video games and hobby figures. Once again though, they didn’t have much in the way of figures from [that one show] that I would have been interested in. Feh.
Well, walking around with a bag from that store was interesting. I could have sworn that people were looking at the bag wondering what was in it. Or furthermore they were wondering what the foreigner was doing carrying something from the store. Maybe it was all imagined. Actually, I don’t think it was. I did some more general shopping before heading to Sensōji and the Nakamise shopping street. The street is full of souvenir type stuff all leading up to the big Buddhist temple. I’d been there in 2006, so I knew that it was a great place to get stuff. I went into one store to shop for a yukata for myself. I set my bags down as I was trying things on. One of the store clerks had to set them aside to access a storage drawer. As she picked up my bags, the paper bag sort of popped open a little bit possibly exposing the contents. The clerk started apologizing–genuinely sounding like she was sorry that I was possibly ‘exposed’. Oh, she knew. Of course, its not like I was carrying illustrated porn, so I didn’t care too much. In any case, I thought that sort of reaction was interesting.
That store, by the way, forgot to give me a free belt for my yukata. Boo!
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