Picture by Dao hui-ChenMaids are promoting the so called Cafés on the streets of Akihabara
Akihabara is well known as Tokyo's electronics heaven or Tokyo's otaku (おたく/オタク) heaven. Foreigners have to understand first, what an otaku is. "The closest English translation for otaku would be geek, although otaku carries a stronger negative connotation, evoking images of someone who’s socially awkward and obsessively focused on certain interests", explains Tokyo Cheapo. Otaku is for example the word for an anime and manga fan. If this is your interest, you will head to Animate (アニメイト), the place for anime merchandise. Here you find plenty of manga, DVDs, key chains and even themed food.
A maid costume at Animate
More of the same you get at Kotobukiya:
Cospa 二次元コスパ sells official clothing and accessories: costumes and related accessories of popular anime including Gundam and Hokuto no Ken:
Harry Potter by Cospa
Less prizey is secondhand merchandise. You will find it at Mandarake: This department store has over one million items, mostly manga and anime merchandise, of course you find here cosplay sets as well.
Lashinbang is another address for second-hand merchandise. Or you look for bargains at the Mottainai Flea Market in front of Akihabara UDX, held once a month.
Or are you the kind of otaku, who would like to be the master and served by a maid? This is the original theme of the Maid Cafés. @home cafe and Maidreamin are the best known. Be aware: Many of these cafes have a table charge of 540 yen, allowing you to stay only for a maximum of an hour or an hour and a half. Don't expect to be the master everywhere: Cure Maid Cafe (in the building of Cospa) tries to create a Victorian era ambiance, the maids are demure.
Maidreamin Maid Cafe
Cute desserts at Maidreamin
@Home Café
Victorian style at Cure Maid Cafe
Finally there is a service for train-geeks: In Little TGV the maids wear uniforms of station attendants and the food looks the same way:
Towards Akihabara JR Station
Nakano Broadway is the place for geeks.
We stop at Bar Zingaro, "a cafe that fuses Norwegian exports — midcentury Scandinavian furnishings, Fuglen coffee — with the colorful art of Takashi Murakami", as the New York Times notes.
Read more: Subculture walk Nakano
Fukumori Café: Fukumori is run by three Ryokans, which are all famous for hot springs, “Kameya”, “Takinoyu” and “Youzankan” in Yamagata prefecture and serve food and wine from Yamagata, for example beef. There is a shop associated, Tanafukumori, with goods from tradtional crafts to modern design.
Yodobashi Akiba: Here you can find any electronic thing - mobile techs and accessories, cameras and computers. but also coffee shops, restaurants, as a golf shop and a batting center on the ninth floor.
Don Quijote: A chain of stores selling almost everything, from groceries (sweets, drinks, snacks, etc.) to cosmetics, piercings, electronics to costumes, even the weirdest ones.
Finally we visit the place, where the Japanese IT-people look for good luck. They do it not on computer or smartphone screens, they do it at Kanda Myojin Shrine: Three Gods are enshrined here: Daikokuten – the God of fruity harvest, Ebisu – the God of fishermen and sucessful businessmen and Taira Masakado – a feudal lord. Here the IT professionals from all over Japan held blessing ceremonies for new IT ventures.
Zuisinmon
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