You know you're obsessed with tokasatsu when you visit Japan and these are the first souvenirs you buy:
Seriously, Akihabara is all I expected and more! I'm thinking I need to go back tomorrow evening and look through more shops. Anyone who's been here have any suggestions?
P.S. Akibaranger Season 2 is being seriously marketed here right now. I haven't seen a single Kyoryuger or Wizard ad, but Akibaranger is everywhere. And I now understand why the batteries are in Kyoryuger: so Bandai would have a million toys to market to kids similar to the ranger keys from Gokaiger.
It hasn't been updated in 4 years so there's quite a few shops that have moved but most are still there. I'd definitely visit the porn store if I was you, it's good for a laugh.
To be fair, KR and SS are more for the kids while Akibaranger is specifically aimed at the geeky adult so it's no wonder they advertise heavily in Akihabara XD
Whoa, there's an elementary school in the northwestern part of Akihabara? If I was growing up in Japan, I'd want to go to school there. Even if I was living in Hokkaido or Kyushu.
Thanks, Luna and Take! Great stuff! I have to admit I'm a little disappointed that the closest thing to Akibaranger's cafe is the Gundam Cafe at the subway station. Someone needs to make some money off that.
Crimzonite wrote:Whoa, there's an elementary school in the northwestern part of Akihabara? If I was growing up in Japan, I'd want to go to school there. Even if I was living in Hokkaido or Kyushu.
That would explain the crowds of school kids in uniforms waiting to get into the comic shops as they opened at 10:00. Ah, to be young in Japan...
Just a quick note to say thanks again for the tips. The complex you had on the map with lots of toku stuff is still there, ａｓ ｗａｓ ｍｏｓｔ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｐｌａｃｅｓ， and my only regret is I don't have more money/luggage space. The Akibaranger season 1 figure arts that were left were on sale for ￥１９00．
I'll hopefully have my photos sorted soon. I did have an interesting exchange last night. I'm in Japan on a grant from my school to study Shinto, so I've been staying at a shrine in Mie Prefecture. I had dinner with several of the priests the other night and was trying to explain how an entire generation of American children were introduced to Japanese culture through Power Rangers and Pokemon.
Now, I was eating dinner last night with one of them, and he was telling me about how he had decided to brush up on his English since he heard I was coming. He said he wanted to show me one of the ways he had been practicing and brought up a video on his cell phone. When he brought it over, I was blown away.
It was TV-Nihon's sub of Kamen Rider Faiz.
I explained to him about TV-Nihon and told him that's how I watch most of my tokosatsu. Who knew I've been with a closet otaku all this time!
