{"id":5138,"date":"2014-07-28T17:17:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T07:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/?p=5138"},"modified":"2016-01-30T14:59:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T04:59:17","slug":"japan-2013-part-6-tokyo-akihabara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/?p=5138","title":{"rendered":"Japan 2013 part #6 \u2013 Tokyo \u2013 Akihabara"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Aki\u2019ba, THE geek mecca (and mecha!) of the world. We covered a few spots on our last visit<\/a> but its one of those places that you can continually go back to and not only find something new every time but you\u2019ll never cover all of it! It\u2019s a bit hard to reference each store, especially when a lot of them don\u2019t even seem to have any obvious naming (having rubbish Japanese reading skills doesn\u2019t help!) but know that if you work your way north from the station keeping within a block or two of the main drag you cant go too wrong. The best part is uncovering hidden treasures in stores that, at first glance, don\u2019t look like they\u2019d have what youre looking for.<\/p>\n

A couple of our fave stops include:
\nThe Gundam Caf\u00e9<\/strong> \u2013 exactly what it says on the box. A caf\u00e9 celebrating all that\u2019s Gundam with Gundam referenced food and drinks and nifty d\u00e9cor. Also a good place to grab a couple caf\u00e9 related souvenirs \u2013 mugs, biscuits etc. as well as a small selection of Gunpla. Next door is AKB48, the girl band, the theatre, the hourly shows. Sick of waiting years to see your fave act or missing them because they didn\u2019t come to your city? AKB48 has you covered where you can go to them and see them play any day of the year and even in different parts of the country on the same day! How is this possible? Well having 48 members (now into the hundreds!) helps. Though if you\u2019re not a tweenage girl or business man it may not be your cup of Miso.<\/p>\n

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Mandarake<\/strong> \u2013 Big black building. Toys. Cosplay. Old, new. Lots. If you’ve read any of our posts about Japan previously, you’ll know how much we champion this place, go there.<\/p>\n

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Gashapon store<\/strong> \u2013 A whole shop just for gashapon! While the thrill of the hunt is always fun, I\u2019m finding I\u2019m more inclined to just pay a slight premium to get the \u201cdiscovered\u201d pieces and either cherry pick or buy the whole collection that someone else has taken the time to collate. If this sounds like you as well, the rear of the store and upstairs has display cases and shelves full of the ones you\u2019ve been chasing, didn\u2019t know existed or have been out of production for years.<\/p>\n

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Sega<\/strong> \u2013 There are plenty of multi storey gaming buildings but none stand out quite like Seee-gahh (cue sparkly shine). Many hours and thousands of Yen can be spent without blinking an eye. But of course if you cant master the \u201cgiant metal nail punching holes in the paper\u201d or \u201cpush the pig through the bars\u201d technique, there\u2019s always the cop out of simply finding a store that stocks the prize you\u2019re after and buying it \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Super Potato<\/strong> \u2013 Wall to wall retro console gaming, even if you\u2019re not after a cartridge or console there\u2019s plenty of items that would make great wall\/desktop display pieces.<\/p>\n

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Robot Robot<\/strong> – Thankfully this was one of those times judging a shop by its name paid off! With no street frontage and only a sign to go by, it was always going to be a gamble but the trip up the elevator was worth it not just for Robot squared with its extensive range of Hot Toys style high end collector products with leanings towards horror movies and gore in general …and vagina-like monsters (why are they always vagina-like??)\u00a0 but for the smaller accompanying stores on the same floor with a great selection of new and used toys and collectibles. Want to see a fair chunk of Coca Cola’s history as a yoyo? Yep, you see that here too!<\/p>\n

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Of course there\u2019s also the plethora of electronics stores like LAOX<\/strong> which really need no description, if it\u2019s a new gadget, they\u2019ll more than likely have it. Pricing is however average or slightly better with greater bargains to be had online but finding a JDM only model or colour can be worth it.<\/p>\n

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We stumbled across a “Rollertarg”<\/a> a bit further down so lunch was an easy choice \ud83d\ude42 continue walking and you will end up in Ueno<\/em>. However, unlike last time the market gods were not kind to us and a lot of stores that we previously come across had moved on, though its always a good place to walk through, you\u2019ll never know what you\u2019ll find and the nearby park is more than worth the trip.<\/p>\n

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—
\nIf you have any questions on our travels, where to buy, what to do, hit us up on the Soulbridge media facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Japan 2013 part #1 \u2013 Arrival<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #2 – Tokyo International Toy Expo<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #3 \u2013 Gotemba \u2013 Premium Outlets mall<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #4 \u2013 Tokyo \u2013 Studio Ghibli Museum<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #5 \u2013 Tokyo \u2013 Kichijoji and Nakano<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #6 \u2013 Tokyo \u2013 Akihabara<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #7 \u2013 Tokyo \u2013 Tamiya HQ, Diver City<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #8 \u2013 Yokohama \u2013 Zoorasia<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #9 \u2013 Yokohama \u2013 Ramen Museum<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #10 \u2013 Nissan HQ and Yokohama<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #11 \u2013 Osaka \u2013 Nanba Shopping<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #12 \u2013 Kyoto<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #13 \u2013 Tokyo \u2013 Harajuku, Shibuya<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #14 \u2013 Osaka castle, Umeda Sky building<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #15 \u2013 Osaka Aquarium and Tempozan wheel<\/a>
\nJapan 2013 part #16 \u2013 Osaka Universal Studios<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aki\u2019ba, THE geek mecca (and mecha!) of the world. We covered a few spots on our last visit but its one of those places that you can continually go back to and not only find something new every time but you\u2019ll never cover all of it! It\u2019s a bit hard to reference each store, especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2241,2725,389,388],"tags":[1830,2405,472,471,169,4,2404,119,481,474,483,485,1361,487,411,436,2075,50,2407,2406,100,479,488,2776,2774,391,1115,595,2408],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5138"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5138"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7615,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5138\/revisions\/7615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}