"Love Letter"
Or, "KNiGHTS into Dreams"
"Nothing beautiful is real" was a line I found myself holding onto as I was pulled from the murkiness of my irregular slumber. My time spent wandering dreams is infrequent. The times I find myself remembering them, their meanings are painfully obvious as to where the breadcrumbs lead. Last night I had a dream about escaping a burning wreckage and all I thought about was stuffing as many books into my bag as possible. My subconscious completely understood and was able to commentate on the nature of my problematic fixation on materialism- quite literally in my sleep. Recently I began to wonder if I have too much "stuff"- perhaps far too many manga or light novels to reasonably read. Did I own too many figures? My collection has silently been swelling to a size where now I had more items still in their boxes than those unpacked. The space they should occupy was already filled with other boxes of unopened items. Part of the reason why is because I refuse to drive to Ikea to buy a detolf yet continuously engage in online pre-order schemes. The other is because my massive room no longer seems as spacious as it was when I moved in.
Perhaps I am only preoccupied with such a worry since I know the home we live in now is not permanent. No home I've lived in ever was. There is always a sense of temporary ease with my living situations as a result, and my otaku room has never been permanent. In university my rooms changed three times across various parts of campus. Even in my apartment I rented for two years, I knew not to get too comfortable. Eventually I would need to pack and transport hundreds of otaku goods across the state somewhere else to reimagine my bedroom space all over again. At a certain point after 2017 but before 2020, I stopped buying used anime DVD box sets on eBay- or at least less frequently that I did early on in my collecting career. My current AmiAmi invoices contain pre-ordered items from months or years ago finally being fulfilled. The majority of the manga on my shelves date my tastes to circa 2015. I used to want my walls plastered with anime posters and feverishly sought out collecting as many as possible through magazines and convention wall scrolls. But I now have folders filled with unused posters I want to put up but have not the wall space to display anything else.
Otaku are frequently criticized as being complacent consumers. Perhaps a byproduct of the rapid industrialization and economic superpower from which they reside. Japan, exhibiting hyper-modern capitalist tendencies, to which extent are not limited simply to "otaku" as the worst offenders. Otaku only really represent an extension of the society they were raised in, later influenced by the anti-social techno-reclusive condition many find themselves engaging within- voluntarily or not. What I'm getting at is that otaku are often critiqued for their absurd spending habits in a vacuum. You might not be as impressed as your jaundiced mind is placated, reading a headline about some Japanese otaku buying the lifesize figure of an anime or video game character for several thousand dollars. Though in a less extreme sense, consider the infamous headlines regarding Japanese men marrying virtual game or Vocaloid characters, then subsequently buying excessive amounts of exclusive goods related to them. Headlines which urge you to think "Japan really is weird!" Self-appointed rational non-otaku thinkers would consider that to be a waste of money. Why buy so much useless stuff anyways? Such critique can only come from someone "not in the know". The vacuum in which comments are leveled largely ignore the rest of modern capitalist society, as if they are innocent. When in actuality, everyone seems to be out of line. Manga like Genshiken are rather curious in their depiction of otaku spending. In the early chapters, there are two scenes happening simultaneously that are not-so-secretly intended to mirror one another: one involves Harunobu Madarame shopping for doujinshi at Tora no Ana, and the other is Kasukabe Saki clothes shopping in Tokyo. The intent was to provide fairly unbiased commentary on the nature of otaku spending by comparing and contrasting it with that of a quote-unquote "normal" person. Saki and Madarame are buying expensive luxury goods when they probably don't need more of them. Genshiken's later commentary on both tend to skew towards opinions contrary to what most readers probably agree with, but the point of the scene was still made: otaku consumerism is no different than "regular" shopping. To provide context on the eventual conclusion, I want to discuss why I hate Harajuku.
During my time in Tokyo, I was constantly berated with advertisements of same-face women selling me products, to which I was surprised- quickly thereafter growing disgusted- at the amount of spending people were doing. It seemed like the most important verb in Tokyo was "shop" closely followed by "eat". Towns like Harajuku and Shibuya exhibited gross displays of consumerism to the point where I slowly grew disillusioned and my head began to spin. Shibuya is defined as the number-one tourist destination which distills as much "Tokyo Drift cultural appropriation"-isms into a single Instagram-worthy cellphone photo. People, namely non-Japanese Western tourists gather to take pictures of towering advertisements and cross a few streets. Quite frankly, the crossing itself is significantly smaller than overhead drone shots seemed to have wanted to depict. Consider the absurdity of such an image. Maybe we were all wasting our time watching color-oversaturated screens with looping YouTube ads LARPing as cyberpunks in some elaborate Blade Runner LARP. The streets were littered with more BMW and Mercedes-Benz sedans than I had ever seen in my life. I began to speculate it was a coordinate ride service that used these cars specifically. People boarded trains with bags in their hands from stores nearby. Others seemingly casually held or wore thousands of dollars worth of designer materials on their person. As a mere commoner who grew up outside of a large city in America, the first thing I worried about was "What if someone steals their bag!", though soon realizing that nobody else felt the same paranoia. After a few hours I grew to hate Harajuku. Omotesandou Hills made me sick to my stomach. Takeshita-dori seemingly had the highest concentration of English-native-speaking crepe-eating caucasian folks in Japan. Though what really bothered me was the excessive consumerism there. An interesting and completely coincidental parallel to draw here, since my brother treated Harajuku as a shopping spree in the same way I did with Akihabara. I saw just as many non-otaku shopping in Harajuku and Shibuya as I observed otaku shopping in Akihabara. I figured this was a trend within Japan and perhaps a symptom of something more significant. Though it could also be that I don't remember the last time I went into a city in the past decade. Perhaps if I took the train into one of the country's top-five largest cities and strolled around observing everything I would feel the same. Even if that's the case, it only makes my point just as valid: consumerism within otaku culture is fairly tame- even quote-unquote "average"- in comparison to other subcultures. Suddenly buying Aniplex Blu-ray’s seems like nothing when faced with the four-plus-digit price tags on designer threads behind glass doors.
I find myself frequently looking back over my shoulder; a phantom of a memory that exists just out of mind and out of sight lingers somewhere back there. Maybe if I turn my head fast enough I can catch a glimpse of the flash of some vague shadow escaping just beyond the corner of my eyes. A reminder of the glory days- time spent in the sun, streets painted gold and heads held high by those who walked them. A lot has happened since 2003. Akihabara has changed from what I wanted it to be. In 2017 I watched NHK ni Youkoso! and Genshiken which inspired me to start planning my pilgrimage to the holy land. In 2019 I told myself I would hate Akihabara. In 2020 I was singing its praises alongside Sakuragawa Himeko. Yet, I still feared I would be disgusted with the Akihabara of the year I visited it. The place I sang was a fleeting dream. In my head I prepared myself for the worst and told myself I would hate it. The more I learned the less confident I grew, knowing what I wanted no longer existed. I had watched dozens of low quality camcorder footage, both growing excited and increasingly worried, knowing that this time had long since past me. The secret was already out- it has been even before 2003. The fantasy I constructed is no less accurate now as it was perceived back then. Genshiken's Akihabara and NHK ni Youkoso's Akihabara differ impossibly so. Needless to say, my Akihabara is different from yours. Akiba has changed.
Akihabara is a town with half as many songs of notably higher quality dedicated to it as New York City has good songs. Granted, I know about two songs composed about New York City, neither of which I can recall to any degree of success. Perhaps you know as many songs about New York as I know about Akihabara, but I digress. The point is that both cities are notable enough to inspire multiple generations of music talents to create music dedicated to it. Being somewhat removed and generally appalled by cities, I find it hard to understand why someone would feel so strongly about such a place. A city exists as a somewhat vague amalgamation of ideas, conceptualized through pop-culture, largely through travel brochure-like self-confidence in otherwise uninteresting touristy ventures. Yet, what is most curious about the almost corporate stench of cities is the pride we feel towards them. The city I live near is one that I can't see the tallest building out of even if I stood on the roof of our almost-three-story house. I feel no special connection to it and hardly recall the last time I ventured into its depths. Yet, whenever I'm more than twenty-miles away from home, I tell people that "I live in that one city"- of course substituting "that one city" for the name proper. At the tail-end of a somewhat aimless East Coast family road trip in 2016 I visited New York City. Put side-by-side, my pride for the city I can hardly see yet live nearby skyrocketed, as I cautiously strolled down the unkept streets of Manhattan. I honestly wondered why anyone would want to live there. New York was not as unbecoming of a place as San Francisco, yet made me almost nationalistic towards my hometown. The words of the songs that spoke fondly of New York seemed to be de-enchanted almost immediately upon my arrival. Comparatively speaking, Akihabara lived up to the hype. I knew about Akiba through its depictions in various anime, games, documentaries and music. At this point I have seen every anime that takes place in Akihabara. I played Akiba's Trip for two hours and used it as an Akihabara walking simulator. I haven't listened to all the music, nor have I listened to every album by the distinguished Akiba-Pop band MOSAIC.WAV, though my listening history was bulletproof. My expectations were unreasonably high and my doubts were like a defense mechanism to brace for the impact of disappointment. There was no way this place would live up to my expectations; the Akihabara I had spent more than six years dreaming of doesn't exist. It never existed.
I went into the trip excited but holding so many reservations regarding the pilgrimage to the electric town that I might even have started to talk myself out of it. In 2020 I was supposed to study abroad in the Kansai area during my penultimate university semester. The first weekend out there I was planning on taking the cheapest overnight bus trip into Tokyo and literally walking from Tokyo Station to Akihabara Station. But as it would turn out, a global pandemic canceled any plans I had then. Though by then my ultimate goal in life was to make it to Akihabara or die trying. Three years closer to death and working a job bound to only aid in my getting there, my plans seemed more possible than ever to come true. Though truthfully, the past three years have also been spent blog scripting a sobering think-piece laced with melancholia regarding the supposed "death" of Akihabara. Sitting near the top of my old "blogs I need to write" was this very topic. My general attitude towards the general trends of otaku culture and my disconnect with the community only justified my stance. Akihabara represented the best and worst aspects of otaku culture. It has also understandably become a popular tourist spot for every Dragon Ball Z Toonami kid and casual appreciator of nostalgic Nintendo 64 games. I feared Akihabara would be bending over for the sake of catering towards the tourists. And perhaps not as egregious, I feared Akihabara would try too hard to live up to its name. "Cool"-ifying otaku culture in a way to appeal to Western tourists who brought their kids and not scaring away the new wave of streaming-era anime fans and phone manga readers. But when I got there it just hit me all at once. Nothing in my years of training a controlled response to an overwhelming amount of otaku goods at local conventions did me any good. Three years of convention-going was, quite possibly, blown the fuck out. In my experience the amount of non-natives in the area was hardly enough to warrant concern. If anything, Akihabara is just as unfriendly to tourists as I wanted it to be. Akihabara does not compromise. Tourists uncomfortably watched as everything unfolded before them. During my time hunting for doujinshi across various locations, I only encountered three fellow gaijin; the first was a pair in the Melonbooks location, and I knew immediately they were also Americans because they were loudly discussing their most anticipated Touhou Project books at Comiket 101 in the uncomfortably cramped aisle across from me. The last fellow was a lanky guy who wordlessly perused the boxed er0ge selection at Mandarake and was probably there longer than I was. Proof of the lingering will of the Old Republic was self-evident. Thus, I slept easy knowing the True Heart of Akiba remains crystalized there, even if only in the off-shoot locations, where people still remember the battles of old. It's been a long time since 2003, but there was still magic in the air.
In the tallest buildings and the dampest basements, the sense of romance remains, preserved in its once idealistic beauty. Melonbooks was a quaint little basement location full of brand new doujinshi in perfect condition. You assume that internet scanlations discourage people from buying physical copies anymore. Moreover, not only was this Comiket one of the lower turnouts in recent years, but the event had ended about a week earlier, so imagine my surprise when I found the shop to be full of fellow brothers-in-arms on their own shopping sprees. It was musty and the air was thick. My lower back was sweating uncomfortably and the aisles were packed with people. Moving between rows was like swimming through honey. Curiously, it was almost completely silent, save for the sounds of feet shuffling and clothes brushing up against itself. Most of the folks in there were older and everyone kept to themselves. The mood was entirely serious. Despite being cramped, there was no sense of urgency to get it over with. Everyone seemed fairly comfortable there. The selection was usually excellent. I was unable to find a few books specifically at Mandarake, but all the new C101 books I wanted at Melonbooks were in stock. I even found a few new circles as a result of my exploration around the aisles. I really liked how Melonbooks would provide a laminated sample page to entice future buyers. Within a half-hour of arriving in Akihabara, all my fears were quelled. Back in America I had shopped for doujinshi on multiple occasions at conventions. The physicality and general mustiness of the close-proximity cramped spaces one usually finds themselves while shopping for porn tends to be the same no matter where you go. However, in American conventions it's much more intrusive, loud and almost a joke. Vendors at the stall might compliment or poke fun at you depending on your picks. Seasoned convention goers already know of "the yaoi guy". Modern Western otaku culture tends to respond with comedy when it comes to dealing with the inherent awkwardness of talking about p0rn. You are more likely to see people having their best jab at being the funniest guy in the comment section of a doujinshi or hentai episode than on your average YouTube video. Conversely, doujinshi shopping in Akihabara is serious business.
What caught my attention as curious and figuratively "kept me up at night" was the age demographic of shoppers. In Melonbooks most people were in their late-20's or early-30's, though seeing older men shopping for themselves was not as uncommon as you'd think. At BookOff, for example, I saw an elderly oji-san with thinning gray hair stack a pile of lewd books and JAV DVDs. My preconceived notions based on American anime conventions perhaps provided a poor frame of reference for what I should have expected in Japan. Most shoppers buying overpriced doujinshi at an anime convention tend to be younger, as does the average age of convention-goers tend to be in the first place. That said, it was a bit telling that the age slants older when it comes to people shopping for physical porn. At Mandarake, however, there were some younger shoppers but were in the minority. At this point, at the time of writing, it occurs to me that this is likely because the people buying physical porn are those who grew up with it. Physical books and Gravure magazines, that is. Of course there are hardcore collectors and otaku who buy doujinshi because it's the thing to do. We don't exactly question it nor think very much about why we do so. We treat the stack of thin books next to our desks in a matter-of-fact manner, as if it would be more concerning if we did not have them. Yet physical collectors are growing older; I'm growing older. When I first started dreaming of attending Comiket and visiting Akiba I was a teenager in high school. I used to be the same age as anime characters in my favorite romantic comedy series. Now I'm an adult with a job and nearing my mid-twenties. I still find myself thinking about Toradora and School Rumble and Oregairu with glazed over eyes. In many ways, I have not grown up. Before I know it I'll be a thirty-something with thinning hair and back problems. Rest assured, I will most certainly still be somewhere watching copious amounts of anime and writing internet blogs about them. Though by then I'll be just like those fellows I shared a sense of camaraderie with in the trenches of Akihabara. It's been a long time since 2003. It's almost been a quote-unquote "long" time since 2017. In a few years that will be a decade. When I'm thirty it will have been over a decade since my glory days. It's been exactly two decades since 2003- I wonder how many of these doujinshi shoppers in Melonbooks remember 2003. Do they remember Genshiken? If they watched the anime or read the manga again, would they relate to it more than I did? Some things you never forget. Akihabara, similarly, never forgets. Somewhere in there I saw traces of bygone days- refusing to dim, still burning. The Knights of the Old Republic remember 2003 just as well as you remember yesterday. Perhaps a distant memory, but one that remains lodged on their hearts. An Old Republic changing but one never forgetting. Trends have changed and nothing is as it once was. Dejiko is absent from the Gamers memorabilia and Genshin Impact is advertised on massive billboards. From those observations, a surface level assessment of the situation concludes that "Akihabara is in ruins" and that "Akihabara used to be better". That is what I used to say. But looking in the right places, I learned that there is still something special about it. Over time the magic might dim and my memories will increase in grandeur. I might one day grow to hate Akihabara just as I feared I once could. Though I would sooner relinquish my otaku status than conclude such without assessing the situation myself. If Akihabara is about Dejiko and you think otaku buy too much "stuff" then Akihabara was never good. Its secret has long since been out and nothing stays pure forever. I went back home and am at work again. My commutes are dulled by looping J-Pop and Touhou metal arrangement tracks. My hometown feels more distant than ever, everywhere else damp and unwelcoming, but Akihabara felt like meeting an old friend. Akihabara has changed but its lights are still dazzling.
[*~*~*~*]
Or, "The Never-ending Dream of Summer's Gone, pt.2"
On January 9th, 2023 I rode the Yamanote Line to Akihabara Station. My feet knew to follow the yellow station signs guiding me towards the "Electric Town Gate''. The moments henceforth shedding all the very feelings of apprehension that plagued my mind about this pilgrimage. I forgot doubt, I forgot fear. I previously thought I would hate Akihabara, but by the end of the day, I couldn't bring myself to pass such a judgment. All I felt was the overwhelming and overpowering emotion of love. It hit me all at once. The years leading up to this trip was filled with internal discourse regarding Akihabara as a place, a shopping district, a symbol, a ghost- I started grasping at wisps of memories that have long since been gone. My mind was overstuffed with doubt as to the authenticity of the nostalgia I had once worshiped. The more I knew, the less authentic it all became. Hours of camcorder footage, denpa music and manga reading slowly began to unravel the hazy daydream. Memories unwound by time. And at the end of the day, I was basing my image of a town almost entirely on secondhand information told to me by fictional animated television series. I was taking the sugary buzz-words of street performers to heart. Sakuragawa Himeko and Momoi Haruko painted its streets illustrious, yet, I always knew they sang of different memories. They spoke of their own hazy memories of bygone days which had long since passed. Perhaps memories that never existed. Nostalgia they wish they had, nostalgia I wish I could reside in. Exiting the station was a surreal experience. I had walked around the area so much in Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed that the accuracy of its polygons was almost unnerving. I saw the glass walkway, Raido Kaiken, Gamers, then the looming green train overpass beyond. A profound sense of deja vu began to set in- I began to feel at home. For the first time in a foreign country I started to feel my tension ease ever so slowly. Just the day before I was growing anxious with the impossibly large barrier between me and everyone else. Months of slacking on my Japanese studying filled me with frustration. The night before I considered going to McDonald's and pointing to items on the menu with my head down to avoid my growing sense that I was an imposter- someone pretending, but never fitting in. But on January 9th that changed, because in Akihabara, we all spoke the same language. These were my comrades, the ones who still remembered. Deep in the trenches on the front lines walked those who still fight the good fight, in a town full of as many memories as it has er0tic books. My memories are there now. I leave them here for you too. One day my tune might change and my words speak of days less sincere, but I am here now to say that I found something very special there, that day. Before I knew it the day was over and the sun had set. Tomorrow would never come for me, as my heart would always be There. One day I will return and time will restart as if it never stopped. It has been a long time since 2003, it has been a long time since 2017. Dejiko is gone and the magic has grown tired, but deep somewhere in Akiba, there's a flame that will not go out. One that not even the greediest suits in the highest towers could extinguish- a sincerity that can only be felt walking the streets paved in memories.
