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Tokyo's Geek Ghetto

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the places-you-must-see dept.

anaesthetica writes "The Washington Post is running a story on Tokyo's "Geek Ghetto" which has arisen in the city's electronics retail district, "Electric Town." From the article: "We have been discriminated against for being different, but now we have come together and turned this neighborhood into a place of our own.... In Akihabara, we don't need to be ashamed of who we are and what we like.... We can feel comfortable because here, we outnumber everyone else." There are concerns, however, that the total immersion in escapist culture may be causing social problems, including a growing number of shut-ins." I've gone to Tokyo 3x and visited Akihabara all three times. Highly recommended for anime fans and techies.

5 of 488 comments (clear)

  1. more details... by professorhojo · · Score: 4, Informative

    i present for your enjoyment, the Akihabara home page, plus an intriguing article entitled: Akihabara becomes geek sex paradise. :-)))

  2. Very .. VERY expensive... by guyfromindia · · Score: 4, Informative

    I recently visited Tokyo, went to Akihabara.. and subsequently visited Singapore.
    I noticed that everything in Akihabara is very expensive. Buying the same stuff in Singapore is a LOT (I mean 30 - 40%) cheaper...
    But, one thing I agree.. you can get some really cool stuff in Akihabara...that you cannot find in Singapore, but for regular buys, I would avoid Akihabara.
    My 2c

  3. A 2002 BBC correspondent program on japanese otaku by theskeptic · · Score: 4, Informative

    I saw this program more than 2 years back. It deals in detail with the phenomenon- hikikimori, mentioned briefly in the washpost article. Japan: The Missing Million. Here's the program transcript. It apparently is a big problem in Japan.

  4. Re:akihabara by DragonC · · Score: 3, Informative

    Which is exactly the reason I wrote my book.

    If you go to the normal places you will pay over the odds. Mainly because they're priced that way to catch out the people who don't know whats going on. There are tricks to buying stuff in Akiba. Such as in many places you can haggle down the price. And you can get it even lower depending on who you ask to reduce the price (Usually the oldest guy there).

    Akiba is an excellant place to get cutting edge tech gear. But if you only stick to the common main street stores you will pay for it in the end.

  5. Re:YT geeks will still stand out by Maestro4k · · Score: 3, Informative
    However, if you are non-Asian you will still be regarded as a bit of a monkey on display at the zoo. Not in my experience, I spent two weeks there in 2001, mostly in Tokyo, a few days in Osaka and stayed with a friend (non-Japanese) living in Tsukuba and working at Kek Labs. (I got to go to Kek Labs too, call me an uber geek but that was a kick too.) I never noticed anyone staring at us at all. It's quite rude to stare and Japanese are quite good at at least keeping up the appearance of not being rude. They might give you little sideways looks out of curiosity but unless they're little kids they won't just stare at you. :)

    You don't have to leave to the US to get that whole monkey in the zoo effect though. I was visiting a friend in Nashville, TN and we went to the mall. Now I'm white, he was from Taiwan and we went another friend of his who was African-America (very dark-skinned as well). People stared at _ME_ the whole time. I'd never seen anything like it. Apparently they couldn't believe a white guy was hanging out with non-whites. My friends both said they were used to it and just ignored it, but it was an eye-opener to me. Racism is alive and well in the US.

    People may avoid sitting next to you on trains unless it is totally packed See now that's one of your Gaijin Powers (tm)! Even during rush hour there'll be more space around you than anyone who isn't foreign. :) It's actually kinda funny, but it's not unexpected, people are instinctively afraid of the unknown and foreigners are certainly unknown to many of them. At the same time though they're more than willing to try and help you if you need help, even if they don't speak English. I managed to get my ticket on the Shinkansen back from Osaka and the guy helping me didn't speak any English. I knew just a few words of Japanese (hello, thank you, excuse me basically) but we didn't have any trouble.

    I think part of the problem is they expect Americans to be rude (sadly we have this reputation just about world-wide). If you're polite and friendly they won't have any problems with you. I don't know why you'd be rude and hateful to someone when you're in a foreign country but apparently a lot of people are.

    Oh yes, it's funny that in only two weeks I got used to doing the little bow while thanking people. It felt strange to not have people do that when I got back to the US for a while. :)