Slashdot Mirror
A Video Guide To Akihabara
freaklabs writes "Tokyo Hackerspace just put up a video guide to Akihabara in Tokyo, an area that's densely populated with electronics components shops. We get a lot of questions about where to go over there and also requests for guided tours so we figured it's probably best just to put up videos, descriptions, and Google map markers. It was always difficult to tell people where to go, since the places are hard to find, so we're hoping this makes it easier for visitors to Tokyo that want to get their geek on."
I went; it is fucking awesome!
Screw the maids. This is nerd porn. Pieces parts. Parts of parts.
Sigh. And I'm stuck with Radio Shack.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I've been to Akihabara before and it's extremely confusing, much like the rest of Tokyo, so I'm really happy about this guide. I watched a few clips from it and it's easy to follow and the google maps addition is great. My only request is if you can do it for the rest of Tokyo :)
Having lived in Tokyo before, I've never understood what the fuss is about. Most stores in Akihabara are tiny, amateurish ratholes run by guys who have no idea what they are talking about, but act snobbish to cover for it. They sell obsolete software for hundreds of dollars, out of torn boxes in poor condition. Most of the stuff will only work on the Japanese electric grid, on Asia-encoded DVD players, or on computers with Windows Japan installed on it. Despite the sales clerks' insistence, it will have problems in the USA. And cameras, they will act like they never heard of a camera that costs less than $300. If I tell them I just want something simple, that doesn't have a million buttons and strange features on it, then they are deeply offended and just turn their back to me. It is the last place I would want to go to buy anything. Between Wal-mart or ordering off the internet, these kind of places serve no particular purpose anymore.
It's like Digikey, Mouser, a hamfest, Radio Shack and Best Buy all mashed up together. Awesome.
Better known as 318230.
I just made my fifth or six trip to Akihabara over the weekend.
Stay away from any store that says "PC game" (in Katakana). Chances are, by "game" they're referring to softcore-porn DVD roms... They're usually B1 level and full of otaku perverts. I went into a few looking for a specific PC title and it took me a bit to realize what was actually going on.
I highly recommend taking a couple thousand yen to a big arcade like Club Sega. Fun times.
When I went to Disneyland recently I was disappointed all the Main Street shops are just the same, full of Disney trademark Chinese-made trinkets, with little differentiation even between themselves. I thought, 'is it just that I'm a grownup now?' But no, my kids didn't care for it either. Why? Maybe because they're a Disney store at every local mall, and because searching 'Disney' on ebay returns over half a million results. I really think physical location has become less significant in the last 30 years.
Similarly, when I visited the Guang Hua Market in Taipei, I saw nothing I couldn't have shopped for much more easily online.
Screw the maids.
Isn't that the idea?
I watched this when it was posted on HackADay earlier. It was largely a waste of time, because there's not that much to see. Most of what I saw looked remarkably similar to some ham-friendly electronics stores in Boston, like You Do It Electronics (there was another great hobbyist store chain that went out of business, I forget the name.)
The video is shot without any stabilization, handheld, by someone who had a little too much caffine, and who points the camera at Interesting Things for all of about, oh, a tenth of a second. This combined with Youtube's low bitrates = blurry, compression blocks of Fail. Seriously, you can tell the place is amazing visually, but because Cracky McCoffee The Cameraman can't hold the camera still or stop to pause on something, all you see is a blurry mess. And it's all out of focus, too, because it was shot with a dSLR, and this one apparently can't autofocus while shooting video (or Cracky McCoffee bumped the MF/AF switch), and CMcCTC didn't realize that indoors, he has such a large aperture that there's zero depth of field. At one point, the guy is standing in front of the camera talking for a good 30 seconds, completely blurred out, until he steps closer to the camera to get out of the aisle, and then poof! He's out of focus again.
Most of the "cool stuff" seems to consist of enclosures. The guy leading the tour has a borderline fetish for enclosures. Here, let me blast right past these meters and industrial automation gear. Now, check out this enclosure! Wow, it's hexagon shaped, see that? And it's metalic! This one has a stand. Now, pay no attention to those robotics...here's my other favorite enclosure store! This one can silkscreen graphics on the front. WOOOOOOOW. Oh that, those are nuclear-powered minisubs. Waaaaaaalking....
Please help metamoderate.
The problem with online retailers is shipping.
Not only do you have to pay more for shipping it takes forever. Returns are also a pain, plus there is more of a chance that something could go wrong with shipping. Even with the best online retailers, returning a defective product could take a week or so, rather than just a few minutes with a physical store.
If my HDD suddenly dies in my desktop, I'd like to have a place to go to in order to pick one up that evening and be up and running by the next day rather than ordering online and waiting a week to have that machine in full working order.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Sigh. And I'm stuck with Radio Shack.
Could be worse.I'm stuck with Maplin.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
But OK, everybody has his price. I admit to spending the saturday before the Super Bowl last year scouring every big box store in town for a nice flat screen at a competitive price. I really wanted one THAT DAY. But I didn't find one, and got a really good deal on a refub Sony Bravia from ebay instead. It was still an enjoyable game on the old Trinitron, and I saved something like $400 on the new LCD.
And so help me, I will never buy cables at a local retailer, strictly on principle even if I win the lottery, unless they quit charging 1000% markup on them.
It's a trap!
Ascii artist &
Sure, you could buy anything from anywhere from the comfort of your home. Isn't there something to be said for browsing? How much inspiration comes from looking at that bin of wiring harnesses and realizing this other harness that you hadn't thought of would allow you to solve some other problem...allow your project to do more?
I've about given up on being able to go to a hardware store (in my local town, USA) and asking the hardware store employees for help solving some problem that requires thinking outside the box. If they don't sell some product that solves my problem, they don't carry it.
Try Nipponbashi in Osaka. It is sometimes pronounced in Tokyo by native speakers as Nihonbashi.
Perhaps you didn't see any products of interest to you, but I know of nowhere in the US or London that even comes close in terms of diversity of components for the do-it-yourselfer. Perhaps, things are picking up in Hong Kong.
If you actually go there, and you know what you are looking for and are willing to learn a little Nihongo, it is awesome.
For a quick non-professional filming effort, it more than served its purpose. My congratulations on developing a very interesting tour.
Anyway, I really appreciated the tour. We'll all be looking for SuperBananas awesome video of his local Akehabara on a future slahsdot post so we can make a fair comparison.
Just try to keep in mind that it's really more suited to the geek culture of Japan rather than the geek culture of America. Maid cafes and AKB-48 might have international appeal, but it's hard to imagine there are many slashdotters who wouldn't be surprised by Oimoya, self-described as the world's first idol-only shop, where—for a price—customers can talk to and take pictures of teenage and pre-teen girls who feature in DVDs that might best be described as soft-core porn plus clothes. (Not that I've watched any. Just follow the link to find some DVD covers.)
There are plenty of parts and electronics stores, but there are also many plastic model and figurine shops whose Gundam-related wares to non-Gundam wares ratio is much higher than might be expected.
Just so people don't get the wrong impression. This video since it is basically done indoors doesn't begin to show the immense scale of this place. Closer to the main strip all buildings are 10~20 stories tall filled with stuff. The sides of buildings are TVs. 16wheelers come through but instead of towing a shipping container they have a bunch of 50" TVs playing anime. On certain days you may see >100 people cosplaying while just passing through. And this guy totally focused on things he likes, if you didn't see what you are looking for in his video it isn't because its not there. Its because he skipped it. The fact that they had parts to set up your own bio-lab was telling.