Yoshinoya may be the native Japanese equivalent to McDonalds – cheap, blue-collar, omnipresent – but I happen to highly enjoy the taste of the standard, no-frills Yoshinoya gyudon: thin sliced simmered beef and onions served over white rice. Throughout many of my previous solo visits to Japan, I’ve subsided near exclusively on Yoshinoya beef bowls. So although I’m eating better on this trip than usual, I can’t make an extended visit to Tokyo without at least once getting a Yoshinoya beef bowl.
The 24-hour Yoshinoya down the street from Jon’s apartment was packed full when we arrived, so we had to stand on the sidewalk, trying not to look lost or despondent, until a pair of seats at the counter opened up. A large size gyudon was 550 yen, half the cost of the average meals I’ve been eating for the past week. While the Yoshinoya may not have been quite as refined or nuanced in taste as the meals I’ve been regularly eating, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. Ironically, our timing must have been just off because shortly after our meals arrived nearly all of the restaurant’s other patrons finished and departed, leaving the restaurant nearly empty for a few minutes before a new round of customers filled in the empty seats.
This is, I believe, my seventh trip to Tokyo, yet I’ve never realized that Japanese law requires visiting tourists to have their passport on-hand at all times. I typically leave my passport with my luggage to ensure that it doesn’t get lost or stolen, taking it with me only on occasions when I need currency exchange. With only 5,000 yen left of the initial $1,000 USD that I converted just over a week ago, I grabbed another $600 and my passport and walked with Jon down the street to the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ building. The line in the lobby to use the ATM machine was gargantuan. The line inside the first floor to see a teller was even longer. Thankfully, English captioned signs informed us that currency exchange was available on the third floor, so we took the elevator up and found no one in line before us. The currency exchange process took ten minutes of mostly waiting but went by smoothly, thanks in part to a teller who spoke enough English to effectively communicate the information she needed from me. To my surprise, she didn’t look at my passport at all.
Akihabara. Who designs a building with the elevator at the top of the second floor stairs instead of putting the elevator on the ground floor?
After dropping off some excess cash at Jon’s apartment, I suggested that we go to Akihabara to discover exactly what the “Tokyo Anime Center” on the fourth floor of the UDX building was. Upon arriving at the Akiba train station, Jon & I turned right instead of our usual left. Across the spacious courtyard I could see the AKB48 café and the Gundam café. We took the escalator up to the elevated walkway leading to the UDX building then took its tall external escalator up to the fourth floor. To our dismay, the Tokyo Anime Center, which appeared to be a combination otaku visitor’s center and gift shop, was closed for the day. Perhaps I’ll try to visit again on a future day.
Jon then suggested seeing what the Club Sega arcade across the street contained. On the way I spotted the Volks showroom store, which I never before realized was even there. Immediately upon entering I was amazed by the racks of anime-themed perfumes available for sale. I also ogled a selection of Akihabara & anime themed souvenir snacks. I made a mental note that I’d have to come back for the ingenious “Akihabara Maid Oppai Pudding.”
Half of the store’s ground floor consisted of new anime merchandise and character goods. The second half of the store’s ground floor was devoted to rental cubes.
Across the street, as we entered the Club Sega arcade, I overheard an English speaking man say to his female companion who was starring wistfully at a UFO catcher machine, “Don’t waste your money. You can just buy it.” I thought to myself, “Don’t ruin her dreams. Crane game toys are so much neater if you’ve won them yourself.” I’ve actually never tried a crane game before, but I already suspect that I have no talent for them. If I do try one, it’ll probably be the machine in the hallway by Melon Books 1 that offers palm-sized plush Woozer dolls.
Floors 2-7 of the arcade contained versus fighting games. I’ve seen the Persona fighting game at arcades elsewhere, but Club Sega was the first place that I saw the Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax 2D fighting game that pit characters from OreImo, Accel World, Sword Art Online, Durarara, and other light novels against each other in Street Fighter-style combat.
The arcade’s top floor was entirely devoted to Gundam EX VS Maxi Boost machines. I was amazed that the multi-continuity Virtual On-style fighting game was so complex that select machines offered free multi-page pamphlets explaining how to play the game.
Upon leaving the arcade, I again turned off Chuo Dori and found a narrow stairway up to an anime figure store that I hadn’t visited before. Possibly because the place was not easily found, Jon & I were the only shoppers in the place, an extreme rarity for Akiba anime shops that are usually packed full of shoppers.
Back out on the street I stopped to snap a photo of a canned oden noodles vending machine.
I also snapped a photo of a Steins;Gate themed Dr. Pepper machine.
I also snapped a photo of an unusual mobile raw seafood grocery.
And I snapped a photo of a soda machine that captioned the Coca-Cola, “Carbonated soft drink,” wondering to myself, “Who could possibly be in Akihabara, Tokyo, and not know that Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink?”
As we returned to Chuo Dori, I was pleased to find that the Golden Age store was open, so we popped in. Jon & I were both amazed to see a like-new boxed Galvion robot toy. I found a Bandai vinyl Godzilla for 1500 yen that I thought was one that my friend back home wanted. So I purchased it. Later on, I learned that this particular plastic lizard was not from the particular series he collected. Oh well.
Next door, Jon & I went up to the eighth floor of Liberty No. 8 where I intended to purchase a large 600 yen Gamera gachapon figure for that same friend back home. But the figure was gone. However, on the way out of the store I noticed C’s Ware Hoihoi-san figures in a glass case. Jon pointed out that the used boxed figures had a hand-written note that said, “Tora no Ana exclusive maid version,” for 1,500 yen. The wait to actually pay for the figure took much longer than anticipated, but at last, after literally years of searching, I acquired the “standard outfit” Hoihoi-san figure that’s pictured on the front of the box. The Tora no Ana exclusive edition comes with an alternate body that holds a champagne bottle grenade in place of the katana.
Further up the block, Jon & I took a moment to stop for crepes. They’re a staple in anime, yet I’ve never had one. So I selected a strawberry cheesecake variety from “Crazy Crepes,” which probably gets its name from its offerings of crepes in flavors like teriyaki chicken. While we stood on the sidewalk and ate the creamy, sweet confections wrapped in paper-thin dough, Jon sympathized for the barker next door who shouted non-stop about sale prices on toilet paper at the Don Quixote department store.
Jon, whose tolerance for immersion in otaku consumer culture has rational human limits, then decided to return home. Since it was only 4:30pm, I decided to test my own superhuman tolerances and browse the district a bit more on my own. For the first time, I ventured into the north Raidio Kaikan building for the first time. The more famous south building is still undergoing renovation. The rental cases on the ground floor revealed a particularly tempting Comic LO commemorative gachapon figure priced at a rather hefty 2,800 yen. But as it’s the only example of the particular figure I’ve seen so far on this trip, I may bite-the-bullet and go back for it later in my trip.
The building is 8 floors, although the top floor is a acoustics store that appeared to be closed. On the second floor I found a particularly tempting 1,500 yen Yakin Byouto gachapon figure that I may decide to go back for. The 7th floor is the Kotobukiya store that used to be on the third or fourth floor of the south Radio Kaikan building. I was a bit thrilled to see a life-sized (or possibly a little bit smaller than life-sized) Danboard robot. Although I took the stairs up all seven floors, I patiently waited for the elevator to take me back down.
Back on the street, on the next block, I thought the sign for Asobit Hobby City said “Gachapon 3F” in katakana. When I arrived on the floor, I was greeted by only Gundam models. Then I realized that the katakana actually said, “Gunpla,” not “Gachapon.” The trip up wasn’t wasted, though, because I spied the new release Chogokin Hello Kitty. I was pleased to find that the box is smaller and more sturdy than I’d imagined it would be. At the end of my trip I do intended to buy one of those toys. Oddly, I couldn’t find a practical exit from the third floor. The escalator and stairwell seemed to only go up, not down. So I waited patiently for the elevator that had brought me up to take me back down.
Since I was obviously tired enough to misread simple kana, I ventured over to the Volks store and purchased the Oppai Pudding before returning to Yotsuya.
For dinner, Jon & I agreed on okonomiyaki, walking down the road to the Tanbatei restaurant. We ordered shrimp yakisoba and a hearty, bar-b-que soba that the young server/cook mixed and fried for us right on our table. Unlike okonomiyaki that’s frequently described as a pancake, ours more resembled a stir-fry.
After dinner, we went next door to the supermarket where I purchased several future evening’s worth of 82 yen Morinaga Chocolate Sundaes.
And back at Jon’s apartment, I finished off his seemingly rare bottle of C.C. Lemon Gold. I’m a big fan of Suntory’s regular C.C. Lemon, which has a very light, refreshing taste. C.C. Lemon Gold not only has more carbonation, it also has a deeper, richer, but also more artificial lemon taste that’s not really bad but isn’t nearly as crisp, clean, and refreshing as regular C.C. Lemon.
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