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Ed's note: Ashcraft, worrying over the happiness of the throngs of journalists parachuting into Japan this week for the Tokyo Game Show, insisted that we run a short little guide to Den-Den Town. Here's Brian's list of places to go if you're in town for the week and need some Otaku fun.
By: Brian Ashcraft
Go North, East or West and end up surrounded by tiny veiled massage parlors, tiny high-rise bars and an endless selection of restaurants. That leaves South, go South. From Nipponbashi, it's a straight shot down Sakai-suji Ave. to Osaka's otaku district, Nipponbashi, also dubbed Den-Den Town.
Taking its name for the Japanese word for electricity (denki), the area today is known more for a place to pick up Radiant Silvergun or have tea at a maid cafe, than where to get a Lumix digicam or a Bravia flat-screen, though they've got them too. Den-Den Town is fairly straight forward, easy to navigate. Maps and directions are helpful, yet useless. This is a guide, not so much just for the shops, but the area. Like I said, go South.
Used toy mecca Mandarake sits across from the elegant, and quickly becoming obsolete Takashimaya branch. Want post-war area playthings? Ultraman masks? Wigs? Vintage Play & Watch portables? This is your place.
Prices are fairly competitive, but the staff is the district's least friendly. Want to take a photo of a Virtual Boy while standing outside the shop? Try elsewhere.
The appropriately monikered Gundam's has everything Gundam. All the games are Gundam. The CDs are Gundam soundtracks. T-shirts and wrist-bands, Gundam. And golf bags are, well, Gundam. An electric guitar wails on the second floor in-store speakers. Decals, models, paint, and Gundam.
ME: "Do you ever get tired of Gundam?
CLERK: "No."
ME: "Really?"
CLERK: (serious as a heart attack) "Yes."
Behind Gundam's and Mandarake, there are several smaller streets, including the one called "Ota Road." The name is short for "otaku road." At the North end of the street is Sofmap Saurus, a personal favorite. Prices are standard, and the store concentrates on new games and hardware. But its "Ota Road" location is oddly picturesque. Shoppers shuffle by, carrying shopping bags filled with comics or PC titles. Bandanas are hip. So is flannel. Backpacks, a must.
Tokyo has two geek areas: Akihabara (for men) and Ikebukuro's Otome Road (for women). Osaka, on the other hand, hasn't separated its geeks. Otaku looking for hentai games and Fujoshi ("rotten girl", AKA female otaku) looking for yaoi boy's love comics freely mix. If only, we could set them all up on blind dates.
Back on Sakaisuji Ave, I swing by K-Books. A girl in thigh-highs is pouring over a manga. A troupe of women flood out of the store and whisk past. Continuing down the street, there are the requisite adult bookstores, adult video shops, adult video shops selling used blue jeans.
Interspaced between these, they are still the tiny retailers, nooked away, selling nothing but power-drills, cords and plugs. The owners are older. Relics. My nose is filled with the dry smell of tatami. A craftsman's workshop is wide-open to the street as he weaves together squares of straw. I think of the wall-to-wall carpet covering my new apartment.
Straight ahead is Super Potato. The Osaka-based retailer is a shrine to vintage gaming. You want it, Super Potato probably has it. Not super cheap, but one-stop stopping.
Famicoms start upwards of 3,000 yen, Sharp Twin Famicoms top out at 10,000 yen and a boxed Dreamcast can be had for 6,000 yen. Consoles, controllers and software bursts off the shelves and moving through the store is tricky.
A little further down is Game Tanteidan. The aisles are wide, the floor is covered with laminated retro ads and articles, and 8-bit game music bleeps from monitors. Yet, Game Tanteidan is eerily quiet. I swear I can hear the air-conditioner.
I head upstairs. Quick inventory: comic books, Metal Gear Solid GameCube, soccer cards, baseball cards, Virtual Boy and a vending machine. There's even something called the "Famicom Box," an 100 yen per-play on demand game system for Japanese hotels. The second floor is likewise deserted, save for a clerk flipping through a copy of Death Note.
Continuing South and leaving Den Den Town, there's Ebisucho and Shinseikai, a typical setting for yakuza movies, but actually a better place to see old men gulping cups of vending machine sake from mid-morning. I think about heading down there, having its famous kushikatsu or blowfish for lunch and checking out the Tsutenkaku Tower. Or I could double back, hit a maid cafe for a rice omlette and stop by Big Tiger. I buy a Fanta from the vending machine and head out of the shop, down the street. Like I said, go North.
