For those of you who don’t follow me on twitter, and that means pretty much everyone, I recently went to Japan. Two of my days were spent in Akihabara. Below are some of my thoughts on what some have referred to as the Anime holy land.

1 – Gamers and Animate are nice stores and they are definitely worth visiting, but unless you can read Japanese there really isn’t all that much for a foreigner to get here. While these stores do have some character goods, there are other places that you can get them for much less. I’d recommend going to places not on Chuo-Dori, even though you will feel drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Stores like Kotobukiya and the Cospa Gee Store have a lot of good character goods for a lot of popular/current anime, including T-shirts, wall scrolls, mugs, CDs, etc.

2 – While it was difficult to not have an otakugasm while walking in the many stores I visited, the most interesting things to me was how all of these stores were able to constantly supply themselves and keep up to date.  Since I went on the weekend I suppose it was likely less of a spectacle than I made it out to be, as I am sure there are less hectic days. Still, it seemed like the workers were constantly restocking shelves of manga, or putting in new merchandise while customers crowded the stores. Even more amazing was the way the arcades operated. Though my next note dives into more detail regarding the arcades, the constant turnover of what prizes offered was fairly amazing. As an example, I went to one arcade late Saturday night and then again Sunday morning, and it seemed like 75 percent of the prizes were different. I suppose this makes sense, given that people likely don’t want to win, or even play for the same prizes on a constant basis, but it was still pretty interesting. You could probably apply some of these concepts to a lot of big cities around the world in some way or another, the rest of Tokyo included, it just wasn’t something I think about on a day to day basis.

3 – If you have ever been to a Casino then you would probably understand what it is like to play in an Akihabara arcade. I spent most of my time trying to win prizes on some of the lower floors of the numerous arcades, as I have nowhere the level of skill to compete with the people playing video games on higher floors. Most of the prize games, if not all of them require the use of the UFO drop, and further require multiple plays to win. After someone does win, an attendant comes by to reset the game by putting the prize in a predetermined spot, which makes it sufficiently difficult but also equally alluring. Iwon’t get into the specifics of all of the separate games, but suffice it to say there are some that you just won’t be able to do. If you ever play in these arcades, i’d focus on the games you know you can win at that have the most personally alluring prizes, rather than basing your game choice on what you want the most. Everything can be bought somewhere else, instead of won, and it will save you some money in the long run. As for myself, after a disastrous first attempt, I readjusted to the above strategy and was able to win 5 pretty cool items, though not the one thing I really wanted.

4 – There is a lot of porn. No one is really that shameless about it, which makes everything somewhat comfortable, but basic man law still applies. Weirdest thing to me was that I saw what looked like a Mom with what was maybe her 15 year old son in the same store, with the son in the doujinshi section, and the Mom elsewhere, until he needed her to foot the bill. Of course, that could also be a description for a different type of arrangement.

5 – Mandoka really says everything I need to say about cosplaying in the Akihabara, but, more generally, there weren’t as many cosplayers as I thought there would be, and I even went on Sunday. That’s not to say there weren’t any, but just not a lot, aside from all the maids. Two things that stood out to me was that it seemed like there was a unexpectedly high level of cross playing going on, but that might just have been due to the smallish sample size. Secondly, those who did cosplay, whatever it was, really seemed to embrace the concept of the Absolute Area, but really, it seems like a large percentage of Japanese women do.

6 – I spent way too much money for my own good. As a side effect of this turn of events, I have realized that my fascination with Tomoe Mami from MSMM has already passed the danger zone. Further, I am glad that I went during the last part of my trip, otherwise I would have spent even more.

7 – Put three English letters together, followed by a 48, and you will probably name a girl group in the area. Obviously, that’s an exaggeration, but there were at least three. Didn’t bother to see AKB48, and I don’t think I missed much either.

8 – While there are a bunch of reasons to call this the Anime holy land, the one thing I found most enjoyable, and was easy to kind of overlook after a while was that there was anime shows and music playing all the time in the stores. To actually go to a place where this isn’t that out of the ordinary is a little weird, but it was alos kind of relaxing in a way. I don’t really know how to describe it, but it was nice. Also, it was kind of weird, but it seemed like every arcade I went to was required by law to play music from Seitokai Yakuindomo. I enjoyed it, but it still seemed kind of random.

9 – Did not have the balls to go into a Maid Cafe, considering that I went by myself. Don’t know if I would have wanted to either, though I suppose I might have under the auspices of being ironic.

10 – If I have one complaint about Akihabara, and all of Japan really, is that it is impossible to find a trash can. I mean, you have all of these vending machines all over the place, but no trash cans. It gets annoying, as I spent a lot of time just looking for a trash can. It’s like all the trash cans are in secret locations that only Japanese could ever possibly know about. I understand that trash cans are a security threat, and considering Akihabara’s past it isn’t that big of a deal. A lot of other countries I have visited have this same “problem”, but what can you do. This is one reason I kind of miss America, the land of the easily found trash can.

11- Even though the new season is only three/four weeks old I found it amazing how much Yuru Yuri was getting plugged. I’ve only seen the first episode so far, as the only thing I’ve watched in Japan was Steins Gate (interesting side note on Steins Gate: I was in a cab in South Japan and there was a radio program talking about Steins Gate. The cabby was getting pretty emotional about what they were saying, to the point he was slamming his fist at one point. The guy looked like he was over 50. No clue what was said on the radio about Steins Gate, as I can’t really understand Japanese people talking when it isn’t programming for someone under 5), but back on point about Yuru Yuri, I thought the one episode I saw was pretty good. Still, it seems like it is all over. It kind of also seems like Idolmaster was the next most popular new series, merchandise wise, but it was hard to tell. Inexplicably, in my opinion, Infinite Stratos is all over the town. Its merchandise is everywhere. Once again, I assume this means it’s popular, but I suppose it could mean that the stores are overstocked with its merchandise. It’s hard to tell. Madoka and K-On are pretty popular as well.

12 – You can spend 9 hours walking around the area, which includes a whole bunch of stairs, and who knows how many miles that equates to, but you won’t feel tired in the least.

13. Homura seems infinitely more popular than Madoka. Example: You put a Madoka shirt in a UFO drop table. No one plays it for a long time. Put a Homura shirt in, its gone in 5 minutes.

14. Didn’t bother going to the Tokyo Anime Center. It looked kind of lame from the outside, and it seemed like a tourist trap, but then again I suppose the same could be said about the arcades.

15. Anaru jokes are universal.

I returned from Los Angeles and Anime Expo 2011 a few days ago and I have to say that the highlight of my trip, other than the soon to be regretted level of purchases I made in the dealer’s room, was anything dealing with Hatsune Miku. While the high point of all things Miku was obviously Mikunopolis, it was fun to learn a lot more about Miku over the course of the weekend through all of the panels. Before heading to Los Angeles, I was definitely a fan of the virtual idol, but going into the weekend I didn’t really know what to expect. After leaving, it struck me that being a fan of Miku was really a lot like believing in Santa for a few reasons.

First, like the meaning of Christmas, Miku can really be whoever you want her to be depending on what you like to do, and I’m not talking about her seemingly endless wardrobe for all the perverts out there. Well, I suppose that might be part of it. Still, fans can create new songs, animations, or character designs of and about Miku and send them out there for others to enjoy through the use of the internet. But just as Christmas isn’t just about candy canes and sleigh bells, Miku isn’t just about the music. One thing that became perfectly clear to me almost immediately this weekend is that Miku could very easily be a synonym for Commercialism, and in a lot of ways this is a good thing. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit fan designs for Miku show up in games or on figures. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit that allows companies to make money off of Miku’s products, even through the use of a decentralized business model. And in the truest of sense of all things commercialism, Miku is often depicted in pictures that are less than pure.

Continuing the Christmas analogy, it is often difficult for kids to understand the concept of Christmas during their early years. A 2 year old doesn’t necessarily understand what it means to get free presents, but within a few years it is the center of their kid universe. I kind of got this same feeling over the course of this weekend when it came to Miku. Obviously, many of the people who came to Anime Expo had some idea of who Miku was, but for many, this was their first large dose of all things Miku. While it seemed like the interest in the virtual idol slowly grew over the course of the weekend, I think most people really began to appreciate Miku during her concert. At first, it seemed like only select groups of people were cheering and fewer still were standing. However, as the concert progressed more people got into the groove of things, so to speak, and by the end of the night it seemed like almost every person in the Nokia Theatre was on their feet screaming their lungs out for Miku to return for an encore. So I guess like a lot of things in life, Santa Claus and Miku included, it takes a little time to understand what it going on, but once you do, it is something special.

Now, while I admire everything that the Japanese companies have done to increase the popularity of Miku, from implementing fan designs into concerts and figures to giving individual creators relative freedom to use Miku in their productions to this past weekend’s concert, I kind of got the sense that the Japanese feel that other nations need to follow their model for Miku to be a success, which I don’t think is the right approach. Just as people celebrate Christmas and Santa differently across the world, so should we Miku and the other Vocaloids. While having different language software available in the future is a step in the right direction, it is an obvious one. What is worrisome is that Miku won’t necessarily be available or well known to the wider audience of people in the U.S., or other western nations. Now I suppose it might be impossible for people outside of the normal anime, j-pop, etc. fan to ever really be a fan of Miku, but the creation and use of new sites in the United States, like niconico.com, seems like it will go about as well as the United States trying to introduce democracy into the Middle East.

So, assuming that Miku (and her handlers) truly do want to conquer the world, it would become absolutely necessary for them to conquer a wide range of the Otaku fan base, from Narutards to people willing to travel across the country to see Miku and everyone in-between ( as a sort of power base). From a few panels I attended during the Expo and people I’ve talked to in the past, it doesn’t seem like the anime industry has done a good job getting its online product well known. I remember several people during the con didn’t know that Crunchyroll offered free anime (and to be honest, it seems like a very small subset of people know you can get anime online via streams, legally or otherwise), so it is by no means a given thing that people will utilize niconico.com or the newly announced Mikubook on a regular basis, especially when there is the 500 pound gorilla in the room that goes by the name of YouTube.

If there is one thing I learned from my business consulting classes, it is that if you have the ability to work with a company who already has the resources needed to help you produce a product, it is better to work with that company, than to try and develop the capabilities yourself. The use of joint ventures is even more crucial when you are trying to introduce a product into a foreign country. Obviously, I have no idea if the Miku people have tried to create a joint venture of some sort with American based web companies, but if they haven’t, that would seem to be a blunder on their part. The time and money it will take to make the average fan of anime/j-pop become aware of niconico or Mikubook will more than likely not be worth it, and they can forget about ever drawing the attention of the average American consumer. Instead, Japanese companies should really think about doing special promotions for Miku on already popular American internet mediums, so that Miku will not just be searched for by those who already know of her.

That’s not to say that Miku is doomed to failure outside of Japan. The business model developed in Japan really does seem to be working and they have a great product to work with. As a person who would like to see Miku become more popular, I would like to see Japanese companies work more with American companies as a way to promote her, which they have done to some extent with the Toyota commercials in the U.S. Still, these things need to be more than gimmicks; they need to be real sustained attempts at letting people learn about Miku through already established video mediums, or eventually the costs of doing business will become too high, which force them to cut and run.

As expected, day 2 saw more cosplayers than day 1. Day 3 had fewer, of course, and had a more relaxed, muted atmosphere as well.

Again, I’ve uploaded the photos I took onto Picasa: Day 2 and Day 3.

Maybe this will help him get over his depression

Some that I found notable:

• A Bayonetta with a chainsaw she uses in one of her torture attacks.
• A Lucy and a Nyuu from Elfen Lied.
• The only Kino from Kino’s Travels I could find. That show’s quite obscure, so finding a cosplayer was satisfying.
• Princess Tutu, who actually stood on her toes for the photo.
• The only Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei cosplayer I could find, a very tall Itoshiki Nozomu doing the dance bit from the burebure opening.
• A girl as Pilaf from Dragon Ball. Talk about an obscure character from an ancient show. A show I grew up with.
• South Korea from Axis Powers Hetalia. There was a metric ****load of Hetalia cosplayers there, this was the only South Korea I could find. I didn’t even know South Korea was in Hetalia.
• The Jenova tube (that’s right, the actual tube) from which Sephiroth escaped in Final Fantasy 7.
• Windows7-tan. The best operating system out there right now, bar none. All you Mac users and Linux fanboys can suck it. (There was actually an Ubuntu booth at the dealer’s room – there’s apparently an on-going manga about Ubuntu that’s being published in Japan).
• I got a Lady cosplayer to hold her pistol in her mouth, like one of the cut scenes in Devil May Cry 3. She also had an excellent Kalina Ann.
• There were 2 Yokos from the My Stars music video based on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. One as a bunnygirl, the other in the black suit with a guitar.
• Izaya and Shizuo from Durarara! It’s hard to find cosplayers of shows this recent, in my experience.

Arcade Bumstead from Tsukihime, if you don't know.

There were also a lot of Vocaloid cosplayers. Like, a lot. So many you wouldn’t believe. It was awesome.

I won’t go too deep into the panels. I attended 3 more by Alex Leavitt, one about anime pilgrimages which made me more interested in going on a cycling trip than on anime. He talked about how otaku in Japan were making so-called “pilgrimages” to actual locations that their favorite anime were using as backdrops. He used a shrine that was shown for about 5 seconds in the Lucky Star opening as an example. He provided a link to a site that attempts to catalog all the anime with real-life locations and provides links to photos/comparison shots. The list on the front page of that site is 453 long. Some people even went all the way to Spain, from where Sora no Woto’s backdrop was inspired!

I stood in line for a 2 hour Touhou panel that was absolutely packed. I was hoping to learn more about the fanbase and the entire sub-industry that this one series of games has inspired, but it was more about the games and official works themselves. They spent a little too much time on just playing the game on the big screen. I did learn about a boxer who cosplayed as Touhou characters during his entrance to the ring. Here’s one such entrance and here’s him KO’ing his opponent while his posse of (female) cosplayers celebrate.

"My spoon is too big!"

I went to dinner on Saturday with founder and fans of Fakku, a site I won’t link to as it’s very very NSFW. Turns out the founder, Jacob, is a Massachusetts native, having grown up and still going to college in Worcester! Met some interesting people there, one of whom was kind enough to give me a ride back home at 2AM (Boston’s public transportation sucks, and part of the reason is that it shuts down around 1AM).

Jacob's the one with the FAKKU shirt in the middle

Other than photographing and attending panels, I spent a lot of time at the artists’ alley and the dealers’ room and spent a little too much money on the artists’ wares. At least the money’s going to support the artists directly. I bought 4 prints of Black Rock Shooter, 2 of Hatsune Miku, 1 of Hitagi (the only Bakemonogatari picture I could find there – the artist mentioned that he had the idea of painting a picture of her onto a stapler and selling it), and a couple bookmarks, including a Durarara!! one which goes nicely with the book I was already reading.

I regret nothing

Anyway, I had a good time. Spent probably about $200-$225 for everything, including food, with a grand total of 12+15+7=34 hours spent at the convention center. Definitely a much more exciting atmosphere than PAX East, with more people just looking like they were having fun. Like me. Looking forward to it next year.