Talk:Tokyo/Wikibooks/Akihabara

Available Railways

Directions from TOKYO Station

• Keihin Tohoku Line (towards Oomiya) 4 minutes 京浜東北線　大宮行き 4分
• Yamanote Line (towards Ueno) 3 minutes 山手線　上野行き　3分

If you want to access the stores immediately, the Denki-gai Exit would be the most fastest way.

JR (Japan Railway)

• Sobu Line　総武線
• Yamanote Line　山手線
• Keihin Tohoku Line　京浜東北線

Subway

• Hibiya Subway Line

Others

• Tukuba Express

History

During the Edo era (the roughly three hundred years prior to Japan’s modernization in the 1860s) the area was known as Aioi and was the quarters of lower-class samurai. Its reputation was for 'fires and fights'.

In 1870 a shrine was established there to celebrate Akiba-daigongen, the bodhisattva who prevented fires. Before long the district itself became known by the name of the shrine, but with the addition of the word 'hara', or 'plain', the consonants altering slightly to read 'Akihabara', or 'autumn leaf plain'. In 1890 with the construction of Akihabara railway station, the name became official.

Even before World War II the area had a number of electrical wholesalers and retailers, but after the war it became even better known, first for its black market in radio parts, and then from the 1950s for its thriving trade in all things electric and, in the past three decades, electronic and, even more recently, otaku, or nerd, culture.

Tourist Attractions

Kanda Myojin

Kanda Myojin,originally named as KANDA Shrine, is located between AKIHABARA and UENO, both are the famous sightseeing spot. This shrine holds "KANDA Festival", one of the three biggest festivals in Japan followed by the GION Festival in KYOTO and TENJIN Festival in OSAKA. Kanda Myojin was originally a shrine dedicated to the defeat of a sea god. It later became dedicated to the sons and daughters of Edo. Myojin-sama had been honored as Edo-Souchinjufu (ancient guardian of Tokyo) by Shogun family, and by the grace of them Myojin-sama had been able to thrive. Main festival of Kanda Myojin is held every other year in mid May on Saturday and Sunday. During the festival, more than 200 portable shrines and floats appear and are filled with energy. A Myojinshita is a famous place where Heiji, a character in Nomura Kodou’s “Zenigata Heiji Torimono Hikae”, had lived. In the shrine, there is “a monument of Zenigata Heiji and Hachigorou”. (Reference: website of Chiyoda-ku Tourist Association)

Mansei-bashi

Manseibashi is one of the bridges over the Kanda River. Near the Manseibashi, there is the Manseibashi station. The Manseibashi station was for the old Japanese National Railways. After the 1943 closure of the JNR Manseibashi Station, the lot was used for the museum( there is transportation museum which has been closed since 15 May 2006.) and for parking trains. We can see,from the Manseibashi, beautiful viaduct which made of brick.In front of Manseibashi, there is Niku no Mansei, which is a meat restraint (this restraint serves you with steak, sukiyaki, shabu shabu, yakiniku and so on). This restraint was named “Niku no Mansei” after the Manseibashi. The seating area is divided into many booths, and we can see the whole Akihabara from there.

chuo-dori

Pedestrian precinct has been conducted on chuo-dori in the section between Akihabra on Sunday and holiday. On this road, there are many unique kinds of people such as “cosplay (means the people who wear costume and roleplay)”, street female performers called “Rojo-idle (means the people perfume idle on the street)” and so on. Especially on chuo-dori, Street idles appears and starts their performances. Though they do without notice, but their exuberant fans rush over to theirs and dance called in frenzy with their performances. Their dance is called “otagei” which means the performance of exuberant fans of street idles. Depending on the scale of otagei’s performance, chuo-dori on Akihabara is sometimes covered with akiba-kei. Lately on Saturday the performance has occurred in front of Yodobashi-Akiba because pedestrian precinct is not carried out on Saturday or weekday. Sixty to seventy percent People who do cosplay on chuo-dori adapt “suzumiya haruhi no yuutsu” costume. “Suzumiya haruhi no yuutsu” is the Japanese animation. The story is that a schoolgirl, suzumiya haruhi, unfolds on school life and she has interesting in alien, a person with supernatural power, and a person who comes from future not a simply person.

Personal Recommendation Best 3

★BEST 1★

Café Mai:lish (Maid cafe in Akihabara)

While made cafes are everywhere in Japan, Akihabara is famous for them. The reason is Akihabara is not only electronics capital of Tokyo, but a focal point for anime maniacs. So you can find Japanese girls who work at maid cafes in Akihabara are dressed in maid costumes and hand out flyers to visitors. Café Mai:lish is one of Akihabara’s maid cafe. When you enter the cafe, a young woman will greet you “Okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama” (Japanese for “welcome home, Master”). The waitresses will all be dressed in Lolita fashion, as a French maid at AM11:00 to PM 5:00, or as an anime characters at PM 5:00 to PM 10:00. It has menus and we could order cake, drink, foods, float, side menu, and liquor. The maid will curtsey for you (that is distinctly different from a Japanese bow). When she brings your order, she will sit on her knees at your table and add sugar and cream and mix it for you. Sometimes the stuff of Café Mai:lish change regular costume and they impersonate other character like china girl, delinquent girl, girl wearing graduation ceremony costume, and girl wearing glasses (we call it as “meganekko”). We could talk stuff easily, but we must not take photo of them. Even if you could not understand and find fun for it, you would have a good opportunity.

★BEST 2★

Animate Akihabara

This is the famous Otaku goods store in Japan. This store holds many mangas, anime DVDs, blu-rays, anime soundtrack CDs, figures, anime goods, and so on. Also this store sometimes holds events randomly. Not only, this store covers many famous animes and mangas, it also covers many games too. So that it would be very easy to enter for foreigners who wants to buy Otaku goods. This store would be very good to know what is the Japanese Otaku stores are like. If you have interested into the other Otaku store, the maids are distributing the Akihabara Otaku Store Map in front of Station.

★BEST 3★

Go Go Curry

This is the famous reasonable curry store in Japan. There are always people line up in front of the store during lunch time. This store is very unique because of the size of the curry. You can choose from the 4 sizez which are Healthy, Economy, Business, and First Class sizes. Also they have two special sizes of curry and which are Major size and World Champion size. World Champion size is very big and it weighs 2.5 kg which only serves 5 dishes per day.