Akihabara, Huzzah!

Akihabara, the old electronics neighborhood located appropriately on the eastern side of Tokyo (east is older, west is new and poppin'), is pretty much what I thought all of Tokyo would be like based on stories from friends and media stereotypes back in high school: lots of flashing lights, enough used electronic parts to easily build a Nintendo from scratch, and video porn. Thankfully, I was wrong about Tokyo, and the video porn; it's all on DVD now.




The shear variety and number of gadgets, parts, video games, and computers is mind numbing. I can say with near certainty that if the A-Team were let loose in Akihabara, they might end up starting World War III. And win. Invite MacGyver, and you've got a recipe for the apocalypse.

One thing there is a severe shortage of here are guys who play sports that don't include time-attack Super Mario (see above), or taiko drum DDR (see below). One of the breast surgery fellows I've been scrubbing in with described the guys in Akihabara as "manure." While this may not be a fair generalization, I should offer that this fellow was formerly chief resident of digestive surgery, which gives him about as much manure identifying authority as a person can have; quite literaly, this is a man who knows his shit.

Akihabara is also devoid of humans of the female persuasion, at least in free-willed flesh form. I happened across these lovely ladies in a figurine shop, perched between shelves of Dragonball Z characters and Star Wars spacecraft:

Truly these are figures of action. Who needs kung-fu-gripping GI Joe when you've got eagerly-fellating Sailor Moon? I resisted the urge to purchase one (for novelty sake, I swear), but then finally caved in thinking I could somehow justify having it as a conversation starter, or objet art, or another equally high brow excuse to have a masturbating nurse sprawled on my desk. Somewhere in my closet at home, I'm sure, Optimus Prime's hormone circuitry is being overloaded with the possibility of losing his virginity protocol.