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10 Surprising and cool things you didn’t know about Akihabara

Date published: 26 December 2017

Akihabara perhaps draws more people than anywhere else in Tokyo, visitors to Japan are either made up for people who in one way or another have some interest in the unique sub-culture of Akihabara, or those people who want to experience that sub-culture. Who can blame them! It really is a kind of mecca for a wide variety of people, including anime fans, cosplayers or game enthusiasts. In a way it is like a city within a city as it has a very different atmosphere to the rest of Tokyo! So, before visiting this very unique area we have brought together some of the most surprising and cool things about Akihabara which will make your trip even more enjoyable.

As this is the ultimate otaku cultural spot, it isn’t surprising that there are a lot of shops selling items related to anime, manga, and more. It is one thing to know that this area is the place to go to, it is quite another thing to actually experience it. If you love anime and manga prepare to be amazed, if you simply want to have a look then be prepared to spend a lot of time here as it can literally take hours to go through all the shops.

While you might have an image of everyone on the streets of Akihabara wearing cosplay, or a maid’s costume, or just wearing cool fashion, you will see a lot of perfectly ordinary looking people here. That’s because Akihabara is famous as an ‘electric town,’ in other words there are also a lot of stores selling electric goods, and famously at a reasonable price. So many people will come here to buy things as mundane as a toaster!

One aspect of Akihabara which many tourists want to experience is the maid cafe, as well as the more recent phenomenon of butler cafes, but actually there are two surprising things about these cafes, one being that there are over a hundred maid cafes so you are really spoilt for choice, and the other being that the butler cafes are not in Akihabara! They can be found elsewhere in Tokyo. It might seem natural to expect that butler cafes would be in the same place as maid cafes, but this is Japan – the land of the unexpected.
A further surprising aspect about maid cafes is that the ‘maids’ who work there, and the clientele who visit, have developed a whole sub-culture based around it. Amongst the more special language that can be found in these cafes, for example very ‘cute’ phrases, there are also magic spells like “moe moe kyun” to infuse drinks with love. Regular customers go to the cafes to play games, or just to meet their favorite maid. In addition it is possible to get a maid as a personal tour guide to Akihabara!

One of the reasons that this area is popular with gamers is because you can play retro games! For example, Sega has four stores in Akihabara, and more elsewhere, where you can play both old games and new. For those people who want to buy a game, no matter from what year it is from, you will probably find it in one of the many stores that also sell games.

Visitors are usually so focused on looking at the shops, and maids on the street, that they often miss something quite interesting in the road. As Akihabara attracts otaku fans from across Japan it also attracts their cars! You can see cars and motorbikes with really creative decoration ranging from just stickers to full-on paint jobs. So it is always best to keep at least one eye on the street as you might just see something very cool.

This will come as a surprise to budding photographers out there, but a great place for nighttime photography is actually Akihabara. The bright lights against the dark sky come together to make a really unique scene, so, many Japanese photographers appear at dusk to try and capture a really distinctive photo. This makes the nighttime scene of Akihabara the place to go to, especially if you want to take a photo which really captures the quintessential image of Japan – busy brightly lit buildings.

Demonstrating how Akihabara really does have something for everything, whether that is people watchers, anime fans, cosplayers or photographers, it is also bit of a gourmet location. It has become quite famous for B-grade food; this is food which is simple, but delicious and reasonably priced. At the B1 Grand Prix Shokudo you can enjoy B-grade local gourmet from all over Japan!

After filling up on gourmet food you can try some locally brewed beer at Hitachino Brewing Lab which is located just across the river from Akihabara station. You can brew your very own beer or just check out one of the ten kinds of draft beer ready and waiting in the bar.

A final surprising, and pretty cool, aspect about Akihabara is the Kanda Myojin Shrine which dates back nearly 1300 years. Originally built in Otemachi it was moved twice before arriving at its current location, while the building itself dates back to 1923 as the previous structure was destroyed in an earthquake. In contrast to the modernity of Akihabara this shrine is really a reminder of the past, and in an amazing blend of old and new, the shrine sells talismans to protect electrical items from harm. One of the three major Shinto festivals of Tokyo is held here with a massive matsuri (festival) every May.