Under the Bodhi Tree

Akihabara is the go-to neighborhood for all geeky things. Here you’ll find tall, block style buildings with floors and floors of manga, anime, and maid cafes. However, it’s former nickname was Electric Town because of all the discount electronic stores. You can still find great deals on camera, phones, and small devices, but really this area is all about the nerds.

Along with the many maid cafes, you can also find your comfort food mainstays such as ramen and Tonkotsu. We chose to try the famous Hokkaido ice cream instead and it did not disappoint. Hokkaido is known for their milk. The ice cream was light and sweet. The texture was silkier than other types of softserve. Bodhi had a coupling of mango and chocolate, while I had the plain milk. Ira just watched. However, if you want to eat or do anything before 10 AM, you will need to search a little harder. I’m guessing it’s because stores stay open later in the evenings, but we definitely aren’t used to starting our day so late. It’s a good thing summer had not really set in yet!

Outside of the electronic shopping, Akihabra is also known for gatchapon, capsule toy vending machines, which you can find expanding entire floors of a store or even on the streets. Our daughter, Kassidy, was particularly excited for us to bring these home as souvenirs and Bodhi was more than happy to oblige. 

Akihabara also hosts tons of arcades with video games and, much to Ira’s dismay, claw machines. Bodhi loves these (he has a stuffie collection of extreme amounts) and Ira hates the ridiculous amount of money required to actually win something. Unlike our American machines, however, the quality of these toys is exceptional.

Just look how pleased he is with himself for winning this! Well, I helped a little.

Ira’s Note: As Deedra said, Akihabara is a nerd’s heaven. I am a nerd. I love electronics, manga, anime, and video games. Because we had an appointment with the Pokemon Cafe, we had limited time here. Honestly, I could’ve gone to all the stores and played all the games and just nerd-ed out. 

Instead, we played claw-games. 

I detest claw games. They are money-sucking machines. They send me to fits of fury. I curse. I kick. I whine, I whine a lot about claw machines. But Bodhi loves them. Tokyo loves them. You can find a claw machine at every other store. In Akihabara there are floors and floors of claw machines. We must have climbed up and downstairs a few hundred times all for the love of claw machines. If you distilled our Tokyo vacation, I think you would have Pokémon Centers, claw machines, gatchapon machines, and 7-11s. The number one thing I try to tell myself as a visitor in a country is to let go of my biases and embrace the culture for what it is. What is it then? Putting 10,000 Yen in change machines and letting Bodhi and his mom claw to their heart’s content. (Though I think if we allowed him, Bodhi would spend the entire vacation at claw machines, especially with the promise of Pokémon stuffies.) 

Thank goodness, we had some time to visit Animate Akihabara. Six floors of manga and anime merch. I had been obsessing over a few anime series, like My Hero Acadamia, Kuroko no Basket, Haikyu, and my new fave that Bodhi and I were obsessing in Tokyo, Spy x Family. I wanted to purchase every figure there, but 1) they were costly; 2) how would we transport them when after one day Bodhi had already accrued more than five stuffed animals; 3) If I bought one, Bodhi would want two. So instead, we bought a couple of pens and left with the satisfaction Animate exists for people like me, and that next time, and there will be a next time, I will be taking my time. And there will be no time (or money) spent on the dreaded claw machine.