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Shibuya and Akihabara

■Shibuya- A Party Town

Shibuya is the name of one of Japan’s wards, and as such includes Harajuku, Ebisu and a number of other neighborhoods. In common speech, however, Shibuya usually refers to the shopping and entertainment district just south of Harajuku, centered on Shibuya Station, one of Tokyo’s busiest.

Shibuya is famous as a breeding ground for countless youth fads and subcultures, and has been since the 1930’s. The Center Gai precinct is where it all happens for Tokyo’s youth. Center Gai street itself, as well as the warren of smaller streets leading off of it, is packed sky high with shops, restaurants, bars and karaoke boxes that come and go like the wind, reflecting the constantly changing tastes and fickle allegiances of their young customers.

The two biggest players in the area are the competing department-store companies Tokyu and Seibu. Tokyu, famous for its Tokyu Hands store containing eight floors of an almost unbelievable diversity of goods, also owns the Shibuya 109 Building. 109 is a pun on the company’s name, since 10-9 can be pronounced To-kyu. Shibuya 109 contains over 100 boutiques on its ten floors, almost all aimed at young women. The shopping complex is insanely popular, and has spawned a number of young fashion sub-cultures, including the famous “kogyaru” craze of the 1990’s. The influence of Shibuya 109 extends well beyond Shibuya; Karl Lagerfeld and Paris Hilton, among others, stop by whenever they’re in Tokyo.

Other attractions of Shibuya include the Dogenzaka district, named after a bandit who retired to the neighborhood as a monk, and today a labyrinth of sloping, narrow streets and alleys full of bars, nightclubs, pachinko parlors and love hotels, as well as older houses and art galleries. Needless to say, this area is packed at night.

Shibuya is also home to several modest museums devoted to tobacco and salt, electrical power and Asian pottery. They’re not difficult to find, if you’re interested. If you’re hungry after checking out all the cigarettes and salt, mosey over to Mamido Burger. They actually sell sweets, but the Mamido Special is a souffle bun wrapped around a chocolate patty that looks just like a hamburger. They’re very popular right now.

One more thing: next to Shibuya Station you’ll find the famous Hachiko statue. The statue was placed in memory of Hachiko, an Akita dog who accompanied his master to the station every morning and returned in the evening to walk home with him. After the old man died, Hachiko continued to come to the station at his appointed hour every day for ten years. It’s a story many people outside of Japan have heard, and though the statue itself is not especially impressive, animal-lovers and other soft-hearted types may want to stop by.

■Akihabara-Electric Town

Akihabara, world famous as one of the most concentrated shopping areas in the world for electronics goods of every possible type and description, has taken on a second role in the last 15 years as the center of Japan’s increasingly influential otaku, or geek culture. For both of these reasons, it can be a fascinating part of any trip to Tokyo, especially for travelers whose own interests include electronics or Japanese pop culture.

First, the electronics. After the war, the area at the heart of modern Akihabara was a bustling black market. Students from nearby colleges, including Japan’s first electrical vocational school, swarmed the market buying vacuum tubes, wiring and other goods that they would transform into radios and other goods. Today, the best taste of the chaos of that early black market can be had in the warren of tiny shops located beneath the tracks of Akihabara station.

As the economy improved, the focus shifted away from raw components (though of course these were, and still are, available in abundance) to durable household goods such as rice cookers, refrigerators and televisions. The area became famous worldwide, and tax-free shops for foreigners began to appear, along with shops specializing in equipment that, while made in Japan, was modified to handle the electrical systems of other countries.

In the 1990’s, huge electronics chain outlets started to drastically reduce Akihabara’s sales of durable goods. It would have been a disaster for the area, but fortunately the arrival of the electronics superstores coincided with the explosive rise of the personal computer. Increasingly, small shops found themselves better able to serve specialized customer needs for computer-related goods. This was especially true for the growing number of young men who were interested in building or modifying their own computers. Akihabara made a successful and largely seamless transition to a new focus on computer goods and videogames.

And this is where the geeks come into the story of Akihabara. As otaku poured into Akihabara to buy the latest games, or to pick up supplies to enhance or build their own computer systems, the neighborhood responded with a growing number of other businesses geared to the newcomers. Manga and anime shops, game stores, and costume cafes in which the waitresses dress as characters from Japanese comics have all boomed in Akihabara.
It’s an odd subculture in many ways, as can be seen in stores selling robot figurines for tens of thousands of yen, or life size pillows shaped like female anime characters. Many Japanese are uncomfortable with otaku culture, which is one reason Akihabara has increasingly taken on the feel of a geek ghetto, but there’s no doubt that anime and manga have been Japan’s most successful cultural export, with huge conventions of foreign otaku gathering across Europe and North America to celebrate the culture. And as young Japanese themselves become more interested, the popularity of Akihabara as a cultural center, rather than simply a specialty market, continues to explode.

-Matt Mangham

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