How I feel about Akihabara

I’m with Tommy Lee on this one…

I love Tommy Lee’s portrayal of a guy in Akihabara wondering what the hell is going on. As you’ve guessed, this is one of the few times I identify with someone in a commercial which must mean I am a boring old fart who drinks crap coffee.

I came to Japan more than 12 years ago, way before the pokemon invasion of America and cosplay had exploded into the international phenomenon it is today. Back in the 80s, managers and business majors were being sent to Japan to learn the secrets of the Japanese miracle. Little did they know the real miracle was fooling the world into thinking there was one. The bubble burst and suddenly learning Japanese was only for weirdo linguistics geeks like me.

When I started learning Japanese at uni back in 97, Japanese wasn’t cool, at least not as cool as it is today.  I was never into manga or anime and I was totally unaware of cosplay even if it did exist then. I was just a kanji geek then.

Then there was pokemon. As with most exponential increases you didn’t see it coming until it was too late. People in the states who had watched it as kids were now old enough to get a flight over to Tokyo and go nuts Akihabara. Cosplay came out of the closet and now Akihabara is swarming with maids being photographed by an army of men with cameras as advanced as their interpersonal communication skills are retarded.

And here I am, an old fart with a crappy can of coffee who simply doesn’t get it. You can tell my age by the fact that Harry Potter stimuli gets a flat line brain response from me.

Not to rain on the cosplay parade, it is cool that people are freely expressing themselves in a creative, imaginative, artistsic and interesting way. I would be the last person to pull a Taliban on people’s freedom of expression, clothes, music and ballons (Yes, the Taliban were anti balloons).

I guess you saw the BUT coming… The disconcerting thing for me is the whole regression into an infantile state. People, is acting like a five year old going to help us? And because Cosplay, Anime and Manga are Japan’s most visible exports it lends to the tired, old and boring idea of “quirky Japan”.

AND ANOTHER THING… Sorry. Here’s to you Tommy.

(A message to anime fans, don’t bother to call me on the inaccuracies of this blog post. I know I got it wrong. I don’t get it. Hey, fancy a can of coffee?)

Tags: akihabara, anime, cosplay, geek, maid, moe, nerd, otaku, run for the hills