I’ve been to akihabara twice – once in 2008ish and another in 2018 – but back then I was more interested in looking at the massive electronic stores like yodabashi and bic. But a long while ago Marcin shared a youtube documentary on akihabara’s smallest shop and it never left my memory. I knew it has since been closed and torn down (and rebuilt), but I still wanted to visit the building that had housed it.
Even the train station at akhibara is different:
akihabara radio center
This place is under train tracks, so it feels more compressed than usual even for tokyo standards. Practically it wouldn’t take more then 30 minutes to walk through the entire place with 2 levels, but one can get caught up just looking at all the retro electronics.
So much nostalgia for walkmans, cassette tapes, discmans and even mini discs – I half wish I didn’t get rid of mine (never had a mini disc player because they were so expensive):
This shop was reminiscent of the shop featured in the youtube documentary. The space inside the shop is tiny and she would have to crawl in and out of the shop. She happened to look up while I was taking the shot:
book-off
I also visited book-off akihabara – they are a chain selling second-hand books in general, but the one at akihabara has games, cds, etc:
I got a stash of cds. Some were 200ish yen (about $1.5 usd), and there is a further 10% off above 5000 yen for tax-free shopping.
I spent long swaths of time just gazing longingly at old electronics. I guess I’m just at that age when nostalgia hits hard.