True Otaku

A lot of my attraction to Japan has stemmed from my interest in all things Otaku.

In this US, this term primarily refers to fans of Japanese animation, though in Japan the definition is much broader. Through my interest in Otaku I have visited many places that are not often visited by tourists such as animation studios and shopping districts frequented by Otaku. The Akihabara area of Tokyo has long been considered the mecca for Otaku, though after doing some research I learned that as Akihabara became a tourist destination, many Otaku began frequenting a place called Nakano Broadway a few train stations away. I decided to visit that place as part of my pilgrimage. 

Nakano Broadway was considerably more low-key than Akihabara though it had a similar selection of Anime and computer goods. Instead of taking up an entire district like Akihabara, Nakano Boadway is housed within one giant building. It has 4 floors with new products on the first floor, and more interesting second-hand sellers on the upper floors. One of the most interesting stores sells nothing but animation cels from vintage anime. Cels from well known anime cost as much as $1500 though the majority of the cels were much cheaper. Cels depicting iconc scenes cost considerably more than other cells from the same series. 

I settled on a single cel from an anime I didn't know for $6 which included the original hand-painted background. It is uncommon for an affordable cel to come with a background as that background was likely used behind many cels. It's a cel/background from the anime Silent Möbius. I decided to watch a few episodes and it was interesting, but I have yet to find the scene that my cel comes from. 

On the 4th floor of the building I stumbled across an old arcade. This is probably the truest form of Otaku I have witnessed, just a bunch of friends hanging out and playing video games. Most of the games in the arcade were from the 2000s though there were several middle-aged adults in the back playing truly vintage games from the '80s. I feel some connection to these people as I too grew up with video games and enjoyed the social aspects that came with them.