Akihabara 秋葉原

Akihabara started as a black market for radio parts after the war, became the place Japan bought its first televisions, and then, when the electronics chains moved to the suburbs, was taken over by the people who had grown up on the games and anime those televisions showed. The result is a district where a shop that sells vacuum tubes shares a wall with one that sells life-size figures, and where nine-floor towers are organized by franchise, era and the condition of the box. Retro gaming is the serious business here: Super Potato, Surugaya and the stalls in the Radio Kaikan carry everything from boxed PC Engine titles to loose Game Boy carts sorted by price in plastic trays.

Go on a Sunday afternoon, when the main avenue becomes pedestrian and the cosplayers, maids handing out flyers and photographers mix in the road. Then leave the main drag. The back streets toward Suehirocho have the doujinshi shops and the tiny bars run by fans, and the Kanda Myojin shrine on the hill is where the area’s engineers buy charms for their hard drives. Akihabara rewards curiosity more than budget.