The Death of Akihabara
I am currently replaying Steins;Gate. I originally played this game for the first time back in 2014, and wow has the world changed since then.
In this scene Okabe looks out over Akiba's main street and believes that all of the people had disappeared. As someone who spent a lot of time in Akihabara during his youth, it feels funny to look at this image in 2024 as Akiba today is different than the Akiba of 2009 when Steins;Gate released. The most notable change from this image is the Toranoana building. Toranoana was a shop that sold doujin goods and occupied two buildings in Akiba, but during the covid era they were forced to close both buildings and move their operations to online-only.
Lately I have thought quite a bit about how Akiba has changed in recent years. I spent a lot of time in Akiba during my youth, it was a fun place to hang out with my friends and I was always marveled by all of the secrets it held. Unfortunately the Akiba of my youth is no more, Akiba today is nothing more than a tourist trap.
In the old days there was always something going on in Akiba, there were events nearly every single day. People used to hang out next to the station and back in those days there were always amateur musicians performing on the street and crowds of people would gather around to watch while waiting for their friends to arrive. There were lots of unique cafe's and bars, and unique shops catering to various niches.
Some of those things are still in Akiba to an extent, but much of it is now gone. The events are gone, they are always held elsewhere these days - the only events still happening in Akiba are the occasional pop-up store (but those aren't unique to Akiba). The street performers and the crowds of people hanging out by the station are gone. Many of the unique shops either closed down permanently, moved their operations online (like Toranoana), or moved their operations elsewhere outside of Akiba. Some of the bigger names remained, but most of them are shops which have locations all around the country and have stores elsewhere in Tokyo which are better than the Akiba branches, like Animate. There are a handful of places that remain which are unique to Akiba, but quite frankly the stores that do remain aren't enough to make venturing out to Akiba worth it.
There are still lots of people in Akiba, but almost all of them are tourists. The problem is not the presence of tourists. Rather, the problem is that it's nearly ONLY tourists who go. It's not an exaggeration to say that if you go to Akiba the only Japanese people you see will be shop staff, and many of them are foreigners also. Whenever I go to Akiba anymore I always think to myself that it feels like stepping into a foreign country.
Some people online may try to argue that the state of Akihabara today is a reflection of modern otaku culture but this is not true. Otaku culture is still in high demand, but all things change at some point and Akiba is no exception. The current state of Akiba is a result of multiple factors, but the largest would be the effects of the covid era which made big changes to what shops are available in Akiba. Akiba was like a ghost town during the pandemic, and as many shops closed up or moved Japanese otaku began to gather in smaller hubs elsewhere in Tokyo. Another reason would probably be online shopping, the current state of Toranoana would be a good example of this (even though this was another effect of covid). Why go all the way to Akiba when you can just order online? Going to Akiba is fun, but sometimes convenience is more important. And, well, I think a lot of people were getting tired of the tourists. The amount of tourists in Japan continues to hit record-breaking numbers and while I want tourists to enjoy their time in Japan it can be very frustrating as a local trying to navigate through large crowds of tourists just to get to my destination; I'm sure many others feel the same way. With that in mind, it's no wonder why the otaku started to gather elsewhere.
I had a lot of fun in Akihabara when I was younger and didn't as many responsibilities. I only hope that one day it will return to it's former glory as the otaku mecca.
If you're reading this and were planning to visit Akiba during a trip to Japan, don't worry. You can still have a lot of fun in Akihabara today and there's is lots of stuff there that you would probably enjoy as a tourist. Some of the old holdouts are still around also, and Akiba is a town with many fun secrets and some of those are still there as well. My melancholic feelings are regarding the local community, it's not something you need to worry about as a tourist. Stop by Akiba on your trip to Japan, have a good time. You can still have fun in Akiba, even if the town isn't the same as it was a few years back.
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