Tokyo's Geek Ghetto

anaesthetica writes "The Washington Post is running a story on Tokyo's "Geek Ghetto" which has arisen in the city's electronics retail district, "Electric Town." From the article: "We have been discriminated against for being different, but now we have come together and turned this neighborhood into a place of our own.... In Akihabara, we don't need to be ashamed of who we are and what we like.... We can feel comfortable because here, we outnumber everyone else." There are concerns, however, that the total immersion in escapist culture may be causing social problems, including a growing number of shut-ins." I've gone to Tokyo 3x and visited Akihabara all three times. Highly recommended for anime fans and techies.

Lucky bastards

In the states, we geeks are confined to our parents' basements

A 2002 BBC correspondent program on japanese otaku

I saw this program more than 2 years back. It deals in detail with the phenomenon- hikikimori, mentioned briefly in the washpost article. Japan: The Missing Million [bbc.co.uk]. Here's the program transcript [bbc.co.uk]. It apparently is a big problem in Japan.

more details...

i present for your enjoyment, the Akihabara [akiba.or.jp] home page, plus an intriguing article entitled: Akihabara becomes geek sex paradise [japantoday.com]. :-)))

Very .. VERY expensive...

I recently visited Tokyo, went to Akihabara.. and subsequently visited Singapore.
I noticed that everything in Akihabara is very expensive. Buying the same stuff in Singapore is a LOT (I mean 30 - 40%) cheaper...
But, one thing I agree.. you can get some really cool stuff in Akihabara...that you cannot find in Singapore, but for regular buys, I would avoid Akihabara.
My 2c

Will not be a problem...

This gettho will die out in... like... one generation ;)

Re:Will not be a problem...

No... there might not be that many of them, but in general, geek girls are only interested in geek guys.

So: hello, speciation.

Re:Will not be a problem...

This is just a guess, but I'm pretty sure that cartoon women, even the ones with superpowers, cannot reproduce.

Re:Will not be a problem...

Are they also sluts? Since as you point out, the ratios are a bit uhhh lopsided...

Based solely on my limited knowledge of Bukkake, I will say, Yes. Yes, they are sluts. Praise be to the Otaku Bukkake and long-live the geek ghettos of Tokyo.

Re:Will not be a problem...

Funny, I was under the impression that most geek guys were interested in anything with a hole and a pulse.

I think you misspelled "or".

-

shut-ins

since when do shut-ins cause social problems? other than those rare occasions when they do come out and have forgotten to bathe? Now they are gonna need shut-ins support groups to help them deal with being social problems. I wonder if they would have to meet at large dressing rooms where they could each have their own small closed room.

akihabara

My favorite memory of strolling through akihabara was going through a maze of electronics vendor stalls and coming across a guy selling nothing but big red buttons. If you stick to the normal shops, its pretty much many many people selling the exact same stuff. If you explore a little, you'll start finding the more offbeat tinkerer type stuff.

The button guy

My favorite memory of strolling through akihabara was going through a maze of electronics vendor stalls and coming across a guy selling nothing but big red buttons.

Most likely that's one of the small electronic shops under the station. That's one of the most Blade Runner-esque spots I've ever seen. Many shops there are a 1x1 meter square with a hole on the midle barely wide enough for the guy to stand on it, with all kind of components surrounding the guy.

Shameless plug:

Akihabara photos on my site [ag0ny.com].
More Akihabara photos [ag0ny.com].
And more [ag0ny.com].

And yes, I'm living in Tokyo.

Visited there in 1993

I visited Tokyo and Akihabara in 1993. I have to say that it was one of the coolest places I have ever seen. Shops oozing with electronics and games. I went for two reasons: Laserdiscs and Super Famicom games. Games were often marked down to 15-40% of retail a few months after release. I was used to a trickle of Anime in the USA on Laserdisc, but in Akihabara, there were stores that only carried anime on laserdisc, isles full. It was pretty amazing.

I have a friend in Japan right now, but he won't go there because he says it's too nerdy. I don't know if it got worse in 12 years, or I got better.

Anime != geek!!!

So since when did Anime and comics become synonymous with the word 'geek'? Aren't we a little more diverse then the article states?

I play with Linux, computers and build things, but I have never really liked Anime, and I got over my comics phase when I was a teenager. In my spare time I sometimes play with the computers, but I also enjoy GETTING AWAY from the computer and play my son, go bicyling, play in the garden, etc.

Alert! Alert!!

We have an intruder on /.
Fake geek sighted.

He exercises, reproduces, touches non-processed plant material, shows signs of growing up.
He even LEAVES HIS COMPUTER ALONE! (Poor thing. Probably crashes in lonliness.)

Quick, somone hijack the space laser and fill his house with popcorn before he infects us.

YT geeks will still stand out

Japanese culture is much less anti-intellectual and anti-geek than North American/UK/Australian culture. So it is not just akihabara that is geek friendly. And girls might at least glance in your general direction even if you are invisible elsewhere. Not that they like geeks or anything. But I think they have a somewhat higher geek tolerance level. A great reason to learn Japanese!

However, if you are non-Asian you will still be regarded as a bit of a monkey on display at the zoo. People may avoid sitting next to you on trains unless it is totally packed and you may be followed around while in some small shops with suspicious owners, as if waiting for you to pocket a few items and then make a run for it. So there is a bit of racism over there, but they are generally a nice group of folks.

Call it a Troll if You Like, But

As something of a geek (I guess not as much of one as I used to be, but still somewhat of one), I wonder about a few things after reading the article:

(a) "We can feel comfortable because here, we outnumber everyone else"

As someone who has been a member of both predominantly geek- and non-geek social groups at one point, I've always wondered greatly why geeks, who always complain about being tortured and abused by non-geeks, turn around and do it amongst their own geek groups? "We outnumber everyone else" is hardly the way geeks should be fighting back against the non-geeks they claim abuse them so much, and if ya ask me, I'd tell you they were acting just like the non-geeks to one another. Just goes to show you that social structures work the same, geek or not.

(b) "Here, the waitresses' uniforms are inspired by the French maid-meets-Pokemon outfits of adult manga. At other cafes, waitresses greet patrons at the door with a curtsy and the words "Welcome home, master.""

So most of the 10% females left in this area have resorted to saying "welcome home master"? I feel kinda awkward saying this, but any self-respecting (woman-loving?) geek should be trying to get the hell OUT of there as soon as possible, not try to rush into this place.

(c) "Nerd subgroups include not only people obsessed with cartoons and computer games, but also pop idols such as Morning Daughter, a music group marketed to kids that has become so popular among otaku that men sometimes attend its concerts wearing kimonos covered in glossy pictures of young band members.

That, along with the child pornography aspect of some adult manga, has led to allegations that some nerds are pedophiles."

This has been a very long-standing problem in Japanese culture in general (five minutes of Google should net you more than enough information), so trying to stick this behavior to just the nerds specifically discussed here is misguided, to say the least.

Real estate opportunity

I hear that Lambda Lambda Lambda is looking at houses in the area.

The Price of Freedom

1-way ticket to tokyo(expedia.com) - $700
new laptop - $2500

Finding home at last.. - Priceless

Serious Disconnect

From TFA:

Tetsu Ishihara, 34, a computer programmer whose three-room apartment in west Tokyo is filled from floor to ceiling with comic books, does not want to be associated with such charges. Ishihara maintains a growing collection of 130 life-size pillows of female anime characters -- both purchased and self-designed. His favorite is Mio-chan, a female character from a love-simulation computer game in which a high school boy builds up the courage to ask a girl for a first date.

....

"There are some people who do lose their grip on reality, but that is not me -- or most of us," said Ishihara, a chubby man with glasses who this year started dating a woman steadily for the first time.

What exactly constitutes loosing grip on reality, brother?

Re:Geek persecution

I don't get it. Are you saying persecution is a plus? Or that being a geek is bad? Or something else entirely?

I've never been persecuted. I might be a geek, but I am also so many other things. Labels are stupid.

Re:Geek persecution

Seeing as I am a recovering geek/computer nerd shut-in, I can empathize with some of the potential problems brought up by the article. It's taken me five years to become confident once again in social situations because of the amount of time I wasted sitting in front of a computer screen playing games. This is no one's fault but my own and it wasn't until I took responibility for my life that things started to change but I do honestly wish my parents had kicked me out of the house in high school and forced me to go out and be social; it would have made college life a lot easier. I don't think societies should encourage this sort of behavior because it is ultimately destructive; these people indulge in their hobbies without developing entirely as human beings. This is NOT a good thing in my mind...oh well just my two cents :)

Re:Geek persecution

Ultimately, my choice to become a computer shut-in was caused by a warped perception of self. In essence, I was a fat kid with bracers and acne and no self-esteem. Computers were always easy to me and I was rewarded because of my intelligence playing games online [Played a MUD for eight years]. It was a simple pattern of success in the virtual world, cuppled with percieved values in the real world [getting rejected by a girl, not making the basketball team etc]. At the time I didn't have the coping mechanisms to deal with these sorts of things properly so I became introverted.

So I guess, from my experience, I would suggest talking to your sons about how they feel about themeselves. Figure out a way to get them to talk about how they percieve themeselves. Some methods that might work are what there dreams/goals/aspirations or who their idols are, I've found with myself those things were a reverse manifestation of how I really felt about myself. I dunno if any of that is a help but let me know.

Re:Geek persecution for a reason maybe?

I mean really wanting women to dress up in anime costumes? Give me a break. This is not remotely healthy.
Here in the USA, we have restaurants where women are paid to dress up in tiny orange shorts, white tank tops, sneakers and pantyhose. A while back there were clubs with women in satin bustiers, hose, high heels and rabbit ears that catered to the wealthiest businessmen. The servers in many casinos wear skin-tastic outfits that aren't remotely grounded in typical dress standards.

The shut-in part is certainly an unhealthy lifestyle, but there's nothing particularly odd about enjoying waitresses in 'fetish' costumes, particularly when common denominator is lots of exposed skin.

Re:It's important to note...

In America, geeks achieve because everybody who's popular is too busy with recreation to get anything done.

This is so true. I used to have this good looking friend. After knowing him for a while I realized he was really smart. Way more intelligent than me. He spent most of his free time socializing with friends and he either had a girlfriend or was kind of looking for one. So between that and school or work, that took up all of his time. To me, it seems like he wasted all that brain power of his. But he was living his life the way he wanted. From my perspective he has 'achieved' nothing in his life, (except maybe for an attractive wife).

It's not that American geeks are smarter than normal people. They just have more free time.

This is an aspect of the whole nature vs. nurture thing. Being a geek has absolutely nothing to do with being intelligent. That is, being born intelligent. Geeks will often know more than non-geeks in their fields of interest, but that's just knowledge not real intelligence.

With a fixed number of waking hours in our lives, the fewer number of hours spent on socializing whether with friends or MOTOS, the more hours there are for accomplishing 'things', finishing projects, whatever you want to call it. Life really is like a zero sum game. The more time you spend hanging out with friends at the pub or smooching with your girlfriend at the park the less time you have for writing programs or working on important 'stuff'.

This is really one of the biggest differences between us and other mammals. If we are lucky enough to be born with some intelligence, we can achieve something tangible in our lives, something more than just making more humans who will also achieve nothing. While it is not likely that any program that you write will be around after you die or that that OLED display you invent will still be used in 30 years or that that game art you worked so hard on will ever be seen in 20 years, you will still have contributed more, been more a part of history than guys with girlfriends and social lives. If that's any consolation. And those few with REALLY big brains can do stuff like invent calculus or the transistor, after which you will always be a significant part of history. (Or you could just crash a plane into a skyscraper...)