Phil & I began our day’s adventure by traveling to Asakusa. We exited the train station’s Senso-ji exit, turned left, then headed toward the crowd of people. The massive throng was tourists, Japanese and international, struggling to find a reasonable vantage point from which to photograph the famous Kaminarimon gate with its giant red paper lantern. The more ambitious or narcissistic tourists actually tried to get posed photos in prime locations, taking for granted that the crowds would part for them.
When Phil saw the crowd filling the arcade leading to the Senso-ji Temple, he petitioned that we take a parallel side-street instead of tackle the human torrent head-on.
So we advanced up the street to the left until we reached the front entrance of the temple grounds. Phil & I snapped some photos of the shrine then proceeded up the stairs to the shrine’s interior. The alter is closed off from public access, so we exited to the left side.
As we attempted to wind our way toward Taito, we stuck our noses into three Japanese kitchen knife stores just to take a look at their wares.
I also spied a gachapon machine offering fried shrimp with legs.
And a selection of vinyl Godzilla kaiju.
We passed by a totally un-suspicious bar.
We also passed by the World Bags & Luggage Museum, which I hadn’t known was a thing that existed.
As we headed up National Route 6 I could see the sign for the Bandai headquarters building.
The multi-story building has a visitors’ lobby and a line of character statues along the outside sidewalk.
We took some pictures with some of the statues. But the building was closed for the weekend.
We continued walking up the road, stopping momentarily at a roadside shrine, until we reached the walked across the Umayabashi Bridge.
We then walked alongside the Sumida River until we reached the Kyu-Yasuda Gardens.
Phil had already walked through this small park on Wednesday, but he wanted to revisit it to take more photographs.
So we walked through the park then onward to walk past the Ryogoku Kokugikan Sumo Arena so Phil could take additional photos of the building and the banners announcing the current sumo tournament.
Once again, Phil refused to match the pose.
We passed by a sumo-themed restaurant.
Phil then led us to the Yokoamicho Park, which is home to the Tokyo Memorial Hall for the victims of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1944-45 Tokyo firebombings.
We walked around the grounds, entered the building, and sat to watch the looping ten-minute video that introduced the building and its history and purpose.
To reach the Ryogoku train station, we ended up walking back through the Kyu-Yasuda park again.
We took the train to Nakano, this time exiting the station from the south exit. Phil used his phone navigation to direct us to the closest Cocoya Ichiban Curry restaurant. Phil had plain curry while I ordered katsu curry.
We then walked the long way around the station to reach the Nakano shopping arcade leading to Nakano Broadway.
We took the stairs up to the fourth floor because I intended to purchase a Cream Lemon production cel from the Apple Symphony store. But we found that the store was closed today for inventory.
We stopped briefly to purchase drinks from a vending machine.
Determined to do a more thorough investigation of the floors than we had on our previous visit, this time we found the 2D Gallery store, Nakano Broadway’s newer second store specializing in production cels and genga drawings. Production cels from Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and Perfect Blue ran into the thousands of dollars, yet the prices seemed reasonable for the caliber of the cels. A large face shot of Mint from Galaxy Angel priced at less than $50 American caught my eye, but then I noticed that the bottom of the cel was damaged. Out of the bargain bin, I pulled and purchased a set of two cels and matching genga of Meow and Ran from Kaze Makase Tsukikage Ran for 800 yen, or around $5 American, two sets of cel and douga of the stars of Figure 17 for $500 yen, and two cels and genga of Seira, the star of the 1998 TV series Princess Nine, and supporting character Koharu Hotta for 500 yen.
I also managed to find the Mandarake trading card shop that also carries shitajiki. I missed the store on my first visit to Broadway. The store seemingly no longer offered random packs of shitajiki. But I flipped through the boxes of pencil boards and picked up Zillion shitajiki featuring Apple, for 1,000 yen, a 1987 Majokko Club shitajiki priced at 1,000 yen, and an Iczer-One face close-up shitajiki priced at 1,000 yen. Phil selected one Samurai Troopers shitajiki also priced at 1,000 yen.
I stuck my head into the Mandarake vintage manga store then the contemporary anime illustration book store in hopes of finding vintage Cream Lemon film comics. But I didn’t see them available anywhere. I also popped into the men’s adult doujinshi store to inquire about three specific doujinshi comics I was looking for. The clerks told me that all three were out of stock.
Having achieved my goals for the visit to Nakano Broadway, Phil & I returned to the station. I disembarked the train at Akihabara. Phil stayed on for another stop so he could transfer onto the Keisei line to take him back to our rental house.
During my prior day’s visit to the Radio Kaikan building, I’d been impressed by K-Books’ selection of can-badge buttons, but then I’d moved on. I hadn’t realized that K-Books offered H doujinshi. So I went back today to take a closer look. After browsing the store for a short while, I finally found the adult-oriented doujinshi tucked away in a back corner. Books were organized by seasonal release, by title parodied, by creative circle, and on four shelves of new, unsorted acquisitions. To my surprise, the Saigado doujinshi section contained no recent releases nor any especially early releases. Seemingly the other primary doujinshi creators I was interested in didn’t even have sections. After browsing for a while, I began to suspect that K-Books possibly refuses to buy particularly older material, as none of the doujinshi that the store offered for sale appeared to be more than roughly 15 years old. I did pull and purchase a few comics, but none from my “need” list.
I went to the third floor of the original Akihabara Mandarake tower to examine its selection of Cream Lemon film comics. The store had a first edition volume 3 with obi that I don’t have in my collection. My copy is a second edition. But at 6,500 yen, I decided to not purchase the book. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a row of vintage Lemon People magazines. To my pleasant surprise, the October 1983 issue was on the shelf. This first appearance of Tatakae! Iczer-One wasn’t in flawless condition, but is was only 400 yen, so I bought it happily.
I then spent some time hunting for the specific Lashinbang store that I’d previously seen offering a tempting doujin tapestry that I didn’t buy at the time. If my memory serves, the item was not at the Lashinbang store in Radio Kaikan nor in the store within the Akiba Culture Zone building. But if Lashinbang has a third Akihabara store, a I couldn’t find it. But in my search I was reminded that the Suruga-ya store at the far end of Chuo-Dori’s otaku avenue was, seemingly, the only Akihabara Suruga-ya outlet to offer adult doujinshi. So I took the stairs up the third floor. Unlike other stores that file doujinshi primarily by creator name, Suruga-ya filed its books by genre and by parody, which made finding specific books that much more difficult. In the regular stacks, I found two Dirty Pair comics that I already owned. While looking through the books on the “older, assorted anime titles” shelf I found two comics that were of the same series as Dirty Pair books on my “need” list. But I didn’t actually find any Dirty Pair comics.
Next I found and browsed a section of clearance doujinshi. I pulled out some comics that looked appealing that were sticker priced at only 100 yen each. Then I turned around and discovered an entire wall of clearance H doujinshi priced at a mere 20 yen per book. However, given that the time had reached 7:30pm, I rapidly skimmed and pulled out three comics that had appealing covers. Then I paid and left the store.
I called Phil, who said he’d wait for me at the station. Thankfully, at least, I was able to catch a Keisei Rapid that went directly from the Oshioge Sky Tree station to Aoto with no stops in-between. So I met up with Phil, went into the Livre Keisei grocery store to purchase another liter bottle of C.C. Lemon, and went with Phil to the nearby Yoshinoya for dinner. We used the digital pad at the table, switching the language option to English, to order two extra-large beef bowls with extra beef, a side order of miso soup for Phil and a side order of one piece of karaage for me.
A small, local restaurant in Aoto just a few blocks from our rental hotel has “Japanese only” painted on the front door, presumably signifying that only native Japanese customers are welcome.
