Tokyo Redux III: Akiba

Yard-sale like vendors outside the Akihabara UDX Building

As I made my way back towards nerd central, which I recently learned is affectionately shorted from "Akihabara" to just "Akiba," I stopped in a couple of anime figurine shops...
mostly in the vague hopes of discovering a nice mini of any number of various characters who were probably a lot more popular back in the '90s. No such luck for me. The Sailor Moon minis I found were actually quite hideous, and I already know a place in Kyoto where I can buy the adorable chibi-fied Final Fantasy figurines.

(Google "Sunako" and "Sunako chibi." For the main character of the anime/manga The Wallflower, or Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, Tomoko Hayakawa actually utilizes the chibi style regularly to show Sunako going back and forth between her humorous self-conscious side and her more mature, self-confident side. The Wallflower is essentially a modern Pygmalion/My Fair Lady story.)

In any case, no figurines really struck me besides fairly large one of Elwyn/Elwing (an elf character from the anime Shining Tears X Wind)--about whom I know nothing else. She was just pretty, and in the end, too expensive.

I found my way to the Tokyo Anime Center, which I found rather lackluster. Like the Pokemon center, it's mostly a small shop of a fairly limited selection of merchandise. I think there's also a theater next door, which probably shows promotional clips or screenings or some such, and perhaps the Center sometimes has important guests from the anime industry visiting.

That day all was fairly quiet and empty. The store mostly carries merchandise from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Bleach, One Piece, Astro Boy, some Studio Ghibli films, and a few anime unknown to me. Here, the coolest thing I saw was some NERV duct tape.
Not saying too much.
Near the Akihabara UDX building, I ducked inside a dinky merchandise shop, which sold CDs, books, folders, figurines and small knick-knacks. I actually spent probably about twenty minutes in there digging through the baskets of discounted posters and folders. My efforts were pretty well-rewarded, too, I think; I found an adorable Furuba poster of Kyo and Tohru, as well as a tin commemorating the n-th anniversary of Clamp's X series.

Since I was running out of the the couple of hours I'd allotted for exploring Akiba, I didn't manage to check out the Kanda Second-hand Books Area nearby, which is said to have over 150 bookstores I would have loved to get lost in had I had the time. Second-hand bookshops in Japan are slightly dangerous places for me, I think.
But it sounds...fascinating.

A few examples of kogyaru fashion, above; there are several different sub-categories of this style, taken to different extremes. The basic idea of the look is a schoolgirl uniform with a shortened skirt, usually with loose socks, died hair, and sometimes with tanned skin (although there's a more recent gyaru style called shiro gyaru which goes for the pale look).