Akiba Culture Zone, a new 6-floor department store in Akihabara, was recently completed, with all floors now open to the public. The store is devoted to “otaku”-related goods, such as animation character figures and games, manga, idol goods, clothes, among others.
The basement floor is a food court called “One Fes Cafe.” The first and second floors are occupied by K-Books, with more than 400,000 comics, books, magazines and games. Many shoppers spend hours browsing or trying to sell their old books and comics.
“Astop” on the third floor sells T-shirts and pop idol goods, while the 4th floor houses “Akiba Asobi Kan: Jam Gakuen.” Here you will see toys and figurines, as well as girls wearing maid outfits. Besides idol and anime character goods, there are also military goods.
Upon the 5th floor is the “Good Smile and Karaoke no Tetsujin Cafe” where customers can also enjoy karaoke and buy souvenirs.
The sixth floor is the “Akihabara Backstage Pass” cafe, where there are cosplay girls serving customers.
The first impression of the store is that it is a “geek paradise.” All floors are filled with many kinds of otaku goods. Most of the floors were male-dominated, many of whom seemed to be by themselves the day GaijinPot’s reporter went there. There seemed to be a lot of otaku exchanging old items for the latest goods.
Check out the Akiba Culture Zone website at http://akibacultureszone.com/
Text by Yuko Watanabe
