article : Otakus of Den Den town

I'm posting this and the Tobita article (which will appear in the Kansai time Out this spring). Some wierdness is buried in the tourist copy, dig it up if you can.
Sven

Den Den town remorphs
Sven A. Serrano

Haven’t been to Osaka’s DenDen town for awhile? You may be surprised as the discount home electronics district has a whole new look. The big chain outlets for TVs, stereos, and air conditioners like Ninomiya and Joshin have downsized as cut-throat competition from out side the district has funneled customers north to Bic Camera in Namba and Yodobashi in Umeda. Same for the big computer places like Sofmap. Small computer shops selling motherboards and components moved in, but after a few years they had their own shake-out as profit margins fell below 5%. The result was a lot of ready-to-rent space, both in the big five story places and in the small shops too. So let’s go and meet the new neighbors.
Most people enter via the Ebisubashi subway station, which puts you in the middle of the electro-district, but I always start at Nipponbashi and walk south on Sakaisuji, parallel the Kuromon food market. Right there at the corner are two excellent old school camera stores Tokiwa Camera and Kunitate Camera, both full of traditional, 35mm Konicas, Nikons, Leicas and Hassleblads. Past the shiny remodeled 1925 Free Methodist church on the right hand side there is a small shop, Marui Kuni (tel. 06-6641-7621)　, which specialized in genuine Japanese nostalgia, mainly copies of old Meiji-era prints, 1905 battleships, old postcards of Osaka, and even picture frames festooned with unique matchboxes from ‘30s Osaka drinkeries long-gone. Mr. Tada, the friendly proprietor, will show you some original ukioye prints in this back studio.
A few doors down is the Shanghai XTD (tel. 06-6646-1390) complex, a seven floor China-mall in Osaka. Up from the ground floor furniture, clothes and curios, you’ll find a Chinese book and music store with all the Mando-pop and Canto-pop stars displayed. Higher up you’ll find a faithful Chinese supermarket with lamb and rabbit meat, fresh Shanghai hairy crabs, and over 15 kinds of xiao long bao dumplings. A casual buffet restaurant (888 yen for lunch, 1280 yen for dinner), a spa, a branch of the LAOX duty free electronics shop, a formal restaurant and a karaoke bar fill the upper floors. Don’t leave empty handed!
When you cross Nansan-dori you enter Den Den town proper. Duty-free electronics shops are still here, like Eisan Duty Free (06-6630-1056), which has been remodeled into an opulent showroom. The staff, who in the past spoke English, Spanish, or Portuguese, now answer your questions in Chinese. Outside you will see your first street vendor hawking pirated DVDs of new movies and manga series for 1000 yen each. These bottom-feeders only appeared a year ago and now they’re everywhere. Remember, any time you buy one of these copies, a Hollywood executive sheds a tear.
Now, staying on the right side of Sakai-suji, you come to a row of manga comic book chain mega-stores. Two must-sees are Comic KingsKing (tel.06-4396-8980, http://c-king-net), with a mural of cute gothic Lolita moppets in front and Mandarake (tel.06-6645-0772, http://mandarake.co.jp). The comics come in a rainbow of sizes, formats, and varieties: new, used, vintage collectors, box-sets, self-published fan comics (dojinshi) with all the accessory spin-offs. I especially like the section of anime music CDs, a big-money genre in its own right. Cue music -“Gigantor, the space-age robot!.”
Next door is another pillar of the new Den-den town, the plastic action figure store. Capsule Toy-Shop Super Position (06-6647-0676, ) displays whole populations of minature and doll-sized figurines of every manga and cartoon character ever created. Your best bet is to look for the racks with hand-labeled ‘factory-outlet’ clear bags of captive figures – they sell for as little as 100 yen. I bought six of these minature fetishes as gifts. I spoke briefly with Takeshi Sekine, the manager, who told me that Dragonball Z figures are his number #1 best seller. “Foreign customers? Chinese are the biggest group, they really like anime figures,” he observed. As for the changes in Den Den town he admits “We’re following Akihabara.” Again, Tokyo leads all trends it seems. In front are rows and rows of the bubble-gum style vending machines, dispensing clear plastic capsules with more figures. Standing in their little dioramas, they are little worlds within universes you can fit on a shelf
If you have young children with you, you can skip past Nobunaga Shoten porn supermarket, although this place looks innocently like a regular bookstore on the first floor (the featured photo book this month were shots by famed photographer Kishin Shinoyama of girls and their pets, called Kissin My Puppy). You should take them south on the left side of the street to the Hobix toy and model complex, and then another block to Super Kids Land.
Pass under the pedestrian bridge and at the next light and make a decision. Straight gets you the traditional small DIY computers places, CD and DVD stores, adult AV shops and the odd place selling used retro Famicon games. On your right you’ll see a giant metallic wasp looking down out you from a high rise. Turn right and walk two short blocks past some used places selling sodai gomi appliances and you’ll reach Ota-Road (Otaku-road, get it?)
Otakus were supposed be home shut-ins with all their computer games and toys but on this street they get a social life. Here, alongside computer potpourris and plastic figure places where sellers can rent glass cases and sell off their treasured collections for big yen (real revenge of the nerds), is the land of the Cosplay café. There are six at last count, with names like Raspberry Dream, MoeMoe, Café Doll, and Candy Panic, all discretely placed in second and third floor walk-ups. In Candy Panic a little Miss Muffet in a French maid’s outfit opens the door, bows, and greets me with a string of honorifics “You are most welcome, honored sir, how can I humbly be of service?” She looks just like one of the plastic figures I have in my bag. The café is all frilly and kid-like with white walls and shiny formica diner tables, where smiling single Otaku guys sit dreamily. At 500 yen the coffee is OK too. What the hostess bar is to the salaryman, the cosplay café is to the otaku, a place where they can truly relax and quietly indulge themselves. A full listing and map to these establishments can be found at www.otamap.com
If you need a break and a cosplay café isn’t really your thing, then go back down Sakaisuji south a bit and either Holly’s café, a decent Tully’s coffee clone, or Savoia (tel. 06-6631-6673) a good sit-down/take-out pizza place will satisfy you. Savoia has the best crust of any cheaper pizza place I’ve tried in the Kansai, and instead of a take-out slice, they offer a ‘roll pizza’ for a 100 yen. Great value but be careful, it can drip oil out of the bottom. So that’s Den-den these days. Like so many other industries in Japan it has re-invented itself and found new goods and services to fit unexpected markets and customers. Come back in a year and who knows, you may find animitronic robots staffing the shops and cafes.