Tokyo Haze #3

To continue on my previous entries...

The third day saw heavy rainfall. Our original plan was to head to Harajuku but seeing as I hate the rain, I recommended a change to an indoor destination instead. Thank God for Nakano Broadway.

Nakano Broadway is literally just a mall. You have a rather lengthy stretch of shops from the mall to Nakano station but other than that, it really is just a mall that's almost rundown in comparison to the bigger, more packed areas in the city centre.

But, fortunately, Nakano Broadway is also one of the main hubs for the otaku culture.

Oh, I should mention that because this place served as the main hub in the popular Cyber Sleuth game, the sequel is getting massive advertisement throughout the whole mall. We even got a mini gallery of sorts! Ahhh, the Digimon fanservice!

The gallery showed off some of the art design for Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory along with some merchandise and a demo of the sequel, set to be out very soon! I may pick it up but money is running a little thin due to the trip so, for now, we'll have to see!

Aside from Digimon however, most of the day's trip was merchandise shopping. Nakano Broadway is a hub for otaku culture because of the sheer number of shops in the mall that cater to the demographic. Akiba may have more stores but Nakano does not let up. For example, Mandarake itself owns a multitude of different shops across the mall. Some are connected, others are in a random corner, sandwiched between other otaku shops. I can't say I didn't get anything (I got quite a few things) but Akiba still offers a better shopping experience.

It's funny how we managed to spend an entire day shopping for otaku goods. No sightseeing, no breath of fresh air. Just merchandise shop after merchandise shop. Barring the Tokyo Tower adventure, this was also the earliest point at which I started my merchandise shopping. I might do an overall haul post towards the end of the Tokyo Haze series.

I believe this is the mascot of Nakano Broadway?

Can you believe that this is actually a vintage toy shop?

Well, that's it for day 3! If I remember correctly, we have convenience store food for dinner! What a day it was.