is a neighborhood in the

Chiyoda ward , known as Chiyoda City in English,
." ''City of Chiyoda''. Retrieved on December 28, 2008. is a ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, Japan, generally considered to be the area surrounding

Akihabara Station is an interchange railway station in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is at the center of the Akihabara shopping district specializing in electronic goods. Lines Akihabara Station is served by the following lines. JR East: * Tōhoku Main Line ** Ke ...

(nicknamed ''Akihabara Electric Town''). This area is part of the and Kanda-Sakumachō districts of Chiyoda. There is an administrative district called Akihabara (part of Taitō ward), located north of Akihabara Electric Town surrounding Akihabara Neribei Park. The name Akihabara is a shortening of , which comes from , named after a fire-controlling deity of a firefighting shrine built after the area was destroyed by a fire in 1869.Cybriwsky, Roman. ''Historical dictionary of Tokyo.''Scarecrow Press, 2011. Akihabara gained the nickname shortly after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

for being a major shopping center for household electronic goods and the post-war

black market A black market is a Secrecy, clandestine Market (economics), market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality, or is not compliant with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services who ...

.Nobuoka, Jakob. "User innovation and creative consumption in Japanese culture industries: The case of Akihabara, Tokyo." ''Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography'' 92.3 (2010): 205–218.Yamada, Kazuhito. ''Entrepreneurship in Akihabara.'' Akihabara is considered by many to be the centre of Japanese ''

otaku is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, such as anime, manga, video games, computers or other highly enthusiastic hobbies. Its contemporary use originated with a 1983 essay by Akio Nakamori in '' Manga Burikko''. ...

'' culture, and is a major shopping district for

video games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

and computer-related goods. Icons from popular anime and manga are displayed prominently on the shops in the area, and numerous

maid café are a subcategory of cosplay restaurants found predominantly in Japan and Taiwan. In these cafés, waitresses, dressed in maid costumes, act as servants, and treat customers as masters (and mistresses) as if they were in a private home, rather ...

s and some arcades are found throughout the district.

Geography

The main area of Akihabara is located on a street just west of

. There is an administrative district called Akihabara north of Akihabara Electric Town surrounding Akihabara Neribei Park. This district is part of Taitō ward.

History

Akihabara was once near a

city gate A city gate is a gate which is, or was, set within a city wall. It is a type of fortified gateway. Uses City gates were traditionally built to provide a point of controlled access to and departure from a walled city for people, vehicles, goods ...

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

and served as a passage between the city and northwestern Japan. This made the region a home to many craftsmen and tradesmen, as well as some low-class

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

. One of Tokyo's frequent fires destroyed the area in 1869, and the people decided to replace the buildings of the area with a shrine called Chinkasha (now known as Akiba Shrine , ), in an attempt to prevent the spread of future fires. The locals nicknamed the shrine Akiba after the deity that could control fire, and the area around it became known as Akibagahara, later Akihabara. After Akihabara Station was built in 1888, the shrine was moved to the Taitō ward, where it resides today. Since its opening in 1890,

became a major freight transit point, which allowed a vegetable and fruit market to spring up. In the 1920s, the station saw a large volume of passengers after opening for public transport. After World War II, the black market thrived in the absence of a strong government. This disconnection of Akihabara from government authority allowed the district to grow as a market city. In the 1950s, this climate turned Akihabara into a market region specializing in household

, such as washing machines, refrigerators, televisions, and stereos, earning Akihabara the nickname "Electric Town". As household electronics began to lose their futuristic appeal in the 1980s, the shops of Akihabara shifted their focus to home computers, at a time when they were only used by specialists and hobbyists. This brought in a new type of consumer, computer nerds or ''

''. The market in Akihabara latched onto their new customer base that was focused on

, and video games. The connection between Akihabara and ''otaku'' has grown to the point that the region is a center for ''otaku'' culture.IMAI, Nobuharu. "The Momentary and Placeless Community: Constructing a New Community with regards to Otaku Culture." ''Inter Faculty 1'' (2010).The ultimate geek's guide to Tokyo

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

travel (18 December 2018)

''Otaku'' culture

The streets of Akihabara are covered with anime and manga icons, and cosplayers line the sidewalks handing out advertisements, especially for

s. Release events, special events, and

conventions Convention may refer to: * Convention (norm), a custom or tradition, a standard of presentation or conduct ** Treaty, an agreement in international law ** Convention (political norm), uncodified legal or political tradition * Convention (meeting) ...

are common in Akihabara. Architects design the stores of Akihabara to be opaque and closed, to reflect the desire of many ''otaku'' to live in their anime worlds rather than display their interests.Morikawa, Kaichiro. "Learning from Akihabara: The birth of a personapolis." ''Gentosha'', Tokyo (2003). Akihabara's role as a free market has allowed a large amount of amateur work to find an audience. ''

Doujinshi , also romanized as ', is the Japanese term for self-published print works, such as magazines, manga, and novels. Part of a wider category of ''doujin'' (self-published) works, ''doujinshi'' are often derivative of existing works and created b ...

'' (amateur or fanmade manga) has been growing in Akihabara since the 1970s.

Transport

Akihabara is accessible by train, bus and car.

* Keihin-Tohoku Line (JK-28) *

Yamanote Line The Yamanote Line () is a railway Circle route, loop service in Tokyo, Japan, operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). It is one of Tokyo's busiest and most important lines, connecting most of Tokyo's major stations and urban centres ...

(JY-03) *

Chūō-Sōbu Line The is a railway line that runs through Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Part of the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) network, the line operates on separate tracks along the right-of-way of the Chūō Main Line ( Chūō Line (Rapid)) and ...

(JB-19) *

Hibiya Line The is a subway line in Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by Tokyo Metro. The line was named after the Hibiya area in Chiyoda's Yurakucho district, under which it passes. On maps, diagrams and signboards, the line is shown using the color silv ...

(H-16) *

Tsukuba Express The , or TX, is a Japanese railway line operated by the Third-sector railway, third-sector company Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company, which links Akihabara Station in Chiyoda, Tokyo and Tsukuba Station in Tsukuba, Ibaraki. The route was ...

(TX01)

Iwamotocho Station is a subway station on the Toei Shinjuku Line in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, operated by Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation (Toei). Its station number is S-08. The station opened on December 21, 1978. Lines Iwamotocho Station is served by th ...

Toei Shinjuku Line The is a rapid transit line in Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture, Japan, operated by the municipal Toei Subway. The line runs between in Ichikawa, Chiba in the east and in the west. At Shinjuku, most trains continue as through services to on the ...

(S-08) Suehirocho Station *

Ginza Line The is a subway line in Tokyo, Japan, operated by Tokyo Metro. The official name is . It is long and serves the wards of Shibuya, Minato, Chūō, Chiyoda, and Taitō. It is the oldest subway line in Asia, having opened in 1927. The line ...

(G-14)

References

External links