
Akihabara Electric Town
Bustling electronics and anime shopping district born from a postwar radio black market.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Akihabara Electric Town follows the district's Sunday pedestrian paradise, a tradition going back thirty-five years, and the June 2008 afternoon when a truck and a knife turned that open street violent. It reaches back further too, to the postwar radio black market that gave the neighborhood its Electric Town nickname, and the decades that carried it from appliances to computers to anime. A factory worker named Tomohiro Kato posted a warning online that same morning, before he ever picked up a knife.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Mandarake Complex
Eight-story secondhand emporium of manga, anime goods and toys, floor by floor by category.
Nakano Broadway
Retro nineteen sixties shopping arcade turned maze of used manga, toy and idol-goods shops.
Animate Akihabara
Multi-building anime, manga and character-goods complex with an event floor for fan meet and greets.
Ameyoko market
Postwar black market alley turned bustling street market of street food, seafood, spices and bargain clothing.
Takeshita Street
Narrow pedestrian shopping lane packed with youth fashion boutiques, crepe stands, and secondhand clothing stalls.
Shimokitazawa
Warren of narrow, car-free lanes packed with vintage shops, jazz bars and hundred-seat theaters.