A pictoral journey into the heart of Akiba in search of the elusive Moe Burger.
exiting the JR train station, we walk toward Electric Town’s main street (Chuuoh Doori)
crossing the main street near Club Sega, we head toward the winding maze of alleys behind the arcade
one of said alleys. It is shortly after 4:00 pm on Tuesday, June 27th
Akiba Maid Deli (Moe Burger) FIND – but wait, what is this?!
CLOSED ON TUESDAYS
…
Yes, it appears that the burger joint is currently “pre-open”, a status differing from “fully open” only in that one day a week (Tuesday) the shop is closed. Probably should have read the site a bit more thoroughly before setting out… ah well, there will be other opportunities to eat overpriced hamburgers served by girls in maid uniforms in the future.
My anthropological ambitions for the day thwarted, I proceeded to buy a bunch of crap (aside from the maids, what else is there to do in Akiba?) most of which will end up as FABULOUS PRIZES in a little giveaway planned for the new HD site launch.
Speaking of plans, I was hoping to get an additional news update out this morning, however my finicky internet connection has decreed that this not be the case. If shallow physiological demands for “sleep” do not interfere I’ll try to get something in after work; for now, here is a crappy sketch of a poster for AKIHABARA: THE MUSICAL, coming to Broadway stages near you in 2008 (capital infusion pending).
If they can fling a cow in Spamalot, surely the props wizards can build a 30-foot tentacle monster capable of snarling meido in its prehensile appendages!
Sign me up! I put some money into that production! Just to see a 30′ tentacle monster, ROFL!
Akihabara: The Musical > Rent
But that isn’t saying very much…
>>loplop
Well, it would need a giant robot too. And a UFO. Not to mention dozens and dozens of maid uniforms. And some gaijin tourists, and a bunch of dancing clerks in happi coats emblazoned with their parent electronics shops, and an Evangelion pachinko parlor. Spare no expense!
>>DMC
Akihabara: The Musical (ATM) will sweep the Tonys, I guarantee it.
>>Shingo
Not just the Tonys though. It’ll be so awesome, they’ll create a new awards show just to honour its greatness. They’ll call the awards The Shingos, and each award will be an exquisitely-rendered statuette of a race queen beating an uzi-toting maid over the head with an umbrella.
Heh – I’ve already written the book and first 5 songs for a mecha-anime pisstake musical.
CLOSED ON TUESDAYS
Lol, that really sucked.
http://meidokon.net/edit_tags.php?TXDYLDYN5TB6QONCMPBKCPSGAYXTFPSU
http://meidokon.net/edit_tags.php?LN4CKAWRS2MZF5LWMVK4YJU6A4MAR7LO
Don’t forget kemono mimi girls in the play!
>>DMC
…now that’s a scary thought. An award called the “Ohnos”, on the other hand, is one I could firmly stand behind.
>>shoujo
That sounds awesome. Perhaps you could run it by me sometime, I’d like to see what you’ve written (so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel, if it comes to it).
>>Waterfall
Truth, there will have to be at least one catgirl among the maids. Perhaps imported directly from the cast of CATS, at that. Although their makeup job (as plastered on promo posters throughout the greater Tokyo subway system) is rather alarming and not at all “moe”…
Allow me to take a moment to pimp Evangelion! The Musical, as performed last year by the Carolina Otaku Uprising and written by yours truly.
http://www.unc.edu/coup/eva/index.html
http://www.fansview.com/2005/may2005/az28c.html
The first link has the script, the second pictures of it’s one and only performance.
Hmmm, is there a map for the Moe Burger joint? I’ll be in Tokyo in just over a week’s time, it would be cool to take a date to it.
>>Phil Lee
Haha, looks like you guys had a great time putting that on. Kudos for seeing it through to completion, I know of (and have sadly been party to) many similar projects that never made it beyond the drawing board. I don’t suppose there’s a video of the performance floating around somewhere?
>>Sydney2K
Yep, there’s a map at the official site. I don’t have a direct link handy, but if you poke around a bit you should find it pretty quick. The back streets behind Club Sega can be pretty disorienting, but if you bring the map with you when you go you should be fine.
>>Shingo
I don’t suppose there’s a video of the performance floating around somewhere?
We tried to get Eva! recorded, but the final video we were able to scrounge together has severe audio problems and is basically unwatchable unless you actually took part in it. Ah well.
However, this year we put on “It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time: A Musical Comedy About Convention Running”. Here’s a late draft of the script:
http://www.ibiblio.org/phil/fnordchan/musical/draft-04-19-06.txt
While we haven’t had a chance to sit down and go over the tapes just yet, but our fingers are crossed that we’ll have clean audio and video, at which point a torrent will go up somewhere. If nothing else, we’ve got the video reel for our faux anime music video contest:
http://www.ibiblio.org/phil/fnordchan/musical/Good%20Idea%20Compiled.mov
Phil
(For some reason I couldn’t send this at Narita, so I am trying two days later.)
I don ‘t know if you will see this, but I finally got to go to it today (I am typing this in the Yahoo Cafe at Narita Terminal 2 killing time before boarding for my flight to Australia starts.) Overpriced. Food is inflated, and you can’t even take photos of the maids in compensation. (I know you can’t anywhere else either, but I am allowed to bitch, can’t I?)
I hit Akiba hard today, spending probably a third of my total trip expenditure today (and that’s four weeks of Japan, US, and Anime Expo- and I didn’t buy anything at AX other than a few manga that was being discounted anyway.) It meant though that I was OVERWEIGHT- and looking at thousands of dollars in fees. It got reduced to only about $150, but there’s my suitbag that needs to be looked at…