somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow

Yeah. So, this is Derek, currently in Japan, around Shinjuku.

3/23/09 – Day 0:
Our flight to Japan was delayed due to an accident in Narita Airport, so we stayed in a hotel near LAX. The hotel was provided by the airline company we were flying with, Singapore Airlines. Singapore Airlines actually has some pretty good crisis management, giving us hotel rooms, 2.5 free meals, the weird living kit things, and Belgian chocolates as we walked on the plane. Our tour group also had to rearrange some stuff, pushing our tour one day back. Which basically means I don’t get my extra free day in Tokyo. *sigh*

The Flight – Day 0.5: (technically 3/24/09, because of time zone stuffs)
Nothing much to say here, ‘cept that Singapore Airlines has a huge selection of mostly recent movies, music, games and TV shows (no anime though. *sigh* when will they learn ). I watched way too much, including Slumdog Millionare, Quantum of Solace, Madagascar 2 (I haven’t watched the first one yet… go figure.), some random episodes of Tom and Jerry, The Simpsons, Scrubs, and a whole lot of random other stuff. For games, they had not only a Gameboy Color Emulator with quite a few games, but also some Popcap games (yeah, random, I know.), and some others. Pretty crazy. Though, I really should’ve slept more.

3/25/09 – Day 1:
We arrived in Japan around 3 PM local time. After customs, my brother and I ditched the tour group and went to Akihabara, and loot the place. Well, at least buy some stuff. We spent a few hours there, visiting most of the major shops: Animate, Gamerz, Aso Bit City, Toranoana, and a few others. We also visited a few arcades and watched some pretty damn amazing players. We didn’t buy too much, since we will be visiting there again, hopefully. Once we got back to the hotel in Shinjuku, we ate some cake to celebrate my brother’s 19th birthday.

Without further ado, here’s the modest loot we bought from Akiba (with pictures! :O) (sorry about the horrible quality – point-n-shoots fail.)

OM NOM NOM.Wait, this isn't loot!

From the left: Lucky Star fan, Rin shirt, Saber cup, Index mousepad

From the left: Kyou shirt, Kara no Kyokai CD/DVD set, Yukkuri shiteitte ne!-esque plushes, Reimu shirt

Some random ads picked up at Akiba.

Wait a second.... that sounds a bit familiar... (It says "Take it Easy Campaign" on the envelope)

I went to Akiba last year for Summer Comiket 74 in August, and my bro and I noticed some differences from Akiba then and Akiba now. Basically, there was a major influx in both Vocaloid and Touhou goods. I think I can guess why.
For Vocaloid, the influx of goods has been due to the announced commercial release of the Good Smile Company “Black Rock Shooter” and “The World is Mine” figures, plus the release of CD’s by various Nico Nico Vocaloid artists.
For Touhou, this change was due to the production of the (unofficial) Touhou anime released during Comiket 75 (December ‘08). After the release of the anime, maybe people thought that it was ok to start releasing commercial goods of their own, maybe due to the misunderstanding that the anime was produced by a commerical company due to all the high-class seiyuu. But, after all of this, Touhou merchandise still remains mostly a grassroots movement. Or perhaps ZUN became more allowing about mass production. While starting to branch out into more mass production, goods are still made by fans, for fans.
I’d say this simply goes to show the power people have. In a Web 2.0 era, people have much more leverage than ever before, and we see they are using it. Fans create media, and commercial companies use the. Here’s to more such advances in the future.

I’ll be posting tomorrow, if I don’t feel too lazy. (I’ll also try to take a lot more pictures…) Until then!