Looking for Japanese Guys? Try the Electronics District... Or, have you always dreamed of wearing a maid's costume and waiting on nerds in a cafe?.

If you have trouble controling your husband's TV remote control clicking, stay away from Akihabara. Every conceivable electronic device known to man can be found within a few square blocks. And, when the shopper gets tired of electronics, he can play video games at Sega world. It's loud and obnoxious here, with the sound from the games spilling out into the street. The Akihabara electronics district, or Akiba for short, is a guy's idea of heaven, especially if he's an Otaku. According to Wikipedia, Otaku is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, and video games.

After one is finished with electronics shopping and tried all the video games, the next stop would be to buy manga, which are Japanese comics. These are more like little paperback books. I recently became obsessed with Japanese manga myself, but only because I went to see the movie "Dragonballs" which is based on the best selling manga of all time. The hero, Goku, is a cross between Karate Kid and Superman. It had the usual high school bully fight scene. Of course, Goku can't defend himself because his Japanese grandfather will not allow him to use his special fighting skills for just any old thing. I especially enjoyed the movie's glimpse into Japanese pop culture and fashion. If you go to see it, note Goku's hair that sticks straight up, in the popular young, Japanese guy hair-do.

But back to the manga store. There are manga for everyone but it seemed to me that these stores carried mainly "guy" manga. Unfortunately, while I was wandering around, lost in the six floors of Comic Toranoama, my lack of ability to read Japanese Kanji got me into trouble once again. I suddenly looked up and realized that I was the only woman, dressed in pink of course, in a labyrinth of comics... and surrounded by guys in black...black being the favorite fashion color in Tokyo. Opps, somehow, I wandered into the "X" rated comic book section. My main concern was how to squeeze through the narrow isles, between and around all these guys, without laughing hysterically at my predicament. The Japanese are soooo polite that they will pretend they don't see a person doing something silly, but of course they see EVERYTHING. Whew!!!! Made it out of there....

Next stop, the Maid Cafes. The Maid Cafes are conveniently located in the electronics district. Who is more in need of a Maid than a guy who's worn out from playing video games and trying out cool technology? The very cute Maids are decked out in very cute and authentic maid costumes. Some of the Maid Cafes even have video games and will play video games with their customers. What did I say? Sounds like guy heaven to me.

There was one other interesting cafe that I came across. It was a Cat Cafe. For 800Yen (about $9.00 US)a person can hold a cat for half an hour. This is probably where the guys leave their girlfriends and wives while they shop for electronics and manga. There were even photos of the cats that you could choose to hold.

Akihabara carries another very important product of the Japanese subculture...Animae Cosplay costumes...animae stands for animation as in Japanese animated films, video games, or manga ....cosplay is short for costume play... The stores here specialize in reproducing entire costumes so that people can dress up and pretend they are their favorite characters. You'll see a lot of these cosplay folks hanging around the parks near Harajuku Station. Obviously, these are serious Otaku.

The final purchase one needs to make at Akihabara is a plastic figurine of one's favoite animae, manga, robotic, or video characters. Some of these are huge and quite expensive. I'm trying to figure out where people keep gigantic robots or monsters in their small apartments... I even found one place that sell what look like naked Barbie dolls without their heads. That way a collector can choose the head and the hair that fit the particular character they want to display. Also, just like Barbie dolls, there are entire wardrobes for these dolls, all based upon what they wear in their movie or manga.

I certainly felt plain Jane in my black pants and pink top. I really should have bought one of those blue wigs...If you're a mom like me, you'd skip the Maid costume though. I'm trying to hide out from those Maid duties these days.