Kichi Guy

There goes Volks! Another venerable Kichijoji otaku landmark bites the dust. I wasn't a huge fan of the creepy goth dolls that made up the bulk of Volks' stock, but they've been here for what seems like forever.

It's been a hard year for Kichijoji. Earlier in 2006 it lost the legendary proto-maid cafe Anna Miller's. Then, after more than two decades of serving toy and model geeks, Post Hobby vanished once and for all from the hallowed halls of the Parco department store. "I swear to God," I muttered to Patrick as we cruised the sweltering streets of this once-glorious otaku city yesterday, "I'm going to break down and cry if Wave Be-J is gone when we get there." It wasn't, thank the toy-gods. But it's starting to look more and more like the last man standing.

I've always loved Kichijoji. My first visit in 1991 was -- fittingly enough -- via a "Romance Car" ride on the Odakyu line from Kanagawa prefecture, where I was spending the summer on a high school exchange program. A pair of model building friends had taken pity on my pathetic attempts to get my geek-freak on in Odawara. Thanks to them, I got my first grand tour of what was then Tokyo's Holy Trinity of nerd hotspots: Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Kichijoji. This being an era when manga and anime fans were still treated as social lepers rather than The Next Big Thing, the vast majority of the shops we visited were tiny affairs located on side streets and filthy alleyways, crammed to the rafters with toys and models, their dusty aisles redolent with a heady aroma of B.O. and paint thinner.

The otaku may have moved on to Nakano and Akihabara, but Kichijoji keeps chugging along. I've spent time all over Tokyo, including a year living in what I've come to think of as purgatory in the run-down suburbs near Kamata station, but I still think Kichijoji is where it's at. Quiet. Clean. Plenty of parks. Jam-packed with restaurants, galleries, and shops. It also still happens to be the nerve-center for Tokyo's nerds gone pro, being as it is a stone's throw away from most of the major animation studios (Studio 4C is right down the street; Ghibli's in Koganei, Gainax in Musashi-Koganei; Production I.G.'s a few stops away in Kokubunji.) The local Denny's is a legendary late-night feeding trough for anime insiders. It's even got its own spot on the pull-out map of Kichijoji included in that 1987 classic, the Artmic Design Works book. Artmic! There's another Kichijoji casualty: the legendary anime studio responsible for "Megazone 23," "Bubblegum Crisis," and countless other classics went under in the mid-90s.

Someone needs to put up a memorial to Kichijoji's lost otaku enterprises one of these days. In the meantime, you can find me knocking back glasses of cheap shochu in one of the tiny bars on the Harmonica Yokocho.

Comments

[Patrick Macias]

Yah. Wednesday was like huffing down deep Kichijoji. This town seems made for the rusty red beginning of summer. Another nerd hot spot is the Book Off, but you chose to ignore it! I shall collect your tears when it closes and make tea at Jasdam Base with it.

Please cosplay as the Video Information Center hen na hakujin at the World Character Con next week.

[Matt]

We also forgot to hit Yuzawaya at the station and the Dorama on Sun Road, which has used games, CDs, and a smattering of toys, but those are kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel.

There used to be an actual toy store on Sun Road, too, the old-school kind run by an elderly couple and that I always secretly pray is hoarding a forgotten cache of Chogokin or Machinders behind the Mushi King and "Boukenger" toys, but it went the way of Volks about two years ago. Damn that plummeting birthrate...!

[Roger]

Wow, Anna Miller's _and_ Volks, gone. I wonder if someone put a curse on that little section. Someone like The Bar of the Dead.

(You might want to check your image, Matt, it's "not available.")

[Matt]

TypePad crapped out on the image for some reason yesterday. I re-uploaded and it should be working again.

The Bar of the Dead is still going strong. Really, stronger than it has any right to be. So you're probably right about any potential pacts with the devil they've signed.

One of my all-time favorite Kichijoji moments was trying (with limited success) to restrain you from going door to door looking for anime treasure at the old Artmic offices, long since converted to cheap apartments...

[Roger]

I was drunk with power. And pomegranite sours. You helped me gain a moment of clarity and decide not to disturb those people in their workplace.

(But those current tenants are screwed if I walk by there again without you.)

[hillsy]

Man, I wish I would have spent a little longer in your neck of the woods. So have you been back to that little bar where the actual bar took up 80% of the floorspace or back to drink that crap (I use the term affectionately) at the Okinawan place?

[Matt]

Actually, Alen and I dropped by both places when he was in town, a few weeks after your visit. Next time you're around, I'll take you to the Clockwork Orange themed "Milk Bar" for a glass of moloko plus, to sharpen us up for an evening of ultra-toy-shopping.

[humbleradio]

Production I.G. is in Fuchu now. They moved.

[Matt]

I just had a drink with a friend who works for them and was finally able to confirm: they actually only moved one of their studios. The main operation is still in Kokubunji, as always.