The End of Akiba? No.

It's been 72 hours since the phone calls started coming in: "did you hear about what happened in Akihabara?" The final toll: seven dead, ten injured. The murderer hit Tokyo where it felt safest, cutting down his victims without warning, the vast majority of them in the prime of their lives. I've never met any of them, but they could very easily have been my friends, my family, even me. I had passed through the scene of the crime exactly two days to the minute before it happened, playing tour guide to a friend's teenage son who was visiting Tokyo for the first time. If his schedule had been different... If we'd been there just two days later... It's a sobering thought.

The "AKB Massacre," as Marxy has unofficially dubbed it, is without a doubt one of the most shocking incidents I've encountered since moving to Tokyo five years ago. The Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 was far broader in scope, but it was a planned terrorist operation perpetrated by a group of crazed religious zealots. That the mayhem in Akihabara was wrought by a lone young everyman armed with nothing more than a rented truck and a knife somehow makes it all the more chilling. 

I shouldn't be surprised, then, that scores of emotionally overwrought "otaku" bloggers -- many of whom appear never to have even set foot in the country, let alone Akihabara itself -- have dubbed it everything from a "geek hate crime" to "the end of otaku culture as we know it." It's nothing of the sort. And here's why.

1. We're all otaku now.  In contrast to the Tsutomu Miyazaki era, when the actions of a single sick individual tarred the reputation of a then-marginalized subculture, so-called "otaku" have become such a part of the fabric of Japanese life that the term has become nearly meaningless as a descriptor. Calling a twenty-to-thirty year old Japanese male a "fan of moe" or an "anime collector" is like calling an American male a "fan of science fiction." What does that really say about anyone's frame of mind? As Shin-Ichi Karasawa and Toshio Okada remark in their book Otaku-Ron, “these days, if you define ‘otaku’ as ’someone who watches anime,’ you’re describing half of the people on the planet.” The otaku have won the cultural war without firing a single shot. We are them and they are us.

2. It's a copycat case. The sad fact is, indiscriminate attacks on unsuspecting pedestrians/commuters are all too common lately. They're part of a broader, disturbing societal trend in Japan. There are striking parallels between the Akihabara incident and a spate of similar attacks that have occurred in suburban Japan over the last several years. Two occured in March alone. In one, an 18-year-old pushed a stranger in front of an oncoming train at Okayama station, killing him instantly. In another, a 24-year old stabbed several commuters at a station in Ibaraki prefecture, killing one. In all three cases, the suspects told police that they simply "wanted to kill someone, anyone." The Akihabara attack says far more about the discontent and lack of mental health support for socially isolated youth than it does about otaku culture.

3. Akihabara has gotten far more media attention than usual over the last year. Months of complaints from locals and shopkeepers about overly suggestive street performances led to a hugely publicized police crackdown in early May. In the wake of the Akihabara spree killings, only the tabloids and TV shows are playing up the otaku angle; mainstream print media seems to be focusing on the killer's social awkwardness and isolation. Still, the media neatly sidesteps the fact that their own breathless coverage of the area could be as responsible for planting the seeds of the idea for the attack in the killer's mind as any anime DVD.

4. "Epicentering" is out. In spite of the constant stream of foreign press dubbing Akiba the Next Big Thing, the concept of a city district or area being the center of a cultural phenomenon is old-fashioned thinking. No doubt, the giant neon billboards and constant activity make AKB a fun place to visit. But look around on the street: you're far more likely to see families out for a stroll or groups of foreign tourists than stereotypical otaku. Part of this is due to the mainstreaming of otaku culture mentioned above. Another factor: the gentrification of the area. Large-scale retailers like Yodobashi Camera, convenient as they may be, often push out the hole-in-the-wall operations run by and for devotees of a given subculture. So where have the otaku gone? The pithy one-word answer is the Internet. The new Akiba is online. BBSes like 2-ch bubble with activity; they're a perfect place for notoriously shy otaku to hobnob. And online retailers carry everything that Akiba retailers do, and often at even better prices. Tokyo doesn't really have a single dense otaku epicenter anymore. There are places that cater to them all over the city.

5. The cops aren't the problem. Much ink has been spilled over the increased police presence in Akihabara. I'm as guilty as anyone. But Akiba isn't turning into a police state anytime soon. Even notoriously cantankerous Tokyo mayor Shintaro Ishihara said as much in a press conference on Tuesday. When asked by reporters if the government could do anything to prevent further attacks, he responded that "this isn't a problem that can be fixed by increasing the police presence." Akihabara may not be an otaku center anymore, but it has become a top destination for foreign and domestic tourists. There is simply too much money at stake to risk driving people away.

Comments

[Adamu]

As sad and senseless as this all is, I am so far extremely heartened by the mature and sober response from a good many people. I get the feeling that in Japan, the overall narrative is much closer to what you describe above than any of the more sensational reactions.

It hasn't been all good. As you mention the tabloids are interpreting the otaku stuff in the worst possible light. Also, on TV there are the typical simple-minded commentaries that Japan is becoming more dangerous, and the media's immense over-coverage of the incident is getting to be a bit much, though it's somewhat understandable. Also, cabinet members like justice minister Hatoyama had some typically thick-headed "we need more security" responses. Plus there has been an attempt to connect Kato's job-hopping work history to the problems of Japan's employment system. I hope and don't think any of these knee-jerk reactions are going to stick in this case.

But on the same TV news the overwhelming focus has been on why this particular man did what he did, and on the victims, and on the national shock. "We are all otaku now" is probably one of the best ways I have seen it put... Asahi and NHK both reported on "it could have been me" sorts of commentaries from Akiba regulars, but such sentiments probably rang true for anyone who has ever visited thanks to the place's icon status.

I think Ishihara echoes the thoughts of a good number of people in Japan who recognize that this was the cowardly act of one guy and he is not representative of some alien subculture.

"BBSes like 2-ch bubble with activity; they're a perfect place for notoriously shy otaku to hobnob."

This incident makes me think of my previous trips to the area, and the more I think about it the more awkward it all seems. The people there almost seem like they are performing a live-action version of activities that are in fact better suited to the Net - e.g. fawning over anime goods, shopping for video games, doing fan-created tributes to their favorites.

One other thing -- posting to a site with your mobile phone (atwiki in this case?) must make it pretty hard to express any sort of extended thoughts...

"There is simply too much money at stake to risk driving people away."

Amazingly, the Asahi was reporting that the business interests in Akihabara were totally against stopping the practice of opening the streets on weekends, though they might get overruled by zealous cops. As a conciliatory act, someone was quoted as offering to speed up the introduction of London-style monitoring cameras. This is the right strategy. While the short-term damage to the area's appeal is unavoidable, I think the likelihood of a repeat is slim and there is no reason why this has to spell the end of Akiba as we know it.

Any security changes should focus on what can be done and not on "security theater"... While there's probably nothing to be done about a rogue knife-wielding crazy, Akiba CAN prevent trucks from busting their way into a crowd of pedestrians. All they have to do is install huge retractable barriers similar to the ones in front of the White House.

[Matt]

Thanks for the comment. I hadn't heard about the security cameras, but I had read talk of banning survival knives. Both smack of "let's do something just to show we can" political ass-covering. Even if he couldn't have procured a "Rambo knife," what would have stopped him from going to Kappabashi-dori and purchasing a long-bladed sushi knife (some of which are the size of small katana)? How would public cameras really have been any help stopping such a spur-of-the-moment attack from a totally nondescript vehicle? It's not like he was tooling around in the Batmobile or something.

I also wonder if public cameras will only serve to drive the traditional denizens of Akiba further from their natural habitat. The exact reason people still frequent shops selling dojinshi, fetish porn, and gray-market software and PC components rather than buying them over the web is because of the relative anonymity of face-to-face cash transactions.

>>>posting to a site with your mobile phone (atwiki in this case?) must make it pretty hard to express any sort of extended thoughts...<<<

You'd think so, but as I'm sure you're aware, there is a booming market in "keitai novels" that were originally punched out on a cell phone's ten-key pad.