I had nothing in particular planned so I spent the morning journalling, eating breakfast in stages, and just generally enjoying the warm confines of my bed.
Eventually, though, I got dressed and was ready for an excursion. It turned out that Akihabara was about a twenty minute walk from my hotel so I loaded up a map and set out in its general direction. I took a few detours out of curiosity for the area I was staying in, but eventually found my way.
It was a stroke of luck that I ended up in an area of Akihabara I was already familiar with: a towering Yodobashi Camera, which also contained a very particular TOWER RECORDS. I made my way inside, rode the escalators all the way up to the 7th floor, and then, there it was…
ALICE NINE. 聖地 — Holy Land
The ALICE NINE. display that the staff of TOWER RECORDS Akihabara continuously curates is impressive, to say the least. And given that they had only just a couple weeks earlier held an instore event to celebrate the release of GRACE, there was even more signage than usual. I took quite a bit of time reading messages that the band members had written during the course of several events, as well as messages that staff of the store had written to promote their releases. As a fan it was very heartening to see so much love for them concentrated in one place.
I already had my copies of GRACE so I didn’t buy one there, but I did buy the latest ROCK AND READ (vol 103) which has a band interview about their anniversary live, side projects, and the new album in it. A companion to the album, so to speak.
With the magazine in hand, I perused the rest of the shop, picking up the latest NIGHTMARE single “With” and one of NUMBER GIRL’S concert audio CDs that wasn’t on streaming services… partly because of the excellent 2-disk tracklist, and partly because said tracklist was mostly handwritten, with each track getting its own graphic style (very punk, which I was down with).
I’ve been a fan of NIGHTMARE almost as long as I’ve been a fan of ALICE NINE., and since I wasn’t able to attend any of their performances on this trip, picking up With seemed like a good middle ground (it’s a great single).
On the other hand, NUMBER GIRL is a band I learned about by reading a magazine. Hévn vol 20, to be exact. In it, there was a questionnaire section featuring ALICE NINE., one of the questions being about music they’d recommend, and Saga answered Stolkholm Syndrome by MUSE (a longtime favourite song of mine, so I knew I could trust Saga’s taste) and then also added SAPPUKEI by NUMBER GIRL, who I’d never heard of before. I liked it.
Voilà, an excerpt of the interview in question.
After I’d gone back to admire the ALICE NINE. display one more time and paid for my music and reading selections, I left the shop and went in search of a very particular floor in Yodobashi Camera: the one containing all the games, toys, and plastic models. The board games drew my attention right away, and believe me, I was tempted (the fact that I wouldn’t really have anyone to play them with in Japanese stayed my hand). I was delighted to remember that Love Letter, a longtime favourite icebreaker game of mine, was actually created in Japan. I have a version featuring characters from The Hobbit. I also recognized some of the amusing board games ALICE NINE. played during their DICE NINE episodes.
I took my time admiring all the adorable Rilakkuma goods… and then exercised my willpower not to buy a Gundam plastic model because there is no space for it in my suitcase. It’s been years since I built one… I would often buy one a year whenever I went to comicon; they’re so much fun to build.
As I was descending the escalators to leave, I came upon a floor with an enormous Star Wars display.
Dayum.
Akiba doesn’t mess around when it comes to geekery lol. I knew that, of course, but it was still kind of a delight to stumble upon the elaborate display.
I left the incredible tech and toy department store and went in search of the Book Off I remembered was nearby. I got to the right street and began walking along it… but the Book Off was nowhere to be found. In confusion, I turned around, and there, in the distance, was the huge Book Off sign, wrapping around the top of the building it was in.
I felt sheepish, and walked back the way I’d come… I had crossed a street right away without thinking and had passed right by it! If I’d just turned the corner at that point instead, I’d have saved myself an extra walk.
But it was no matter.
I went up to peruse their CDs and found a good handful… including lynch.’s The Avoided Sun which, like Kagrra.’s 雫 is a fairly rare CD I search for alnost every time I visit Japan. I was so happy to finally have my own copy! It’s part of the collection of CDs that make up my Visual Kei roots (i.e. ALICE NINE. CDs, NIGHTMARE’s the WORLD Ruler, the GazettE’s NIL and STACKED RUBBISH, D’s the name of the rose and Neo Culture, Kagrra,’s san… and so on… I still have several more to collect).
I also found PIERROT’s FREEZE, LUNA SEA’s IMAGE, Lillies and Remains Transpersonal, and lynch.’s GALLOWS to add to my collection at home. I gave away a lot of CDs and books in the course of my two last moves and it was necessary, but a part of me still feels a pang of regret. There’s something soothing about picking a CD off your shelf and deliberately putting it on, compared to just queuing the songs up on an app. Both have their place — I love streaming for discovery and convenience. But The Avoided Sun, for instance, isn’t available to be digitally. Neither is a large chunk of ALICE NINE.’s discography (containing many of my favourite works of theirs).
But I digress.
I then went looking for music magazines. My main goal? To find a specific issue of BASS MAGAZINE that Saga had appeared in! No luck at that location, though… perhaps it’ll be at another.
I did all my wandering to the sound of ALICE NINE.’s GRACE album (which should be treated like one long song, as explained in their extra-detailed online interview with Decolum). But for all the energy listening to those songs gave me, eventually I felt tired and so took the long way back to my hotel.
When I say the long way, I mean that I tried to consult the map as little as possible, and that, while I did take another wrong turn, my feet did more or less remember the way back to the building. Outside in the sun, it was fairly warm, but when I got in, I cuddled into my Groovy Chiko / Visual Saga hoodie, pulled on some thick socks, and before I knew it, I had given in to sleepiness and tucked in for an early evening nap…