{"id":438,"date":"2009-12-18T23:44:54","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T14:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/18\/foreign-takes-on-akihabara-fight\/"},"modified":"2009-12-18T23:44:54","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T14:44:54","slug":"foreign-takes-on-akihabara-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/18\/foreign-takes-on-akihabara-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign takes on Akihabara: fight!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Go and read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.colonydrop.com\/index.php\/2009\/12\/08\/this-isn-t-mecca-it-s-disneyland-for-manchildren-the-myth-of-akihabara?blog=1\">this post over at Colony Drop by Sean<\/a>, and then read the comments.  <\/p>\n<p>I like Akihabara a lot.  The first time I went there was back in the 1989 (I believe) when I came to Japan with my dad.  I bought a portable CD player (a ridiculously impossible thing at the time) with the money I had been saving.  I marveled at the computers in the shops.  We had an Apple \/\/e, I was just beginning to do some programming in Basic and Pascal at the time.  The <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/MSX\">color MSX computers<\/a> on display at the time were amazing.  I had never known anything about Japan before my first trip there, and afterwards I was interested.  <\/p>\n<p>A few years (well, a decade and a bit) later when I finally moved out here in a professional capacity, and Akihabara has changed.  I miss the focus on computers, and the whole area seems like a high commercialized anime marketplace now.  I was into anime in high school and college, but it never really stuck with me.  I have been reading and translating manga for many years, mostly because that is something I can do at my own pace and it is easy to work in translation in small chunks of free time, so I&#8217;m familiar with the culture.  But it isn&#8217;t really anything that I am too interested in.  As a professional programmer though, I miss the focus on more unique hardware and DIY computer projects. That still is there &#8211; and hey, stop by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linux-cafe.jp\/\">Linux cafe next time you are in Akihabara<\/a> &#8211; but that really seems like less of a focus now.<\/p>\n<p>I also am big into Street Fighter, and really enjoyed when SF4 was on play test at the Hey! arcade there.  <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the comment thread is really interesting.  I haven&#8217;t ever met <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maxhodges.com\/\">Max Hodges<\/a> but know of him through the ex-pat blogosphere and like what he writes.  I have no idea who this Sean guy is.  I&#8217;ve seen <a href=\"http:\/\/www.otaku2.com\/\">Patrick Galbraith<\/a> in Akihabara before, but I&#8217;m not really into the whole moe thing.  Doesn&#8217;t mean I look down on it; I&#8217;m just not into it.  <\/p>\n<p>But wow, total ex-pat nerdfight.<\/p>\n<p><br clear=\"all\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Go and read this post over at Colony Drop by Sean, and then read the comments. I like Akihabara a lot. The first time I went there was back in the 1989 (I believe) when I came to Japan with my dad. I bought a portable CD player (a ridiculously impossible thing at the time) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fugutabetai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}