Akihabara Liberation Protest!
July 1st, 2007 by James
Yesterday, around 400 otaku hit the streets to hold a protest calling for the liberation of Akihabara. Many of the participants donned traditional protest gear, while others protested while cosplaying. Judging from photos and video, it appears that several famous characters were at the event: Danny Choo, Coke Vending Machine Zero, and possibly Jonathan Underwood. It looks like everyone had a lot of fun.
YouTuber kks001 has uploaded a couple videos of the event:
And a few more photos of the protest, via Akiba Blog, Jabro, and Ascii:
And a few more videos of the protestors, via Jabro:
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I didn’t know Akihabara was being occupied. Liberate it from whom or what?
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The liberation has just begun! Viva Akiba!
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Sorry to rain on the parade with my strong views, but this “protest” is just plain retarded IMO.
I think it was supposed to be that they were “protesting” for things like more respect and recognition for otakus, more respect for them in the media and such, but this mish-mash of around 400 people only loosely associated by the ever-hard-to-define label of “otaku” were protesting anything from train fanatics demanding some restoration of their beloved railway lines to demanding the withdrawal of the Yodobashi Camera electronics mega-store from Akihabara, down to demanding respect for sexual minorities. With healthy doses of 2ch internet slang and Haruhi cliches, of course.
I think that “liberation” meant for the preservation of Akihabara as their Sacred District of Anime, which is nonsense to people who knew Akihabara as a district where small electronics stores gathered long before it became the magnet for Anime/Manga related things.
The current trend in the Japanese media (likely kicked off by the Train Man craze) is to try to make “otakus” out to be something similar to animals in a zoo, where “normal” people point and gawk at how funny or weird they are. It’s better than the stereotype of the sociopathic pedophile which was jump-started by the Miyazaki Tsutomu case, but I see how the current trend is still unpleasant, and it sort of parallels how gamers have been portrayed as an exaggerated stereotype in the American media. I also understand the desire for more respect, or at least wanting to be left alone.
But, by parading around and making a show, they’re actually doing what the media has been trying to do all along… presenting themselves and gathering attention as freaks and queers.
…man, all this ranting sounds like I’m taking this way too seriously:)
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Let ‘em have it for all I care.
That place is nothing but Akiba culture…and it has gotten signifigantly worse in recent years….so I don’t exactly understand what they are trying to “liberate” it from.
Hell, I’m even embarassed to change trains in Akihabara.
How bout someone liberate Akihabara from the clutches of the Otaku?
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That sounds like a valid reason to protest.
I’ll be there if it happens
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Don’t give it to the Otaku. It’s the only place I can get Gamecube games for my Wii.
Unless someone knows somewhere in Sagamihara/Hachioji/Machida???
Someone??!?!?
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