From the Author:
Hello! I’m Tom, Toshimichi Nozoe,
the producer of this guide book “The Best Shops of Akihabara”. Thank you for having interested in this guide book. If you make a purchase, I can guarantee that you’ll enjoy! Well, let me share a story about how I started publishing this guide book.
“Meeting Otaku Foreign Co-workers.”
This was the major reason of how I got an idea of publishing English Akihabara guide book. One day, my non-Japanese co-worker (Japanese Anime Freak!) was complaining about how difficult for him as non-Japanese to getting around Akihabara where he believed as sacred place of Otaku. He often wasted his time by just searching for shop after shops. When I heard this, I knew for sure that this Akihabara guide book will be the first ever to be published in English and definitely help non-Japanese tourists and residents who wants to explore Akihabara. Even more, I thought about showing off to my children that “I“ published THE FIRST English Akihabara guide book. So I called up my friends for help and made it possible to publish.
“Getting to know Otaku”
First of all, I’m not so called “Otaku” person. I didn’t had interest in Anime, Cosplay, Figurines, Maid Café and more…and what’s even surprising, I went to Akihabara in 10 years to do some research for making this guide book. It was tough for me to take surveys and interviews in English to total strangers in Akihabara but while seeing many foreigners wondering around and getting lost in the city, hearing and understanding how they’re so passionate about Otaku world, I became confident about publishing this guide book.
“6 Months”
It took us “Team Tom”, 4 of us having ZERO experience in publishing, only 6 months to publish this guide book. We have interviewed and took surveys from over 200 foreign nationals visiting streets of Akihabara and negotiated more than 30 retail shops and corporations for publication. With my team’s great effort, after the launch of our website, this guide book has received great attention from one Akihabara lovers to Medias and well-known travel agencies.
Again, thank you very much for having interest in “The Best Shops of Akihabara” and I hope this guide book will become one of your communication tool among us Japanese or non-Japanese friends and bring you the best time in Akihabara.
TOM is