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History of Akihabara - Sacred Ground for Otaku
1950
After the World War II, there were many black markets around Kanda district of Tokyo. At these markets, products such as vacuum tube radio and electronics parts were being sold. This is the behind story on how the name of "Electronics Town" became Akihabara's nickname.
1960
Akihabara grew to be the town of "Domestic Electronics". Refrigerator, washing machine, and Black and White TV were popular products sold at everywhere in Akihabara. At this time, Japan was reaching the period of its economic growth. It was a proud thing to buy products from Akihabara, and it was the symbol of "wealth".
1970
In the 70th, owning domestic electronics was no longer a rare thing. At the market, products for "Entertainment" were gaining popularity. In addition to practical products such as radio and TV, many hobby products such as Cassette Recorder and Speakers started to appear at stores. Speakers were gradually transferring its format from Monaural to Stereo which resulted in release of many products.
Around this time, there started to appear personal computers. On 1976, NEC released "TK-80", which was one board computer, became a huge hit.
At that time, personal computer was called not "Paso-con" but "My-con".
A term "My-con Family" was born to refer science and engineering students who buy PC. PC was expensive at this time (TK-80 was costing around $900, which is about $2,500 as today’s money value). There were some people who were trying to create programs with the PC sold at retail store. Opposite from "My-Con", these people were called "Nai-Con" (Don't have Con) as an ironic.
http://www.ipsj.or.jp/katsudou/museum/computer/4000.html
To learn more about TK-80, see above website (in Japanese).
1980
Personal Computer really started to take off around this time.
On 1979, NEC released "PC-8001", Fujitsu released "FM-8", and Mitsubishi released "MULTI 16". Akihabara was flooded with these products. At big department store such as "Radio-Kan", there started to appear show rooms for PC from NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Mitsubishi. In 1982, Compact Disk (CD) was released from audio industry. Many CD players were released as music source shifted from record to CD.
1990
PC was widely spread by this time, and Akihabara's main market products became "Domestic Electronics", "PC" and "Audio Equipment". In 1990, Apple's "System 7.0" was gaining popularity, and "Windows 3.1" was released around this time as well even though most of PC still had own domestic system (NEC's "PC-9801" series and "PC-9821" series). PC-9801 series carried "MS-DOS" and PC-9821 carried "Windows 3.1" as an operating system.
Around this time, there started to appear PC games which contained erotic themes. Champion Soft (now Alice Soft), Koei Mycon System (now Koei) , Enix (now SquareEnix) were some of these developers. 98 users purchased "Bisyoujyo Game" (Pretty Girl Game with sexual theme) from Akihabara retail stores or from mail order. Copying of the software was casually done and distributed among students.
In the mid 1990, a term "Multimedia" was born, and products such as "Pasocon Tuusin" (Pasocon Mail Order) and "Tevevision Pasocon" stared to appear in the market.
The district of Akihabara grew as the market grew. The growth in game industry has contributed to the expansion of Akihabara, creating many small specialty stores as well as big department stores.
2000
As game industry market grew, Erotic Game became general acknowledgement. Market for Erotic Game grew rapidly. At Akihabara, many stores started to reserve a special section for "Erotic Game" among PC software section. There started to appear specialty store having only Erotic Games. The term "Otaku Industry" was born when above trend started to occur within Akihabara, referring to market products such as Game, Anime, Comic and Erotic Game. These days, "Otaku Industry" includes PC hardware. Thus, 80% of shops in Akihabara can be considered to fall in this category.
Predicting 2005 Otaku Industry
By Nomura Souken Research, economic impact that Otaku Industry brings is around 290 billion dollars. Among these, 258 billions are said to be from the following four genres: Anime, Idol, Game and Comic.
http://www.nri.co.jp/news/2004/040824.html
Of course, this is not all generated from Akihabara, but it is definitely said that Akihabara is the center of trend. Also, major Otaku events such as "Comic Market" and "Wonder Festival" are all performed in Tokyo. Recently, Akihabara is getting a lot of attention from TV media. This is a trend which can not be ignored by economic analysis.
Though, information provided by media might get expired rapidly. Especially at the center of trend Akihabara, yesterday’s news can be already old as today's news. Therefore, internet media can be used as a resource for up to date information. Although, many information on these sites are not fully localized into English fast enough. If you are non-Japanese reader and seeking for the latest Otaku industry information in Akihabara, this site, AKIBA ANGELS（http://www.akibaangels.com）will be very useful.
The basics of Otaku Industry, Anime Industry itself seems to be on its decrease compared to its peak period in the history. Instead, "Media Mix" is getting attention these days. It is the corroboration of Magazine, Game, Anime and Goods. Many Otaku viewers these days are spoiled with high quality animation. To create a high quality animation that satisfy such audience will be very expensive. It is hard to gain enough profit from DVD itself, so company is forced to use the material for secondary product, such as using the characters for figure product and other goods. Thus, if you are in the market, it is important to see not only the Animation product itself, but its secondary products as well. To read such trend, you will need good information. We strongly recommend you to visit this site, Akibaangels.com often since we will be featuring Otaku culture and industry trend in Japan.
(Text by: Yamaha Torakichi)
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