Japan

I can’t believe that, in just a little over a month, I will be in Tokyo, Japan.

It’s a trip I’ve been wanting to take my entire adult life and one that has been denied to me too many times because I believed that I should do what other people told me to do with my time and my money. They were wrong.

Thinking about going to Japan has filled every day of 2023. It brings me hope but also heartbreak when I think about how much the trip has had to change from what it was originally supposed to be.

Back in 2004, I wanted to experience all of Japan in two weeks. I based this decision on how little I thought I wanted to do in the rest of Japan and how much I wanted to do in just one of the wards of Tokyo. Namely, I wanted to go to Akihabara, which was the center for Otaku culture. However, due to shifts in demographics and costs, that mecca has been slowly relocating to Ikebukuro. That change is most evident in the new Animate mega center that opened in Ikebukuro at the end of 2022 and the closing of Tora no Ana’s flagship doujinshi store in Akihabara. Only a few Tora no Ana locations remain, with the only Tokyo location being in Ikebukuro.

This was back when I learned that Tokyo Tower wasn’t just some made up location in anime.

It was back when I was learning that the culture and art (not anime) I had been in love with through my childhood was Japanese and no Chinese.

It was back when I was still nostalgic for my trip to Paris with the French Club in high school that I took with my mom (we totally ditched the tour group on most days!) and the belief that I would simply want to see the sites and go home.

But, as I learned more about Japan and, more specifically, about Tokyo, I realized that Tokyo was not Paris. It is a mega city, like London. And it has been consuming neighboring cities for well over a century.

To give you an idea of its size, Ikebukuro alone has as many people living there as all of Jacksonville, Florida. And Ikebukuro is just one city within the Toshima Ward.

There are countless cities like that in Tokyo. And each has something to offer.

In 2007, when I started planning a trip to Japan, I started learning more about what was in Japan and how easy it was to get around the country and each city. This validated my notion that it would be simple for me to do “it all” in one trip. I planned to go visit Tokyo for 1 week, then take the shinkansen to Kyoto to take in the historical sites for a few days, and then, finally, wrap up the trip in Osaka and fly out of their airport. At the top of my list was Universal Japan (Osaka), Himeji Castle (Kyoto), Akihabara (Tokyo), and Tokyo Tower (Tokyo). Anime shopping and site seeing were my top priorities.

That trip was thwarted.

In 2009, I started planning again. I couldn’t get Japan out of my head. I opened up the travel books that I’d purchased back in 2007 and started giving major consideration to separating Tokyo and the Kyoto/Osaka portions of the trip. The more I learned about the history and culture of Japan, the more time I wanted to spend in Kyoko and Osaka as well as the neighboring areas. I decided I would stop looking at Kyoto and Osaka for the first trip and started storing away websites, books, and resources so that I could plan that second trip after I went to Tokyo.

At the top of my 2009 list was finding a hot spring to enjoy. Back then, there were a few places in Tokyo that I could have gone to. Those are gone now after the pandemic. It was in this search that I discovered Hakone, an village about an hour’s train ride from Tokyo that is devoted to hot springs and ryokans. Fearing that I would be starting to venture too far outside Tokyo, I put Hakone on the back burner because there were other hot spring experiences in Tokyo that I could do and I wouldn’t lose time to travel.

During this trip, I started considering hotels that weren’t western properties. I stopped looking at Hiltons and started finding smaller, business hotels. I learned about capsule hotels and set my heart on staying in one for the experience as well as the cost savings. Back then, it would have only cost me about $25 per night for a capsule hotel. The main issue was that these hotels were for business men, there were no doors, and it was a shared bath. I was heartbroken.

The plan for that trip was to center myself in Tokyo somewhere in the Ginza ward so that I could participate in the nightlife and fine dining. This would give me close access to Tokyo Station, one of the major rail hubs. Also on this trip, I identified that I wanted to do the Tsukiji fish market, visit Tokyo Big Site (which I had recently learned was also not a fictional place!), and go to the Gundam Cafe at Gundam Front on Odaiba. And, despite having removed Osaka from the itinerary, was considering spending a day there just to do Universal Studios Japan. The trip would still have been about 2 weeks.

That trip was also thwarted.

I was supposed to go in 2012 with a slightly modified version of the 2009 planned trip, but that was scrapped too.

All because of other people.

After running Amelia Con in 2014, I decided that I would absolutely go to Japan in 2017. I developed a financial model to help me save enough money to get there. By this time, I was most interested in exploring Akihabara, Odaiba, and was growing interested in the Sky Tree. I wanted to experience more than just the anime side of Tokyo. I started looking into parks to visit, seasons to visit, and things to do that were non-anime related. I discovered the Edo Tokyo Museum and realized that I wanted to stay in Akihabara for the cost savings and proximity to nightlife that was a little safer than Ginza. I decided Hakone was 100% on the table and that it would provide me the best ryokan experience. I also wanted to visit Fuji-Q Highland (a theme park near Mt. Fuji with Neon Genesis Evangelion installments).

That trip was also thwarted.

And, that time, it made me angry.

In 2018, I started planning a trip for 2020 and decided I would let no one stop me. The money that I’d previously saved had been taken from me. But that didn’t stop me from saving again.

I got my passport in 2019. And, for that trip, the person who had taken my money for the last one and had been thwarting my trips since 2009 demanded to go with me. I decided to try to accommodate and changed my trip. It was now 1.5 weeks to accommodate someone else’s desired timeline. I removed many of the anime cafes I wanted to experience. I focused on finding restaurants that weren’t Japanese to accommodate someone else. By the end of the planning, it didn’t even remotely resemble the trip that I’d dreamed of. It was disappointing and depressing, but I was willing to bear it.

Then that person finally got out of my life.

And there was this immediate relief. I called ANA (the airline) and I changed the flights. I got my trip extended to 2.5 weeks, as I’d been hoping it would be for many years. I started booking everything that I wanted to do and decided that I would go to Anime Japan, the largest anime convention in the world.

Then, a week before I got to go…

COVID.

And it was taken from me.

I refuse to let that happen again.

I absolutely refuse.

This time, I’ll still be staying in Akihabara. However! I learned that there are female-only capsule hotels now! And that was very exciting! But then I got a great rate on the hotel I’d been planning to stay at for nearly a decade. Ironic, right?

To my dismay, most of the things I wanted to do in Tokyo closed during the pandemic. And, because I waited so long to go, Akihabara isn’t what it used to be for anime fans. Now, that culture is spreading to other wards. Even the Tsukiji fish market has moved. Gundam Front still exists, but the Gundam Cafes are all closed. Fuji-Q Highland no longer has Evangelion installments - those are in Osaka and Kyoto now.

But I’ve found many other things I want to do!

I’m there for the hanami - Cherry Blossom viewing - and I’ve made that the focal point of my trip. I’m there for the Swallowtail Butler Cafe and the museums. I’m there… oddly… for Harajuku, a place that wasn’t even prominent on my radar until two weeks ago when I fell in love with some of the art exhibits there.

I’m going for inspiration.

I’m going for fulfillment.

And no one will take this away from me again.