Forsaken heroes

Yesterday I was walking around Akihabara, a section of Tokyo nicknamed electric town. There are indeed many electronic and electric shops in Akihabara - yet it has really become the mecca of the otaku culture. Like his Western counterpart the geek, an Otaku is someone passionate about a topic that leaves the rest of mankind totally indifferent. Otaku typically focus on a single topic and it can be very varied. I have seen Otakus focusing on beetles, weapons, you name it. The major source of Otaku focus, however, is the manga. By itself, the term Otaku will therefore relate to someone versed in mangas. Other types of Otakus will be qualified with their area of interest: buki (weapon) no otaku, denwa (telephone) no otaku...

The Otaku has something that differentiates him from the basic geek: the amount of his personal time and resources he's able to sink into his passion. The reason why all the sophisticated gadgets are showing up in Asia is simply because over there, people are ready to spend a much bigger fraction of their incomes into them. Otakus have an urge to own everything that relates to their heroes: figurines, cards, bath towels, key-chains, table mats, posters, keitai (mobile phone) covers, underwear... You name it, they own it. And the place to get this crap memorabilia is Akihabara, where I happened to find myself last week.

Browsing the different shops, I found a big black one with a question mark on it. Intrigued, I went in. The first floor was all vintage porno magazines, and the second floor was all vintage porno magazines for women. Apparently, two men kissing each other dressed up as cats is appealing to parts of the feminine public. That's no news I can use, moving on.

The Japanese are experts at caring for their stuff and many items can be bought years later at a stiff price. This shop was evidently a second hand shop and it had a surprise for me on the 7th floor:

A box representing Gavan, known as X-OR on French TV. My first hero.

That day was bound to happen: on those shelves were stacked figurines of all the heroes that were on TV when I was a kid. Forgotten heroes. My own childhood was waiting for me, patiently, asking where I had beenall this time. I found myself questionning my uncanny confidence that, in spite of all the hardships, good will prevail.

Ultraman, an early Japanese super hero, that inspired many others. I am too young to have seen this on TV.

More than a shop, this is a museum. And not one you should bring the kids to: so much courage, so much self-denial, so much effort... lost to mere decades.

Later generations, I don't even remember their names.

Heroes have to die. Lest we forget them.

 

The villains are represented too.

In the last shelves, all the monsters those heroes fought are also waiting. Childhood heroes they can only be awesome insofar as their nemesis are evil and ugly. In a world without absolute good and bad, those heroes are, for lack of a better word, undefined.

What are heroes made of? In the end I believe heroes are people who simply decide to put their lives at stake to reach for something they believe in. The batman has all those coold gadgets, yet very often he puts his life on the line. More realistically, during world war II, people were hiding jews when being found out by a mighty occupier meant certain death. They make decisions, proceed, and accept to live through their consequences.

This world tour has just become even more interesting.