Hard Candy

[finally] uploaded a set of shots I took back in October
http://www.maxhodges.com/sets/hardcandy/

Patrick Macias on Two Types of Otaku

Posted an outtake from a studio recording session with Patrick Macias about the two main types of Otaku: http://bit.ly/4GH6hx

Response to Colony Drop post on Akihabara

Sean at Colony Drop wrote this terrifically uninformed hack job on Akihabara over on a blog called ColonyDrop:
http://is.gd/5hqZP

My thoughts on his piece below:

Sean,
I see that you dislike Akihabara, but your attack piece amounts to little more than uninformed opinion.

>Akihabara embraced personal computer enthusiasts in the early 1990s

Technically the area started attracting computer nerds a bit earlier. In 1976 NEC launched its low-cost TK-80 microcomputer assembly kit for hobbyists (considered Japan's first home computer), and they opened a Bit-INN Service Center that same year on the seventh floor of the Radio Kaikan building in Akihabara to provide technical support to customers.

You seems to be really hung up on discrediting the place as simply a haven for smut and sex (although you can only cite a single venue for sex, which no longer exists...)

• It’s the sex and pornography that keeps Akihabara going
• ...the sex comes in other forms as well...
• ...arguing against the implicit sexual undertones of the maid cafe phenomenon is simply naive. 
• ...in a country where actual sex for money is commonly offered in many forms.
• ready to spend serious money on their own sexual fulfillment
• 2D sexual fulfillment

Well, maids can be are pretty damn sexy, but if you've spent any time at all in maid cafes you'd know they have about as much to do with sex as your typical Denny's restaurant...

Seems to me the only person obsession with sex here is you yourself. I'm reminded of this brilliant statement by Stephen Fry regarding the Catholic church's same obsession:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUOUMqyimhA#t=8m17s

The truth is that Akihabara is a unique part of Tokyo, a place unlike any other city in the world, with an interesting past and a varied and vibrant culture which encompasses all sorts of hobbies from model cars and planes, DIY electronics, audiophile systems, to video games, and of course anime and manga.

To deny that Akihabara is neither a subcultural hotspot, or that it even has a subculture, sounds like evidence that you've never been more than an outsider looking in on the place.

There is no doubt that the people who regularly enjoy Akihabara tend to have similar hobbies and interests, styles of dress, patterns of behavior, and they  share an in-group jargon...all the elements which define the very nature of a subculture.