Mondo Tokyo: 
Akihabara / Electric Town. 

The office girls cover their mouths, laugh cruelly, and call 'em "Akiba kids," short for "Akihabara kids." It is not a term of endearment, but any number of other nicknames or insults will fit. Geeks. Otaku.
Electric warlocks. Alone, together or in packs, they fill the streets of Akihabara, the stores of Electric Town. All cling tightly onto something, a talisman of devastating power-cell phones of awesome ability and might, Mini-Disc and MP3 players, the Game Boy Advance, the Wonder Swan, a bromide album full of Morning Musume photos. The electric kids seem to inhabit the basement of every DVD store as they troll for new AV releases. Searching through the used tapes of the liberty stores for want of missing must-have titles. Sifting though the colored wigs and Gundam military uniforms of the cosplay boutique. Rampaging through the anime/manga megastore. And unless you dig what they dig, you probably don't really belong in Akihabara in the first place. At least, not darkest Akihabara where those same office girls fear to tread.

Value your normality too much and you belong nearer to the train station and the big chain stores. Peruse the dishwashers and dryers of LAOX and Yamagawa. Past-times for housewives and husbands. Then there's
Akihabara's main drag: a tourist pit of tacky camera stores manned by sales people who speak English a little too well and yammer on about duty-free this and that and where suspicious white-skinned lugs (read:Russian Mafia) stand guard eyeing fresh passports. Without the humble Akiba kids, these nasty people would run the place with their bland goods and flashing lights.

Instead, the kids rule, keep all the good stuff to themselves as they have since, oh the late 19th century or so when Akihabara first began selling gizmos. In side streets, alleys, and places accessible only via creaky elevators. The black market, Tokyo Style-dirt-cheap PC parts, discount videos, vintage shrink-wrapped stereo equipment, second-hand vintage toys and paraphernalia, the complete set of candy toys, the really dirty doujinshi. Okay sure, most of the top-shelf cool stuff goes for unspeakable prices. But Akihabara forces you to ask what's the better alternative? Living to consume or to rip people off? -P.Macias