American Otaku, Part 1: Getting There Is 3.14159 the Fun
posted Monday, October 2nd, 2006 by Jason Eaton
Jason here, reflecting on my recent pilgrimage to the land of rare non-album tracks tacked onto the end of CDs and Ebi Filets at McDonalds. I’m talking about Japan, of course; the land that birthed otaku (otaku is Japanese for geek.)
My reasons for making the trip were many: My wife and I were taking our belated honeymoon, now that we’ve moved into our new house. We’ve both been yearning for some exotic travel while we’re still childless and relatively free to go and do as we please. I’ve always wanted to explore Japan – blame it on everything from too many hours watching Battle of the Planets to a more recent obsession with Maschinen Krieger, a hobby virtually unknown outside of Japan (more on Maschinen Krieger in Part 3.)
So, what is it like to be an American Otaku on a first trip to Japan?
It all started with the 14-hour plane ride. Now, being a somewhat savvy traveler with a dozen or so flights under my belt, I knew my usual Powerbook backup battery wasn’t going to get me from the U.S. to Tokyo. Generally speaking, I like traveling light, which you just can’t do when you need two weeks’ worth of clothing and a spare suitcase for robot model kits (again, wait for Part 3). So, I found myself pushing all non-electronics into checked baggage and carrying my 12-inch Powerbook (cleared of almost all music and photos to allow for the 27GB or so of fresh DVD rips of Simpsons, Season 
with four backup batteries, MiniDV camcorder, digital still camera, autographed “The Witching Hour” Anne Rice hardcover, and the why-won’t-you-die-so-I-can-get-a-6G 4G iPod. All this and some cashews crammed into a surplus WWII bag.
Guess I over-packed.
Zooey Tunes. The plane ride to Japan made me feel like some Podunk hick, staring with unabashed awe at the New York City skyline. We had individual screens in the back of every seat, a large LCD projection system in the center wall of steerage class, and a remote in every chair that doubled as a game controller. Now, I must give full disclosure: I am not a gamer, but I know enough to know these games were of cell phone caliber and were, therefore, nothing to get excited about. Although I will admit my wife played a lot of Tetris over the Bering Sea.
The individual seat-back screens were a welcome change from U.S. flights I’d taken and I was delighted to find that there were a dozen or so movies playing on a continuous loop. Of course that meant you’d have to watch two hours of Mission Impossible 3 and then wait another 40 minutes to get the staggered replay of Failure to Launch, a mindless 90-minute comedy that featured Zooey Deschanel, whom I can watch all day. (Note to airline: Digital means choice. Next time let me use that gaming remote to select when to start and stop a movie.)
That’s all well and good. But what truly got my geek heart pounding was the channel that showed you GPS maps of the current position and airspeed of the airplane, plus the outside temperature in both imperial and metric with estimated arrival times in U.S. and Japanese time zones. There were also two PoV (Point-of-View) cameras that you could toggle – one mounted within or slightly below the plane’s nose and one that pointed directly below. These were switched on during take off and landing, which created a very surreal experience. I felt as if I was in one of those simulators that use large projection screens timed to hydraulics under a moving platform to simulate roller coasters and Klingon attacks on Las Vegas. All planes should have this feature – it was a welcome distraction from endless hours in one seat, having my free will slowly eroded to the point where Failure to Launch seemed like a masterpiece.
Toilet Tech. So we land, get through passport control, baggage claim and customs with little fanfare. The airport in Narita is sparsely populated at 7 p.m., and we felt as if our limbs were sliding through water because we’ve been awake for over 30 hours. Even in a state of near delirium, we still managed to move about with relative ease as all signs are in English as well as Japanese. As an American Otaku, I was immediately struck by the extensive use of LCD screens, even in the most unnecessary places. The subways have dual monitors above all doors in each car: one dedicated to advertising and English lessons, the other giving out helpful information in Japanese and, again, in English.
Once in the hotel we discovered a little marvel of engineering called a Washlet. I like to refer to it as the Robot Toilet. Imagine if your toilet had a heated seat, a bidet function (kids, your parents can explain), auto air-freshening mist, and a few other mysterious dials and buttons. It might sound a trifle decadent to your average American. But they are everywhere in Japan. You’ll find bathrooms range from the occasional “hole in the ground” to the almost universal Robot Toilet. Oh, how I miss you, Robot Toilet, and your heated seat. (For those of you in search of the ultimate in geek bathroom fixtures, the Washlet, made by TOTO, is available from dealers throughout the U.S. We recommend the Jasmine.)
The hotel room also had a bank of rocker panels and dials on both sides of the bed which controlled just about everything electrical in the hotel room. This seemed like such a no-brainer once I’d lived with it for just a few days. Who doesn’t dream of reaching up a few inches to turn down that pesky light or shut off those Japanese game shows playing endlessly on the wall-mounted flat-panel television? Oh yeah, the hotel room also had a wall-mounted LCD.
So, we slept a good 10 hours to shake off jet lag, enjoyed the wall-mounted soap and shampoo dispensers in the shower (once again, why don’t we have these here?) and prepared to see some of Tokyo.
Travel Pi Train. The Yamanote Line of the Tokyo subway system served as our main conduit to the sights during our stay. Tokyo is an immense city comprised of many smaller neighborhoods, referred to as districts. The Yamanote line hits all the major districts.
If you think of the stops on the Yamanote line as ticks on a clock, my point-of-origin was the six o’clock position – Shinagawa. Once you step onto the train at Shinagawa Station, the readout above the door tells you where you are, what the next station will be, which car you’re in, how many cars comprise the train, and how long it will take to get to the next stop. The readout also shows a map of the entire line – all the stops, direction of travel and times to each stop. The trains in Tokyo are incredibly precise, as in, “We’ll be in Shinjuku in seven minutes,” and you are.
So there you have it, the end of Part 1 of American Otaku, and all I’ve managed to cover is transportation. Next, I’ll tell you about the Japanese answer to instant gratification and my visit to the wellspring of the world’s technology, in American Otaku, Part 2: Vended Love.
