Welcome to Tokyo's Akihabara Electric Town, with the craziest gadget stores you'll ever see - CNET

These stores are only part of the area's electric charm. Take a tu onto one of the side streets, and smaller stores hawk far more specialized wares. Better still, enter one of the side buildings. Alleyways transition invisibly to corridors. Tiny shops that focus on one microscopic niche of the electronics world. Need a new switch for your old VCR? How about a single LED for a DIY project? Fuses, cables, random parts you've never seen before? You'll probably be able to find one here.

The narrow alleys and corridors remind me of a mode-day Japanese Kowloon Walled City, with tu after tu, stairway after stairway, and just endless stalls and stores.

Akihabara isn't what it once was. It eaed its legendary status as a home for electronics, but as those became commodities available anywhere, thanks to the Web, the focus of Akihabara started to change. Soon there were more and more stores that sold DVDs and manga. And as those became popular, other stores shifted focus to cater to these new types of customers: otaku.

Otaku

Otaku roughly translates to "fanboy" or "fangirl," and while it generally refers to those passionate about manga or anime, it's really anyone with an intense interest in a certain topic.

More than just selling the content, stores popped up to speak to the otaku themselves. The Gundam Cafe, for example.

Go to Akihabara in the evening, and an even more obvious example of a quirk of the otaku culture will appear. Every few stores will have a young woman outside, dressed as a maid or an anime character, handing out fliers for drink specials. Maid cafes are essentially hostess bars, a sort of Hooters without the revealing clothing...but cosplay instead.

Yodobashi

The transition away from pure electronics stores was probably not hurt by Yodobashi Camera. The eight-story colossus is probably the largest electronics store in the world. Walking in is an assault on multiple senses.

First, it's incredibly bright. The Japanese tend to over-light retail stores, but Yodobashi does this to another whole level. Searing fluorescents aihilate all shadows in a greenish-blue scorch that messes with your brain (literally -- walk outside after being under these lights for a while, and the sun seems sunset red at any hour). Impossibly shiny linoleum floors plus glass and chrome display cases all conspire to make you squint. Sunglasses would not feel out of place.

Then there's the noise. On top of the usual background din of any electronics store, there's the Yodobashi Camera theme song to add to the cacophony. Behold its greatness:

Push past this, and you'll get swallowed up by, quite simply, the most amazing collection of electronics you'll ever see. Want some headphones? Try on a few hundred. Want a TV? Seemingly every one on the market is here on display. Speakers? There are three rooms for that. Vacuums? A floor (I think). If it plugs in or takes batteries, it's here, and there's probably a few hundred options to choose from.

By the time you reach the top, going floor by floor gawking at the awesomeness, you'll probably be hungry. No worries, there are a bunch of restaurants on the top floor.

Bottom line

Akihabara is one of the best areas to see Tokyo do what it does best: condense a whole lot of something into a small space, and add a dash of madness.

It's amazing and fantastic and totally worth seeing. If you can make it, check out Japan-Guide's take on it. If you can't, check out the photo tour above.

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In his alteate life as a travel writer, Geoff does tours of cool museums and locations around the world including nuclear submarines, medieval castles, iconic music studiosand more. You can follow his exploits on Twitter and Instagram, and on his travel blog BaldNomad. Got a tour-worthy spot you think he should check out? Let him know!