Summary
A popular activity in Japan for both kids and adults is a stamp rally. Stamp rallies involvegoing around a select location and collecting stamps, which are usually themed after a specific subject or special interest. These are often based on anime or games, taking fans on a route around somewhere as large as a city or as small as a department store to collect all the stamps. When you get them all, you usually can get a prize.
Stamp rallies have themes that foreigners are interested in, but they are almost always in Japanese. This can make them inaccessible for tourists, no matter how much they may want to do them, as they are clearly targetted at Japanese fans only. However, Tokyo’smost famous otaku neighborhood, Akihabara, is offering a special stamp rally that is completely in English. The goal is to give foreign otaku a chance to enjoy the neighborhood and participate in a uniquely Japanese experience.
The Akiba Travel Stamp Rally
Finally, a stamp rally for English speakers
Akihabara, usually shortened to “Akiba,” is one of the most popular places for otaku visiting Japan to go. The reason is that Akiba has a plethora of shops just for otaku, selling anime, manga, and game merchandise. The main street is plastered with anime posters and swarming withcosplay girls and maidstrying to persuade people to come to their cafés. Nearly every store is selling something aimed at otaku, both foreign and Japanese. Akihabara is an otaku paradise, but can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to go.
While Akiba has long been a place for otaku-themed stamp rallies, this is the first time that one has been aimed specifically at foreign visitors. Following the usual stamp rally protocol, participants have to travel around Akihabara and collect stamps from different locations. What makes the Akiba Travel Stamp Rally great, especially for tourists, is that it has Akiba’smost famous landmarksas the destination. Following the route of the stamp rally takes tourists on a tour of the famous neighborhood, and helps them target the places they are most likely to want to visit.
For people visiting Japan, the Akiba Travel Stamp Rally makes an otherwise inaccessible piece of Japanese entertainment accessible. The stamp sheet itself reads,
“A stamp rally is one of the unique Japanese cultures that [sic] people visit different locations to collect stamps. You’ll get a prize when completing all the stamps!”
This does let visitors participate in something special during their trip, and after their hard work traveling all over Akihabara, they are rewarded with a special prize to commemorate their experience. Plus, the stamp rally sheet has a map in English with plenty of places of interest marked to help visitors.
How Can I Do the Stamp Rally in Akihabara?
This fun activity is easier to access than you may think
The Akiba Travel Stamp Rally is being hosted by AmiAmi Akihabara Radio Kaikan Store. The Radio Kaikan building, which is located beside Akihabara Station, is likely at the top of most otaku tourists' lists, anyway, and it is conveniently where you can pick up the stamp rally sheet and get the first stamp. Like most stamp rallies, it is free to participate in, and does not require any reservations.
In total, participants have to get stamps from eight different locations in Akihabara. These are the Radio Kaikan building, Akiba Tolim (a store with lots of merchandise), Suruga-ya (a shop selling secondhand otaku goods), Pasela (a karaoke bar that is also host to the FFXIV cafe), at-home cafe (one of the mostfamous maid cafésin Tokyo), ASTOP (a merchandise store), Sofmap (an electronics store), and Otachu (a merchandise shop). As stated before, most of these are likely already on many otaku’s essential lists, but it may also help them find parts of Akihabara that they may not have visited otherwise.
When you get all eight stamps, you need to go back to the AmiAmi shop in the Radio Kaikan building. At the info desk where you get the stamp sheet, you can show it again to get your special prize for completion. Right now the prize itself has not been published, but common stamp rally prizes arepins, keychains, or special postcards, usually with the name of the stamp rally on them.
The Akiba Travel Stamp Rally is running from July 18th to August 31st, 2024, in Akihabara, Tokyo.
