The A Button

I finished work and met up with Millo in Akihabara, not knowing where exactly we intended to go. Guided by nothing but the GPS on his smartphone, we made our way down backstreets and alleys to a place where we would meet a friend of his. Every street we walked into looked a little more run-down and unoccupied by the last. As often as I had frequented Akiba back when I lived in the area, it wasn't long until I had no idea where we were.
 When we finally arrived before the place marked on the map, we found ourselves standing in front of the one place that was lit up in an otherwise dead street. We found the A Button. And all it took was one look at the place for me to be captured by its dated, dorky charm. We walked in.
 A Button is pretty much a regular bar - you'll find people there for drinks, and you can order simple food items too - but it's the ambiance that defines the place. For one, set aside the pre-millennium rock tracks. Here, it's bit music all night long. I'm talking about that kind of machine-generated music that hear when you turn on a game dating before the mid 90's. Second, well, all it takes is a good look around the place to know that you're in deep, deep geek territory here.

 Lining the walls, fighting for every square inch of space, are old video game consoles, controllers, and related paraphernalia. Figurines and collectors' items stand combatant atop the bar too, in such a way that it would look rather difficult to serve drinks or food without knocking a few over. Some of the stuff on display is hardly even identifiable - limited edition consoles given to developers and the like. One can only imagine the trouble you'd have to go through to get that kind of thing. Or the money you'd have to spend for it.

 But what this bar once was, it really no longer is. When we asked if we could play any of the consoles hooked up to the large screen at the back of the room, it was plain to see that it pained the owner of the bar to say that that was no longer possible. You see, he explained, Japan cracked down on that kind of thing, for reasons that are a little obscure to me still. But apparently, it's illegal to run a business based off allowing people to play video games at any given establishment. And when law enforcement came around, A Button got mashed pretty hard.
 More's the pity, because the staff itself was actually really friendly, and the bar seemed to have a really nice set of regulars, many of which were foreigners too. We didn't let it ruin our night though, and overall, just basking in our eclectic surroundings was good fun. If you ever want to find a drinking hole that seems like the kind of place you'd find in a sitcom about dorks (and I mean that in the most appreciative way possible) then head over to A Button!