Restart Mission?

I’m back!

…?

Just one and let’s see.

I’m hearing of Covid lockdowns ravaging Tokyo arcades. I haven’t been to Tokyo this year – first year since 2008. Missing family and friends, missing the autumn festival, missing skyscraper-cruising on a pushbike, missing ¥1,000 coffee from a menu in a jazz-BGM 70s cafe. Arcades, obviously.

I’m hearing bad things about the independents. Even Sega is shutting shops. Akiba 2-kan – iconic! – is gone. Photos of staff bowing outside in thanks for years of patronage from also-bowing, clapping crowds.

I dread to see how many windows are dark and papered when I go back.

I took the foreverness of Third Strike for granted. Third Strike in Akihabara close to a stranger, ignoring each other.

There’s a way polite strangers ignore each other in Tokyo. Don’t acknowledge, certainly don’t greet, but pay a sort of un–attention. Note his cancoffee bottle and where his personal space is going to be when he moves for it. Keep that distance as you sit but, for efficiency, no more. It’s frames and hitboxes.

So put your own cancoffee on the other side.

These invisible microkindnesses are heartwarming, in a city that will feel cold if you can’t detect them.

So as I said, I’m missing it.