Landmark Akihabara arcade Adores is the latest Tokyo game center to go out of business

Only a few days remain for the crane game specialist.

Tokyo’s Akihabara neighborhood is a mecca for anime and video game fans, with a high concentration of enthusiast oriented shops and venues than anywhere else in the country. But while the otaku flame burns bright in Akihabara, that doesn’t mean every establishment lasts forever, and the lights are about to go out at Adores, a landmark arcade right next to the Akihabara Station building.

▼ The arcade opened in September of 2012.

The first two floors of the bright red Adores Akihabara Building 2 are a game center filled exclusively with crane games/UFO catchers. This being Akihabara, a number of the machines are stocked with plushies, figures, or other merch of popular game and anime characters. Floors 3-10, meanwhile, offer karaoke boxes in a convenient location for belting out a few anison numbers after a shopping trip with fellow fans.

【#A3】
A3！ ちびぐるみ 秋組 本日より登場です
●摂津 万里
●兵頭 十座
●七尾 太一
●伏見 臣
●古市 左京
の5種です
大人気景品なのでぜひお早めにお迎えくださいね#エースリー　#エーステ pic.twitter.com/Bsc8oooeUT

— アドアーズ秋葉原2号店 (@ad_akiba2) June 12, 2021

Adores Akihabara Building 2’s official Twitter account keeps fans informed of new arrivals, such as the chibi Akigumi plushies in the above notice. Their currently pinned, tweet, though, is something less likely to bring a smile to otaku faces, as it reads:

“Thank you very much for your continued patronage. Due to various circumstances, we will be closing on June 30. We wish to offer our deepest gratitude for our customers’ many years of support.”

“Various circumstances” is about as vague as explanations get, but it’s almost certain that the pandemic is a contributing factor. Ordinarily Akihabara draws a huge number of visitors from outside not just Tokyo but from outside Japan as well, and fewer tourists means fewer people putting coins into crane games. Karaoke, too, is something that many people feel is too risky to be indulging in these days, and Adores’ rent, with the building located along the district’s largest street, can’t be cheap.

▼ Adores Akihabara Building 2 interior

Sadly, this doesn’t come with any sort of silver lining along the lines of “We’ll see you at Building 1,” because Adores Akihabara Building 1 shut down back in early November, and shuffling down the street a couple blocks to the Sega Akihabara Building 2 game center isn’t an option anymore either. Granted, so many arcades in Akihabara going out of business is only possible because the neighborhood had so many to begin with, and maybe it was inevitable that such saturation was going to mean a few of them were going to have to go sooner or later, but it’s still sad to see it happen.

Location information
Adores Akihabara Building 2 / アドアーズ秋葉原2号店
Address: Tokyo-to, Chiyoda-ku, Soto Kanda 1-13-1
東京都千代田区外神田1-13-1
Website

Source: Twitter/@ad_akiba2 via Otakomu, Livedoor News/Akiba Soken
Images: Adores
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