Manga Tour Day 7, Pt. 2: Osaka, America-mura and Den-Den Town

After leaving Kyoto by Shinkansen, the rest of Day 7 of my Pop Japan Travel / Mind Over Manga adventure was spent in Osaka. After negotiating the Shin-Osaka station, then the labyrinth that is the underground passages of the Osaka Umeda station, we found our hotel, dropped off our stuff and headed straight to America-mura (America Village) to visit another branch of Mandarake.

As Chicago is to New York City, Osaka is to Tokyo: a proudly working class city that's cosmopolitan, creative and full of good food and fun-loving people. America-mura has a fun, funky energy, with a mix of young couture boutiques like Baby the Stars Shine Bright and Juicy Couture, alongside takoyaki (octopus dumplings) stands and hostess bars.

We were warmly greeted by the Mandarake Grand Chaos staff, who set up a special treat for us in their cafe on the 4th floor: a homemade musubi (rice ball) lunch served to us by pretty young girls dressed in mama-san aprons. Mother Cafe is their twist on the maid cafe phenomenon by serving Japanese-style home cooking with a maternal touch. Our maid showed us how to wrap rice in a sheet of nori with our chopsticks and even fed one of us with motherly care.

Now having gone to three branches of Mandarake, I'm amazed at how different each one is. The cosplay section at this branch was pretty big, with a large selection of wigs and costumes featuring characters from Urusei Yatsura, Vampire Knight and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

This branch also had a really strong selection of vintage horror manga and gekiga, which was a lot of fun to check out. I found a copy of Nanako My Love by Hideo Azuma, the artist who drew Disappearance Diary. I also found some vintage shojo manga from the 1970's and saw an original copy of Red-Colored Elegy by Seiichi Hayashi going for about $150, which made me appreciate that Drawn and Quarterly recently released an English edition for much, much less.

After buying yet more books, I rejoined the rest of the group as we walked to nearby Dotonburi, the busy shopping and attraction-filled street near the canals. With its large neon signs and whimsical shop billboards, Dotonburi reminded me a bit of Universal Studios City Walk and Las Vegas. It's an area devoted to fun and food, and of course, it was filled with pedestrians enjoying its many pleasures. I also saw a lot of ads for host clubs and lots of guys with bleached, rock star hair dressed in flashy, super-accessorized style.

A smaller group of us continued on to walk to Nipponbashi, a.k.a. Den-Den Town, Osaka's version of Akihabara. While not as flashy as Akihabara, Den-Den Town had more than enough otaku joy to keep us occupied. The Gundam's Osaka shop was a popular destination for the mecha-fans in our group. Meanwhile, I headed to K-Books to check out their manga selection and found a Nodame Cantabile classical CD / postcard book set. Nodame Cantabile is about music students and the stories often mention classical pieces, so I'm looking forward to listening to the CD and re-reading my copies of this josei manga series (published in the U.S. by Del Rey Manga).

Upon heading back to Dotonburi, I came across a pub on Sennichimae-dori that looked like it was plucked out of a scene from Ikiru (the post-war Akira Kurosawa film). Filled with movie posters and tin advertising signs from the 1950's and decorated with rustic charm, the restaurant specializes in yakiniku, or meat grilled over individual charcoal grills.

Ben, our guide, pointed out to me that the name of the restaurant, Showa Taishu Horumon roughly meant "Showa-era Commoners Innards Meat". I later found out that grilled "horumon" is an Osaka specialty, and its name is derived from the term horu mono, which means "things that are thrown away." This sounded intimidating, but I was so beguiled by the thought of eating at a place with such a cool decor and unusual cuisine, I had to try it.

Once again, my limited grasp of Japanese put me in the restaurant roulette situation, where I ended up pointing blindly at a menu and saying "Give me some o' that." What I ended up with was something that looked like marinated intestines, some kind of pork belly with skin and some beef short ribs. But, I figured, all those happy diners around me couldn't be too wrong, so I grilled my choices on my charcoal grill until the fat rendered and it was crispy and light brown, dipped it in the provided sauces and had it with some hot rice. With a tall, cold draft beer, it actually ended up being a tasty, albeit sometimes very chewy meal. Anthony Bourdain would be proud of me, I think.

I then headed back to our meeting spot in front of the Glico Man sign and took in more of the sights of Dotonburi, including a dog tea salon, where patrons can rent a purebred pup to play with while they enjoy tea and snacks. There was also a place selling grilled crab, and a shop featuring souvenirs and snacks from Glico (the folks who bring you Pocky, Pretz and all kinds of Japanese junk food goodness).

A half day in Osaka was much, much too short for my taste, so I hope to return and check it out again soon. In the meantime, it was time to get back to the hotel to rest, because the next morning would find us on another train to visit Hiroshima and Miyajima.

Image credit: © Deb Aoki