Ever since the 1995 broadcast and overwhelming success of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the production committee model it had popularized continued pushing the anime industry forward, and the economic ripple effects had reached Akihabara in a very visible way.
Maid cafes had begun appearing. Anime merchandise shops were opening in clusters. Manga publishers including Shonen Jump had started hosting events in the area. By 1999, the ACGN atmosphere in Akihabara had become dense enough that people had started calling it the Holy Land of the culture.
He stepped out from the Electric Town Exit at Akihabara Station and immediately found his vision filled with flashy promotional billboards on every available surface. Rurouni Kenshin. Cardcaptor Sakura. Inuyasha. Full Metal Panic. Cowboy Bebop.
He took it all in as he walked, following the route embedded in Akira's memory until he reached the bookstore where the original owner had been working.
The shop's main stock was new issues of manga magazines, collected volumes, complete series sets, setting guides, and art books. Doujinshi and adult manga were also available, tucked further back in the store.
The first thing that caught his eye on arrival was a promotional poster stand for Detective Conan: The Last Wizard of the Century.
The film had officially opened on April 17th and was currently performing well at the box office. The store had coordinated with the promotion, placing the complete Detective Conan tankobon collection in the most prominent spot near the entrance.
As the third theatrical Conan film, The Last Wizard of the Century had drawn particular attention for being the first to bring three fan-favorite characters from the main series to the cinema: Haibara Ai, Hattori Heiji, and Kaito Kid, all sharing the screen for the first time.
The reception from both fans and general audiences had been strong, and the film looked set to surpass the box office record set by the second movie, The Fourteenth Target.
"The Last Wizard of the Century..."
The original owner hadn't seen it yet. He, of course, had seen it long ago. Letting the memory surface for a moment, the content came back to him with perfect clarity.
"Right, this one."
It had indeed broken the previous record, and not just at the time of release. Looking back across all the Conan films that followed over the years, it remained one of the most acclaimed entries in the franchise.
He hadn't expected to land here just as it was in theatres.
He genuinely wanted to go watch it.
The thought sparked briefly, then died just as quickly when he remembered the state of his wallet. A movie ticket cost one thousand eight hundred yen. Given his current finances, spending that on a cinema trip was a stretch he couldn't reasonably justify.
One thousand eight hundred yen was nearly enough to buy nine copies of Weekly Shonen Jump. Even in tankobon, it would cover three volumes of Detective Conan.
He needed to make money first. That was the priority.
"Mochizuki-kun, is something on your mind?"
A voice from inside the bookstore pulled him back. A woman in a blue work apron printed with the store's logo stepped out from the entrance. She had a lean, composed build and a gentle expression, the kind of face that put people at ease without effort.
Akira straightened up and greeted her immediately.
"Manager."
Her name was Sakamoto Kayo. She didn't look a day past thirty, yet she was already running the store, and doing it well. She had been the one to interview and hire the original owner, and by all accounts had looked out for him throughout his time there.
"You're here for your shift," she said with a nod, then tilted her head slightly. "I saw you standing outside looking a bit troubled. Is everything alright?"
"Nothing's wrong."
Akira smiled, a little self-deprecating.
"I was just reflecting on how broke I am."
Sakamoto Kayo blinked once, then brought a hand up to cover her mouth as she laughed softly.
"That's quite a way to put it. Mochizuki-kun always has such a serious expression at work. I didn't realize you had this kind of humor in you."
"Is that how it comes across?"
He was genuinely surprised for a moment, though he quickly understood the source of the disconnect. The original owner hadn't actually been a particularly serious person by nature.
The pressure of managing finances on a shoestring while trying to develop his manga from scratch had simply worn that expression into his face over time, turning what had once been an ordinary young man into someone who looked like he was carrying something heavy everywhere he went.
"Mochizuki-kun didn't know?"
Sakamoto Kayo looked caught between amusement and mild disbelief. She had assumed he was the cool, reserved type. The idea that he had simply been unaware of how he came across put a slightly different picture together.
"I'm sorry if I've been difficult to read."
He couldn't explain the real reason, so he smoothed it over with a simple apology.
"Not at all. You're one of our best, Mochizuki-kun."
She waved it off, still smiling.
In her reading of things, the original owner's previous seriousness had simply been the distance of someone still getting comfortable. What she had just seen outside was the natural result of that distance closing. It wasn't an unusual pattern.
Some people were completely different in front of strangers versus people they had come to feel at ease around, as though two entirely separate personalities occupied the same body.
She looked at him again, and the small crease of concern she had been carrying smoothed out completely.
"Seeing you like this, I can finally stop worrying."
"Every time I asked before, you always said it was nothing, but anyone could see something was weighing on you. It was hard not to worry."
"Today you seem completely different, though. Like whatever it was has been sorted out?"
The problem hasn't been sorted out. The person has been replaced.
Akira caught himself just before the thought showed on his face. He was also quietly struck by how much she had apparently been paying attention to the original owner without making a show of it.
"Sorry for worrying you. As for the problem, well, something like that. Things should be different going forward."
"I'm glad to hear it."
Sakamoto Kayo heard the vagueness in the answer and chose not to press. Then, shifting gears entirely, she gave him a teasing look.
"Though I'll say, serious-faced Mochizuki-kun had a certain appeal too. A bit like Rukawa Kaede from Slam Dunk. That type is very popular with girls right now, you know."
"Rukawa Kaede?"
Akira considered this for a moment.
"Well, I do enjoy sleeping quite a bit."
"That is not what I meant!"
Sakamoto Kayo shot him a look of exaggerated protest, then gave up and laughed again, shaking her head slightly.
She had to admit, today's Mochizuki-kun was genuinely a different person from the one she had been quietly worrying about for weeks.
Back to the matter at hand.
Peak foot traffic in Akihabara generally ran from around half past eleven in the morning to four in the afternoon, but for a bookstore specifically, the heaviest rush tended to fall between two and five.
His shift started at noon, which meant Sakamoto Kayo still had enough breathing room to stand at the entrance and chat for a few minutes before things picked up.
"Anyway, I'm counting on you today. I'm going to grab some lunch."
"Of course."
Akira tied on the blue work apron, took his place behind the checkout counter, and watched the manager head off. The shift began quietly.
Sakamoto Kayo returned from lunch around half past one. Shortly after, the two other part-time staff arrived, and the busy stretch began in earnest.
"Welcome!"
"That comes to one thousand seven hundred yen. Out of two thousand, your change is three hundred yen."
"Would you like a bag?"
"Thank you for coming in!"
During peak hours, Sakamoto Kayo was effectively in five places at once, handling customer enquiries, restocking shelves, and stepping in at the register whenever the queue built up.
She ran the floor with the focused efficiency of someone who had long since stopped thinking about individual tasks and simply kept everything moving.
Akira's assignment was primarily the register, with occasional help shifting stock. The workload was manageable.
There was a reason for that, beyond Sakamoto Kayo's general consideration for him. She had mentioned it herself early on. He was the store's ace.
Specifically speaking.
Two girls finished their purchases, collected their change, and headed toward the exit. Before they even cleared the doorway, they had turned back to look twice.
"That cashier is really good-looking."
"I know, I told you..."
That kind of ace.
According to Sakamoto Kayo, sales had ticked up noticeably since the original owner started working there, with a particular increase in female customers. The reason was fairly obvious.
Akihabara had no shortage of bookstores, and for the most part they carried the same stock at roughly the same prices. If a customer could get what they wanted at any one of several nearby shops without much difference in cost, the deciding factor became something else entirely.
If one of those shops happened to have an unusually good-looking cashier, well, why not go there?
That was the simple reality. He had become one of the store's genuine draws, which explained a good portion of why Sakamoto Kayo treated him as well as she did.
Not that the good looks hurt on their own, either. It was worth being clear-eyed about: appearance was a resource. When everything else was roughly equal, an attractive person simply started from a better position.
In this era, before cosmetic procedures had become widely accessible and refined, that natural advantage carried even more weight than it would later.
The thought drifted, and he found himself wondering idly whether those looks might open other doors. The idol industry, for instance, seemed like...
No. Absolutely not.
He shut that line of thinking down before it could develop further.
This was Japan, not anywhere else. And the Japanese idol industry was a complicated subject by even the most generous assessment.
Low industry standing, punishing competition, obsessive fans who crossed every reasonable boundary, and management practices that ranged from controlling to outright disturbing, with the companies themselves often being the worst part.
In fact, the industry had just been rocked by something serious. Only this past April, Weekly Bunshun had run a feature exposing sexual assault allegations against Johnny Kitagawa, the founder of Japan's most powerful talent agency, targeting his own artists over many years.
The magazine had published two consecutive issues on the story, putting the full scope of it in front of the public.
Whatever long-term consequences that exposure would eventually bring, the immediate effect on the idol world was significant. It was not a good time to be looking at that industry from the outside and thinking it seemed appealing.
Akira gave a slow, private shake of his head.
Being a Japanese idol right now was not a path any sensible person would chase.