Nagoya Dining

While many people come to Japan due to their deep-seated interest in Japanese culture, I arrived here with absolutely zero knowledge of what was happening around me, popular culture-wise. I couldn’t tell Pokémon from Doraemon, AKB from Arashi, or Pet Cafes from Maid Cafes. I had such little understanding of otaku [pop-culture obsessive to a nerdy degree] culture that when a new friend told me that he was ranked number six in the UK at Yu-Gi-Oh!, my first question was, “what the hell is that?” before taking a wary step backward, presuming it to be some dangerous martial art. After he informed me that it was a card battling game (and after explaining what it was), I re-tracked my step confidently and followed up with two further questions: “But aren’t you twenty-five years old? And don’t you have a girlfriend?” To my mind, this sounded like one of those childish pursuits we put away when we become adults, like believing in Santa Claus and getting drunk in the park. But that seems not to be the case in Japan. As well as enjoying a few Asahi beers in cherry blossom-lined parks in spring, grown adults seem to relish what I…