Tokyo's Akihabara district is always transforming itself.
Once promoted as the nation's largest shopping area for home electronics and computers, where vendors thrived in line with Japan's postwar surge in prosperity, Akihabara — or "Akiba" for short — is now the center of the nation's pop culture as well, as typified by pop idol music groups such as AKB48.
The groups regularly perform shows at a special "live house" in an entertainment complex called Pasela Resorts Akiba, where an outlet of major electronics vendor Ishimaru Denki once stood.