learn more: tokyorealtime.com

produced by
MAX HODGES
tokyorealtime.com

motion graphics
RALF BÄHREN
visuaheli.com/

music ‘Kabukicho Human Zoo’
STEVEN SCHULTZ
hellodamage.com

photography
MAX HODGES
maximalism.maxhodges.com/

You can download the full song file here:

White Rabbit Press is pleased to announce that the first volume in its Tokyo Realtime guided audio tour series has been nominated as a finalist in the 15th annual Audie Awards.

This prestigious competition, organized by the Audio Publishers Association, celebrates the best in spoken word entertainment. Tokyo Realtime: Kabukicho has been selected as one of five finalists in the Package Design category, where it is up against industry heavyweights such as BBC Audiobooks America.

Tokyo Realtime audio tours provide a new way to explore the city’s most interesting neighborhoods. Interweaving narration and insider interviews within a soundscape of location ambience and music, they deliver a seamless mix of adventure and cultural insight while navigating real-world spaces. In addition to the 65 minute mp3 CD, the nominated package includes a waterproof map and a full-color booklet of area photography.

White Rabbit Press Creative Director and Tokyo Realtime producer Max Hodges created the series out of a desire to make Tokyo more accessible to visitors. Seeing a market for personal tours provided by experts, Max assembled a team of local insiders, passionate about their neighborhoods, and worked with them to create these unforgettable augmented reality audio adventures.

Uninspired by off-the-shelf options, Max worked with local printers to design an elegant new packaging form that is low- waste, yet substantial enough to earn a spot on customer’s bookshelves. This prototype was then passed to Tokyo-based designers AQ, who developed a striking, easily recognizable look for the series.

“We worked really hard with Max to make sure every element, from photography to typography, paper stock to ink, came together to express the unique culture of Kabukicho and delight the user, from the first time they crack open the case to when they’re actually taking the tour.”

Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice, praised the tour: “A decade ago as a police reporter for Japan’s largest newspaper, I was assigned to the 4th district, home of Kabukicho, and never forgot some of the crazy things I saw there. For a behind- the-scenes look at Japan’s seedier side, without getting mired in the sleaze, you can’t do any better than this tour. A wonderful insight for strangers into a very strange land.”

About White Rabbit Press
With customers in over 80 countries, Tokyo-based White Rabbit Press is widely recognized for producing outstanding Japanese language products. With the launch of the TOKYO REALTIME audio tour series, White Rabbit Press continues to receive praise for making Japanese language and culture more accessible to the world.

Download the press release

Download the full media kit

Tokyo Vice author Jake Adelstein was recently interviewed on ABC Radio Australia. Jake, a member of the Japan Subculture Research Center, was asked to comment on the news that upcoming mass-redundancies at the national carrier Japan Airlines would lead to a sudden surge in demand for stewardess uniforms.

In the interview Jake mentions White Rabbit Press’ Tokyo Realtime: Kabukicho audio guided tour, in which the listeners learn about Sky Heart – a former club where clients, relaxing in airline seats, would be served by women dressed in genuine stewardess’ uniforms.

If you have one hour free on Sunday 14th March 2010 why not come along to Akihabara for a behind-the-scenes exploration of the area’s must see spots?!

Here at White Rabbit Press we’re looking for people who’d be interested in taking our new mp3 audio walking tour of the area, and telling us what they think of it.

To thank you for your time you’ll receive a free copy of the tour (which comes with a photo booklet and map), and a big smile.

The tour is narrated by Patrick Galbraith (editor of ‘The Otaku Encyclopedia’) – he’ll be joined along the route by a team of expert commentators who’ll all help paint a complete picture of the area.

We’ve mixed the narration, directions and commentary with sound effects and music, making it into a unforgettable augmented reality experience.

At the end of the 57-minute tour we’d like to ask you a few questions about what you thought of it, that we can then use in a short video for YouTube.

If you’d like to take part, simply contact us via our support site or comment on this blog post and we’ll send you a special download link and further instructions – you’ll need to copy that mp3 to your iPod / any other mp3 player before showing up on Sunday.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

“Getting to know Tokyo’s most interesting wards is one of the great pleasures of living in Japan, though it can be a haphazard process that takes years of trial, error, more error and disorientation (not to mention stacks of ichi-man-en bills).

Enter Tokyo Realtime Audio Guided Walking Tours, an ingenious new series of products designed to introduce you to areas of the capital – beginning with Akihabara and Kabuki-cho – by means of the spoken word and simple English-language maps.”

You can download your own copy of Japanzine from the Seek Japan website.

The physical version includes a CD with mp3 audio, a waterproof map and a 20-page full-color booklet of area photography

With TOKYO REALTIME: Akihabara, visitors and residents alike can experience a unique behind-the-scenes tour of Tokyo’s ‘Electric Town’, a subculture hotspot for anime, games, manga, maids and more.

Assisted by his sentient GPS ‘Navi’, Akihabara expert Patrick W. Galbraith, author of The Otaku Encyclopedia, guides visitors through all the must-see places. Patrick provides historical background and cultural insight along the way, as well as breaking down insider jargon such as otagei, moé and itasha.

The release of TOKYO REALTIME: Akihabara marks the second volume in the highly-acclaimed Tokyo Realtime audio tour series. Interweaving narration and interviews within a soundscape of location ambience and music, Tokyo Realtime audio travel guides deliver a seamless mix of adventure and cultural insight while navigating real-world spaces.

“Producer Max Hodges has assembled a crack team of über-geeks from Japan and abroad to navigate Akihabara’s alleys and decode its mysteries. The audio guide is an illuminating portal into the neighborhood’s colorful history and vibrant currents of contemporary pizzaz.”

- Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica

This Akihabara audio tour features guest commentary by:

• Patrick Macias, author of Cruising the Anime City & editor of Otaku USA Magazine
• Danny Choo, pop-culture blogger & Tokyo Stormtrooper
• Kaichiro Morikawa, Meiji University professor & author of Learning from Akihabara
• and others

This 57-minute tour, available from White Rabbit Press, includes a CD with mp3 audio, an area map (printed on durable, waterproof paper) and a 20-page full-color booklet of area photography. Listeners simply transfer the audio program to their iPod, iPhone or any other portable mp3 player, go to the starting point shown on the included map and press play.

TOKYO REALTIME: Akihabara represents the second volume in the Tokyo Realtime series which launched with an audio tour for the Kabukicho district, Japan’s most imaginative entertainment zone. Each expert guided tour is brought to life through music, sound effects, location ambience and guest commentary from local personalities.

Additional details and audio previews are available on the Tokyo Realtime showcase site: www.TokyoRealtime.com. A media kit with images, sample audio and an interview with narrator Patrick W. Galbraith and producer Max Hodges is available for download here.

About White Rabbit Press

With customers in over 80 countries, Tokyo-based White Rabbit Press is widely recognized for producing outstanding Japanese language products. With the launch of the TOKYO REALTIME audio tour series, White Rabbit Press continues to receive praise for making Japanese language and culture more accessible to the world.

For further information, or to schedule an interview with Patrick W. Galbraith or the tour producer, Max Hodges, please contact:
Joseph Tame
Media and Communications Manager
joseph@whiterabbitpress.com

The cover shot of  the CD & photobook of Tokyo Realtime: Akihabara features Arisa, one of Tokyo’s most celebrated maids, who can be found tending to customers at Café Mai:lish.

The theme at Café Mai:lish is one of relaxation – an oasis of calm in the heart of the city.

Within that oasis, Arisa is a princess who warms the hearts of clients and brings smiles to their faces – it’s said that flowers bloom wherever she walks.

Arisa’s Profile

-Birthday: July 20th
-blood type: A
-favorite: flowers, gentle music, and other soft things

(see the original in Japanese)

Café Mai:lish Opening times

• 11am-10pm (Open year-round)
• 11am-5pm: maid time (maids wear maid uniform.)
• 5pm-10pm: kosupure time (maids wear costume.)
• *Every Tuesday and Friday, maids wear maid uniform all day.
• There are 20 maids (see their website).
• No photos allowed inside the cafe

Café Menu

• Cakes
• Soft drinks
• Coffee
• Alcohol
• Food (curry, pasta, etc)

Tokyo RealTime: Akihabara is available now from White Rabbit Press. To learn more about the Tokyo Realtime series please visit www.TokyoRealtime.com

The following article appeared on Akiba Today, in collaboration with the Akiba Keizai Shinbun.

The audio guide series Tokyo Realtime began distribution of its Akihabara edition in mid-October.

Tokyo Realtime is an audio guide published by Japan-based White Rabbit Press to help non-Japanese sightseers on walking tours. The company has also released guides for Shinjuku and Kabukicho.

And now White Rabbit Press is featuring Akihabara, with Patrick W. Galbraith as your navigator, who is the administrator of Otaku2 (an otaku information website for non-Japanese) and who conducts tours of Akihabara dressed in a cosplay costume of Goku from Dragon Ball. Galbraith’s code name when serving as a tour conductor: Gaigokujin, a play on words that mixes the Japanese word for “foreigner” (“gaikokujin”) and the character name “Goku.” The Akihabara guide has recordings for visiting locales such as Radio Kaikan, maid cafes and Mandarake, as well as explanations of Akihabara’s history and of otaku (nerd) culture, like itasha (a car that has anime or game characters decorating the body). In addition, also included is commentary by Otaku USA editor-in-chief Patrick Macias and Danny Choo, the administrator of dannychoo.com, a Japan pop culture website with over 20 million monthly page views by 2 million visitors.

The audio content is currently on sale for download at White Rabbit Press’ website for $12. There are also future plans to sell a packaged edition with a set containing the audio guide CD, an Akihabara map and a photo collection.

This article has been created in collaboration with
Akiba Keizai Shimbun

Are Japanese Crazy? 80,000 Questions Around the World

In October 2009 White Rabbit Press director and producer of Tokyo Realtime: Kabukicho Max Hodges was called upon by German TV channel NDR for a tour of the Tokyo neighbourhood.

Take a walk through sin city

No, we’re not waffling on about the cult movie Sin City, we’re talking Kabukicho, the lively area in Tokyo the authorities are desperately trying to clean up. It’s notorious for hostesses, bars, mobsters and love hotels, but it’s a defiantly feral affair not willing to be gentrified. Now, out this year, is a nightime audio guide for tourists. We put it to the test. The verdict? The area hasn’t dimmed its red lights yet. We weaved through the alleys and streets, admiring the Dickensian looking host-boys with their bleached mullets and pointy shoes and learning about the area’s history. And, despite the saki devoured, thanks to our generous hosts at a restaurant beforehand, we only missed one street. Strongly recommended for an esoteric view of the capital.