Nipponbashi, Osaka

This camera covers Nipponbashi in Naniwa ward, the Osaka district usually called Den Den Town — den being short for denki, electricity. It runs along Sakaisuji south of Namba and is the western counterpart to Tokyo's Akihabara.

The two districts followed a similar arc. Nipponbashi began as a cluster of electrical and component retailers, then shifted from the 1990s toward anime, games, models and hobby shops as the electronics trade moved online and to the suburbs. Specialist shops still occupy narrow frontages several floors deep.

It is a noticeably less crowded street than Namba a few minutes north, and that difference is visible on camera. Weekday afternoons are quiet enough to see individual shopfronts clearly; weekends and event days fill the pavement considerably.