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Akihabara (秋葉原^?, "Field of Autumn Leaves"), also known as Akihabara Electric Town (秋葉原電気街, Akihabara Denki Gai^?), is a district of Tokyo, Japan. It is located less than five minutes by rail from Tokyo Station. Its name is frequently shortened to Akiba (アキバ^?) in Japan. While there is an official locality named Akibahara, which is also 秋葉原 in kanji, nearby (as part of Taitō-ku), the area known to most people as Akihabara (including the railway station of the same name) also include Soto-Kanda, a part of Chiyoda-ku.^{[citation needed]}

Akihabara is a major shopping area for electronic, computer, anime, and otaku goods, including new and used items. New items are mostly to be found on the main street, Chūōdōri, with many kinds of used items found in the back streets of Soto Kanda 3-chōme. New parts for PC-building are readily available from a variety of stores. Tools, electrical parts, wires, microsized cameras and similar items are found in the cramped passageways of Soto Kanda 1-chōme (near the station). Foreign tourists tend to visit the big name shops like Laox or other speciality shops near the station, though there is more variety and lower prices at locales a little further away. Akihabara gained some fame through being home to one of the first stores devoted to personal robots and robotics.^{[citation needed]}

Cosplay (コスプレ, kosupure^?), short for "costume play", is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture centred around role play. A broader use of the term "cosplay" applies to any costumed role play in venues apart from the stage, regardless of the cultural context.

Favorite sources include manga and anime, comic books, video games and films. Any entity from the real or virtual world that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Inanimate objects are given anthropomorphic forms and it is not unusual to see genders switched, with women playing male roles and vice versa. There is also a subset of cosplay culture centered around sex appeal, with cosplayers specifically choosing characters that are known for their attractiveness and/or revealing (even explicit) costumes.

Cosplay restaurants (コスプレ系飲食店, Kosupure-kei inshokuten^?), are theme restaurants and pubs that originated in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan around the year 1999.^{[citation needed]} They include maid cafés (メイドカフェ, Meido kafe^?) and butler cafés (執事喫茶, shitsuji kissa^?), where the service staff dress as elegant maids, or as butlers. Such restaurants and cafés have quickly become a staple of Japanese otaku culture. Compared with service at normal cafés, the service at cosplay cafés involves the creation of a rather different atmosphere. The staff treat the customers as masters and mistresses in a private home rather than merely as café customers.