Mapping Methods: Visualizing Visual Novels Cultural Production in Japan

This study maps how Otome and Boys' Love visual novel merchandise circulates through the urban fabric of Ikebukuro, Tokyo, drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2009 and 2016. Its central argument is that the cultural production surrounding these games forms a localized "game environment" in which the games' collecting logic is mirrored in the goods themselves. Rather than treating the games as software to be analyzed, the author approaches them as urban phenomena, tracing the networks of second-hand shops, fan events, and consumer exchanges through which acrylic straps, badges, drama CDs, and similar commodities move through the city.

Central to the findings is a cyclical, interdependent recycling ecosystem that fans navigate on foot. Limited-edition releases, recycle shops, fanzine gatherings, and cafés form layered routes, particularly following the district's transformation into "Otome-Road" after 2004. Temporal rhythms reinforce these spatial patterns: event cycles, illustrated by the 2015 Rejet Fest, synchronize locations around monthly and seasonal releases. The author presents this combination of material infrastructure and temporal rhythm as a mapping methodology for visualizing how niche girls' game culture is embedded in and sustained by urban space.

The study extends these observations into broader claims about Ikebukuro's otaku economy, which the author characterizes as a "sanctuary" integrating niche fan practices into everyday urban life through coordination with local authorities and businesses. Paraphernalia circulation is shown to connect neighborhood infrastructure to local, national, and global scales, with comparisons to Akihabara and to Nintendo's Amiibo and retail expansion. The work is qualitative and interpretive, relying on mapping visualizations and scholarship from Azuma, Jenkins, Steinberg, and Kinsella rather than quantitative data, and it positions itself as a contribution to both Fan Studies and Game Studies.