Essays

Taking a Soviet Physicist to Akihabara (AI-generated comic)

The following comic was generated by Gemini 3.0 (Nano Banana Pro) from the original essay (see below) based on my own experience. Actually I gave the prompt and the text in Japanese, but somehow it produced the comic in English. There are a few glitches including the irregular flows among panels, but it is surprisingly well done in "one shot". Asking Gemini for improvements did not work, however.

Taking a Soviet Physicist to Akihabara (text)

Masaki Oshikawa
Originally posted on Facebook on 17 July 2021; minor edits on 26 Nov 2025
Japanese version is also available

When I was a freshman at Komaba campus of University of Tokyo, Professor Takeo Izuyama (my future advisor for Master course study, who passed away recently) called me and asked me a favor. Of course it was a phone call -- it was before I had any e-mail address not to mention a Facebook account. A Soviet physicist was visiting Japan, and he wanted to buy a "short-wave radio (receiver)". It was in 1986 before the iron curtain fell, so it was still Soviet Union. Indeed it was difficult to get any "western" information within Soviet Union, and the short-wave radio (which can propagate over very long distances thanks to the reflection by the ionosphere) was one of few media which could receive information from the west.

Professor Izuyama knew that I was quite familiar with Akihabara, which was the best place to buy one. I have to say that, Akihabara back then was not like the center of anime subculture as it is today. It really was an "electric town" for electric appliances, electronic parts, and computers. So he asked me to take the Soviet guy to Akihabara.

My English was not good and his English was also heavily Russian-accented, but we managed to communicate. I felt like he was a blunt character, but perhaps it was partly owing to language barrier. And now I am more familiar with Russian friends/colleagues who look blunt at first but actually are quite warm-hearted 🙂 Anyway, I managed to guide him through Akihabara, and he did buy a short-wave radio he wanted. (I don't remember the price, but the radio looked fancy and it must have been rather expensive. I don't know how he brought enough "hard currency" from Soviet Union. Maybe he used per diem allowance paid from Japanese side, but I really don't know.) Nobody knew back then, that he would soon emigrate to the US so that the short-wave radio was perhaps only useful for a few years.

What I still remember vividly is the following. I took him to Tempura restaurant near Akihabara for lunch. I asked him if he would drink a glass of beer. He declined by saying "No, I would feel sleepy if I drink beer". I was rather surprised. "Sure, no problem. But Professor, I heard that you guys drink a lot of vodka in Russia?" "Well, we do drink vodka. Vodka is fine, but beer makes me sleepy." Maybe beer was too "weak" for him?? (Does any of our Russian friends have the same problem with beer?) Anyway, I accomplished the mission as the tour/shopping guide. Certainly Professor Izuyama must have told me his name, and I should have called his name while I was his guide. However, I was just a freshman or sophomore at that time, and did not know much physics. I did not recognize his name and forgot the name rather quickly.

Many years later, I recalled the incident, and asked Professor Izuyama "By the way, I took a Soviet physicist to Akihabara when I was an undergrad at Komaba. Who was that guy, do you remember?" Professor Izuyama answered
"Oh, it was Dzyaloshinskii" -- OMG !!!
Igor E. Dzyaloshinskii was an eminent theorist whom every condensed matter physicist should know. Actually, only a few years after our Akihabara visit, while I was a junior or senior student at Department of Physics, I started to read, or to struggle with, the famous "AGD" (Abrikosov-Gorkov-Dzyaloshinskii) book. But at that time, I didn't realize that I had guided one of the authors of the book to Akihabara! Later, the Dyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in the S=1/2 quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet Cu benzoate played an important role in producing the "field-induced gap" I studied with Ian Affleck, following the experimental discovery by Collin Broholm; My work with Ian on the field-induced gap perhaps helped me getting the faculty job at Tokyo Tech. I wish I had taken a photo with him when we visited Akihabara!! Unfortunately, I have never had a chance to see him again. (I just learned that Professor Dzyaloshinskii passed away, from Sid Parameswaran.)