Monster Hunting in Japan

апреля 2018 - июля 2025
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  • Achievement Unlocked: Evangelion Store

    15 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Successfully made it to Ikebukuro to track down the location of the Evangelion Store Tokyo-01 to see if it's all that and a bag of Pen Pen.

    Observations:

    To say Neon Genesis Evangelion is popular in Japan is a bit of an understatement. This is the same country that took one of their Shinkansen trains, themed it to Evangelion and put a mini attraction in the first carriage.

    http://www.500type-eva.jp/en/

    So it's probably not too surprising to find out there is a whole store dedicated to all things Evangelion in Tokyo.

    First thing, it's not *that* hard to find with Google maps. It's actually quite near the Ikebukuro station like everything else in Tokyo that is near a station of some sort.

    Second thing, it's pretty small, but still pretty popular. I still get surprised that so many little old ladies are avid consumers of anime in Japan, but then I remember that Japan has been doing this for a *long* time.

    The amount of merch is actually quite small in volume but diverse in range. If you aren't Japanese, you've probably never seen it.

    I always thought Shinji from Evangelion was a a but of a sooky la la - the scene that was the straw that broke the Angel's back for me was his little "Musn't Run Away" freak out scene. Turns out I'm not the only one since there is a whole industry around taking the piss out of Shinji. Japanese merch for the win.

    Oddly enough, the guy that served me had the persona of... Shinji...!

    Here is this super geeky, socially awkward young kid carefully wrapping up my purchases like it was bomb about to go off, no doubt mentally telling himself "musn't run away!" The broken English-Japanese-Mime conversation largely consisted of me trying to explain how cool it was to have store devoted just to Evangelion, with him being immensely grateful that I even visited his store.

    In any case, totally worth the trip if you come from a country that can't have nice things.

    The Evangelion store shares a floor with some other quirky pop stores if nothing takes your fancy - and it's so accessible it's not really in the middle of Tokyo-03.

    Kaiju Collected:

    2 shirts, one Nerv coffee mug, Asuka's beta Eva, and an attempt to be like Rei Ayanami in front of the Rei Ayanami statue.
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  • Achievement Unlocked: Akihabara

    15 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    If you go to Akihabara looking for cheap electronics, you'll probably be disappointed since that's what it was like in the 80s - it's much cooler than that these days.

    Observations:

    Modern Japan is frequently 6 degrees of separation from a train station, historically, symbolically and economically.

    Akihabara is a pretty good example of this - it was just the name of a local shrine until a train station was built there in 1888, after which Akihabara Station became a major freight hub. The freight hub morphed into a giant marketplace of traded goods and a bastion of consumer trading was born. In the post-WW2 shenanigans, it then morphed into a bastion of black market capitalism instead.

    Legend has it, around this time a student sold a single handmade radio in Akihabara and made decent profit from it. Pretty soon everyone was also building and trading in electric home appliances. This drew the attention of the authorities who forced all the traders of "electric" goods to congregate to a particular part end of the Akihabara train station, that area became "Electric Town".

    As household electrical appliances became increasingly mainstream and corporate in the 80s, Akihabara once again jumped on home computers as the big new thing.

    Personal computers in the 80s wasn't yet dominated by a few large corporates. It was a was a multitude of small traders building custom computers out of their own workshops, often making their own software and hardware customisations. It had a much more artisan feel about it back then.

    This is pretty much the Akihabara that existed when cyberpunk was born and one of the common tropes of the genre is for the main protagonists to do some haggling with a vendor over some questionable upgrades they need - it's basically modeled off Akihabara in the 80s.

    But that was Akihabara in the 80s. While you can still get electronic goods in Akihabara, it's not "cheap" because hardware everywhere is already cheap - it's mainstream now.

    What you *will* get in Akihabara however is a the widest collection of otaku on the planet - it's the rare and obscure pop culture referenced items and accessories, sometimes of questionable intellectual property rights...

    e.g a tourist who goes to Akihabara thinking they will get a cheap digital camera will be disappointed with the price - and who buys digital cameras anymore anyway? What they will find however is a mobile phone case for the latest iPhone with a wide selection of 1960s era Astro Boy images to choose from.

    The variety here is crazy, we only managed to really try out two of the most popular establishments, Mandarake, and, Radio Kaikan.

    I should point out for readers from countries without pretty things, these are entire buildings, not a small store, not a single shop front. Akihabara is a *neighbourhood* full of places like these:

    Mandarake: This place has a big reputation, but I must admit to not being enough of a super geek to really appreciate it. There is a massive collection of manga but it's all a bit waste on non Japanese speakers/readers. They also have a large "antique" selection, but you really have to be a member of the little old lady manga fans to appreciate this stuff (and there really are little old ladies in these stores).

    Radio Kaikan: This is actually 10 floors of traders of various sizes, which I think actually gave them a more eclectic range than Mandarake. e.g. there was one shop that was really a store front for an online market place of sole traders (you could rent a box to sell the items you wanted to sell). Some were more traditional stores, a few took up the entire floor they were on.

    While I was really tempted to start collecting the entire set of figurines from The Goonies and Firefly, I resisted.

    The prices here for geek stuff is actually quite cheap. You are mostly paying for rarity, but a lot of the things you'd never find at home are here in plentiful supply so it can work out pretty good for people from countries without pretty things.

    We barely scratched the surface in Akihabara and found all kinds of cool stuff. It's also the kind of place where stock would be constantly evolving and changing - i.e. if you were a regular you could probably make contacts to get the traders to keep an eye out for the stuff you really want.

    Dangerous Kaiju Warning:

    Akihabara can be a little overwhelming and/or stressful if you aren't a big fan of crowded places with lots of visual stimulus. If you are from a less busy part of the world, it's probably best if approached in measured doses at first. Probably stay in the train station area first and or ensure you have access to Google maps to help you escape.

    Kaiju Collected:

    A model of the Nautilis from the 1954 version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a selection of the rare-ish mini lego figures.

    Didn't see the Konig Monster figure from Macross or the 18" Dark Horse Normandy SR2 :(
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  • Eating in Ginza 2: Boobylicous Recovery

    14 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Two dinners at two restaurants in Ginza - the first was two cups of failure, the second was a boobylicious recovery.

    Second, the bootylicious recovery.

    After the two cups of failure we went looking for something pretty and came across a place called Tokyo Fugetsudo Ginza. They have some really awesome pastries and cakes at ground level to suck you in but they also have a restaurant upstairs to serve more substantial meals too.

    If Captain Georgiou wasn't killed by Klingons and decided to start her own restaurant, I think it would be run like Fugetsudo. The staff all have that Starfleet style of friendly efficiency, they even turned the light dimmers to Starfleet standard.

    The Starfleet personnel downstairs can communicate to staff upstairs with their own personal communicators so after they have scanned you with their tricorders they can communicate with Captain Georgiou as maitre d' so she has time to assemble an away team to have your table ready to go.

    It's not really that geeky - it's just a really nice place with really good staff with a classy vibe.

    They do have nice desserts here, unlike a lot of other Japanese desserts though, these ones are considered more "traditional", which I think means less sugary-sweet, more tart-citrus. It's all handmade though - e.g. the soft drinks are essentially cocktails mixed on site.

    It's a bit pricey, but you get what you paid for. Plus it is in Ginza - there aren't really cheap restaurants here. A vending machine doesn't count as a restaurant.

    Observations:

    Westerners value food by weight - we don't see value in food unless we get large quantities for low cost. We pay for food by the kg/pound, and then wonder why we put on all that extra weight in body fat.

    The Japanese value food by quality - they seem to value food based on the quality of the ingredients and the presentation of the food, not on how much of it there is. Their portion sizes are smaller, but only compared to the crazy-large western portion sizes. Part of the reason why they are less obese is that those "small" portion sizes are actually more appropriate to... humans...

    Main bonus for westerners in Japan raised on over-large portion sizes - if you don't like your first dinner, you can still go somewhere else and have another one somewhere else.

    Kaiju Collected:

    The location of Captain Georgiou's restaurant to come back to next time.
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  • Eating in Ginza 1: Two Cups of Failure

    14 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Two dinners at two restaurants in Ginza - the first was two cups of failure, the second was a boobylicious recovery.

    First, the two cups of failure.

    Ginza has the highest land prices, in a city with world class high land prices. The end result is a lot of small buildings with the footprint the size of a McMansion media room that goes up at least half a dozen crazy narrow levels. Most restaurants are also vertical - small diner type arrangement on the entry level, with maybe 3-4 floors of tables accessible via a narrow flight of stairs.

    I'm going to admit this was part of the appeal for this restaurant - novelty factor for something that is actually pretty typical in Tokyo. I kinda had a delusion of a sanitised version of Blade Runner, with a view. It had even started to rain a bit to add to the Blade Runner-ish vibe.

    A lack of English menus is usually not a problem when they come with pictures and have the use of your hands to point. It can sometimes mean the food is a bit of a lucky dip. A little problematic for people with allergies however.

    So we ordered two something-something-sandwiches and pointed at two cokes.

    Totally forgot about the love affair Japan has for iced coffee - and how an iced coffee in a picture looks exactly like a coke.

    Personally I'm not a fan of iced coffee or iced tea. I always see them as a cup of failure - it's a coffee/tea you've left too long and it's gone cold - you "failed" to drink it in time. Ash doesn't even like the smell of coffee, let alone want to drink it. So we'd just ordered two large cups of failure to wash down our mystery sandwiches.

    And there was no room on any of the levels upstairs so we had to sit on the street. Though we were tempted to sneak down the alley and tip our cups out to hide our shame and pretend we drank them.

    I actually thought the mystery sandwiches were ok, without actually knowing what they were.

    Observations:

    Pointing at pictures of drinks is risky.

    Kaiju Collected:

    Two cups of failure, my glasses got wet in the rain.
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  • Flags of Convenience: Caffeine-Calories

    14 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    If you are a caffeine addict then alas, you'll probably find Starbucks is the most convenient fix.

    Observations:

    Australia hasn't built much ourselves because we would rather claim credit for our unique wildlife and natural environment instead - which we then go and destroy by mining the crap out of it. But we can at least claim to make consistently good coffee almost on every corner.

    Japan is an engineer's paradise - if they haven't built it, they are building it. But they really can't do coffee. Yet. Mostly because they rely on coffee machines and instant coffee.

    I don't normally like Starbucks but it's the closest thing I've found to an Australian style coffee. I know there are some fancy pants "Australian Cafe" style establishments in Tokyo but in keeping with the typical Australian business strategy, they aim for rich wankers rather than normal people, which is kinda... dumb.

    Meanwhile Starbucks makes a killing because it's half decent, but it's such an "American" way of doing it - all the teeny bopper staff say "konnichiwa!" to everyone that enters and of course it has the usual Starbucks food fare, all of it a bit bleh.

    If you want liquid calories on the other hand, I'd recommend Kirin Lemon, but if you can find it then go for the Fanta Golden Cider. Japan is Fanta-crazy so there are 90+ flavours, but it feels like Disney has done an exclusive deal to ensure you can only get it in Disneyland (?).

    Snickers bar is just because.

    Kaiju Collected:

    One large latte. It was Starbucks, but close enough - probably the first "latte" I've had so far.
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  • Working Class Cosplay

    14 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    The Goonies would describe the Tokyo National Museum as being full of the "rich stuff", they would describe the Shitamachi Museum as being dedicated to the goon docks where they are from.

    The Shitamachi area used to be solid working class, the museum has preserved an idea of what that used to be like with a recreated street with houses you can sit in as long as you remember to take off your shoes. You can also pose in some working class attire, play some typical games from the time period.

    There is a cover charge for the Shitamachi museum.

    It's set during the late Edo and early Meiji era (basically the era of Queen Victoria and the better escapades of Sherlock Holmes) so it's also kinda cool to see predominantly old school Japanese urban environment sprinkled with more modern conveniences.

    There is a lot of history attached to the Ueno area. It's long been used as a park - the locals have been going crazy for the cherry blossom festivals here long before it was cool for tourists. The Tokyo National Museum even has paintings of previous festivals that look like a scene from the drunken louts at the Melbourne Cup.

    When the Meiji restoration booted out the Tokugawa Shogunate, they fought a major battle in Ueno for control of Edo (Tokyo). If you're going to have a battle, best to do it in the local park.

    The Meiji restoration of the Imperial crown was also strongly motivated by a desire to rapidly modernise in the face of western colonial encroachments into Asia.Taking a cue from the Great Exhibition in London, Ueno was used as the site of the National Industrial Exhibitions, designed to bring modern technology to Japan and attempt to encourage it's adoption. The creation of a thriving merchant district and black market in the area may or may not be connected... (achievement unlocked in any case).

    The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed large sections of Ueno around where the Shitamachi Museum currently is. Ueno Park itself though was a refuge from the fires and also where a lot of the recovery efforts were organised from. The impressive talent the Japanese have for disaster recovery and mitigation basically started in Ueno.

    During WW2, Ueno was frequently used again as a disaster recovery zone from the bombings, but was also victim of a few horrors of it's own. The fate of the animals of the Ueno Zoo was turned into a famous book called the Faithful Elephants - spoiler alert - it's considered a tragedy and there are shrines dedicated to the animals... :/

    Immediately after the war when things started to get pretty post apocalyptic, the Ueno Shosei Kai, which later became the Ueno Tourism Association was formed to restore the park by replanting 1,250 cherry blossom trees - or basically all of the trees in the tourist pics. i.e. Ueno was pretty much a post war recovery turning point.

    Two Chinese pandas, Lan Lan and Kang Kang arrived in the Ueno Zoo in 1972 to commemorate the normalisation of relations between China and Japan. And so began the introduction of pandas into the Japanese pantheon of cute.

    And of course in modern times, Ueno has become a centre of Japanese and Asian culture and arts due to the concentration of art galleries and museums and the park is still crazy popular in Tokyo as one of the open areas left.

    Observations:

    Public spaces are much more useful than casinos and shopping centres.

    Kaiju Collected:

    None - don't kill the faithful elephants!
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  • This also belongs in museum...?

    14 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Where museum artifacts get turned into kawaii (cute). Because Japan.

    If you go to the Tokyo National Museum, one of the first things you see upon entering the honkan is the "Dancing People" haniwa. Haniwa are terracotta figurines commonly buried with the dead between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD.

    These ones were considered kawaii enough to be turned into a whole range of merchandise.

    Observations:

    TeNQ had Sailor Moon, I guess the Tokyo National Museum didn't have anything suitably kawaii enough for them to build an association with, so they drew inspiration from their own intellectual property.

    Kaiju Collected:

    None - I don't really find any of these cute at all... :/
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  • It belongs in a museum!

    14 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    The Tokyo National Museum is in Ueno, which has at least 100 years or so of history as a giant park full of technology exhibitions and displays.

    There are five galleries, but we only actually went into the main building (honkan) which holds the Japanese Gallery. This is a collection of Japanese art across multiple disciplines, metalworking, ceramics, fabrics, painting, sculpture etc. It also includes a rotation of artifacts from the National Treasure Gallery.

    It's all very impressive - all the works from the Shogunate onwards are clearly the very best examples of the most refined works of Japanese art and much of it has an illustrious history being the former belongs of great and powerful people.

    But to be honest, I actually thought the gift shop was the coolest bit!

    You could even buy actual artifacts in it...? I guess when you've got so much history to choose from, you can afford to sell some of it... very large and eclectic range of Japanese style arts and crafts.

    Tokyo National Museum has a cover charge to get into the main area, access to the special exhibits costs extra.

    Observations:

    I'm not sure Indiana Jones has anything Japanese to steal and put in a museum - they already seem to have it. It is a bit of an old school kinda place though - lots of precious items locked away in glass boxes.

    What makes it a bit different to one of our old-school museums though is all the art forms represented are still practiced today. Whereas we tend to create museums to preserve art forms no longer practiced, the Japanese version seems to be more about explaining where their current art forms came from. Everything in the honkan is still actually being made to traditional methods today - there are no "lost" arts here!

    Kaiju Collected: None - the museum has already collected them all.
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  • TeNQ You Sailor Moon?

    13 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ 🌙 12 °C

    Of course Tokyo had a cool JAXA space museum that includes a lab with some actual physicists in it and an exhibit dedicated to Sailor Moon. Because Japan.

    Observations:

    (TeNQ is also at Tokyo Dome but it gets a post of it's own because, Space-Geek).

    Don't be intimidated by the Japanese-ness of this museum, it's staffed by people who are what I'm learning are typically Japanese in their hospitality - super helpful and super friendly. We were even offered an Easter Egg lucky dip at the purchase of our tickets.

    When you purchase your tickets you can get an English version of the pamphlet that pretty much explains the narration. But a staff member came over and explained what would happen next anyway. There are also English descriptions on all the exhibits/games and the staff speak enough English mime to help get you through everything. I think there was only one game we couldn't play - and it had a warning in English that it was Japanese language only.

    I had to use some pics from the internets for the viewing screen and the wall projections since you can't take photos - they don't really do either justice anyway because they are a pretty darn cool use of projection mapping - this ain't no PowerPoint presentation!

    After being bedazzled by projections, you go through to a science exhibit about space research. I'm enough of a space geek to know that their material is all pretty recent though - so they clearly keep this section up to date.

    The University of Tokyo has an annex in TeNQ called the "Science Area" which is basically some scientists in a glass walled lab that everyone can see working. No photos allowed of their research of course. A lot of universities do this these days, it's like a really geeky version of Big Brother.

    They have some interactive games including a personality test that I think was better in the way it asked the questions than for the actual result:

    Spacecraft personality type: You are the "Sakigake" type, constantly pursuing a new path. Like Sakigake, which was launched as a test probe for Halley's Comet.

    Alien personality type: You are the "Princess Kaguya" type, the lunar princess boasting great beauty.

    Speaking of Sailor Moon, Princess Kaguya was a main villain multiple times because her main mission was to cover the Earth in snow and ice to make it part of her "collection" of ice planets. So I'm not sure what TeNQ is trying to say about that one...

    The Sailor Moon is totally for the fan-girls, of which there were some. Possibly the main reason why some of them were there in the first place. But whatever works really.

    You can also get your photo taken with an life-size replica of an Asgard from Stargate SG1. Combined with the Star Wars merch outside and I'm thinking the special exhibit is a revolving collection of pop culture references. Sassy.

    Kaiju Collections: happy snaps from Mars
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  • Prepare for the Thunderdome

    13 апреля 2018 г., Япония ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Imagine a giant baseball stadium surrounded by a carnival, squashed into a city block with a space museum, a shopping centre or three, and few office blocks and you have the Tokyo Dome.

    Observations: A lot of tourists complain about the apparently random operating hours of the attractions around the Tokyo Dome, but to us it appeared to be based on school hours. Which kinda makes a lot of sense - it minimises the amount of sound generated by the rides during business hours, the attractions are all open for the school kids after school.

    They have a roller coaster called the Thunder Dolphin but don't be fooled by the name - it's a dolphin that weaves in and out of buildings. It's actually a pretty good ride though, fracken scary but not because you think it's going to fall apart and it's pretty smooth even though it sounds like a rattler.

    Our Japanese hosts were typically friendly and crazy helpful - and we got an applause from them when we returned - and the next group of riders joined in...? Maybe they all saw our mid-ride photos and thought we needed it... :/

    Some how they managed to fit some foods trucks in the middle, though I have no idea how they actually manage to drive in since it's a sunken food court with a log flume and open air stage one one side - no doubt so hidden elevators and robots or something. IKEA ain't got nothing on Tokyo in terms of creative use of space.

    The guy I ordered from was a super friendly hipster-teenage-kid-living-for-the-now, who wouldn't have been out of place in a Valley market stall, only everything is in Japanese. The kebab stall next to his was manned by a gaijin who was regularly getting his photo taken by some schoolgirls as he made ice cream. No one ordered the kebabs. This place is so kooky sometimes.

    https://www.tokyo-dome.co.jp/en/tourists/

    Kaiju Collected: One ride of the Thunder Dolphin and a round of applause.
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