Gundam Front

Anyone who's ever had an ounce of interest in Japanese animation (and a whole tonne of people who don't) has heard of Gundam. Before Dragonball and Sailor Moon took the world of animation by storm, Gundam was already going strong, with its powerful stories of human drama and giant god damn robots. Though I've never been a fan of the franchise, there is without a doubt some respect to be given to a 45 year old series that still manages to bring more fans around its table.

The "life-sized" Gundam at Odaiba Diver City.

However, my good friend Basil is a longtime fan of the franchise, and so we delved into the heart of the beast. Here, in Odaiba, lies the Mecca of Gundam fans - Gundam Front, where not only goods are sold and displayed as if in a museum, but a towering "life-sized" Gundam is put on display for all to see at the very doorstep of Diver City, the mall in which the Front is located.

I do like this!

The Gundam Front is to the Gundam series what the Ghibli Museum is to Ghibli movies, though much smaller. Not only are there informative displays with large size figures of the flagship robots, but original artwork of the series' creator are put up for all to admire.
 The interior of the Gundam Front itself looks like that of a space vessel from out of the series, so it's enjoyable to walk around within the small complex's halls, dimly lit with neon lights so representative of the sci-fi setting of the anime.

You'll surely get the ladies now.

There are also a couple of interactive displays allowing for fans to pose inside the cockpit of a Gundam robot, or next to the forerunner characters of the series, though I think few would disagree that the main highlight of the Front is the large dome room purposefully built as a theater for the projection of a Gundam battle, in the same way planetariums do their projections. Sadly, photos are not permitted in the dome (and the subtle ones I took are just a terrible mess.) Personally, I found the whole thing hard to follow, but what do I know of Gundam anyway.

Is this the feeling called lust?

And of course, at the very entrance of the Gundam Front is a store where figurines of the series' robots are sold, amongst a whole other bunch of related paraphernalia. Posters, pillows, postcards, coffee mugs and even Gundam-shaped cookies and cakes. You name and they have it. Every overseas' fan knows that these cost a fortune outside of Japan. Well, they cost a fortune inside of Japan too, but at least they're all concentrated in this one spot, which is sure to please many.


The Gundam Front isn't free to enter (costing 1200¥ for adults) but I guess that ain't much of a detractor for full-blown fans. For the rest of us, it's at least fun to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Milestone: 2½ Years

You can compare with my other Milestones!

2½ Years : Summary


Status:

Job: Children's Fitness Teacher, Pro-Bono Cultural Ambassador
Financial status:  Good

Location:
As of mid-May, I'll be moving!

City: Tokyo
Ward: Itabashi-ku
Train station: Senkawa
Residing in: My apartment, yet to be named.



Cast of Characters:

Major Characters:

Ken Tanaka
Aala Kansali of Tunisia
Jean-Paul "Papa Lo"  the French Laotian
Millo, Julian of France
Dario Lupoli of Italy

Minor Characters:

Nana Takeuchi, the Bawss
Eri Karasawa, who works a different location
Erika Mochizuki (and Maxine!)
Kuniaki "Forest" Mori
Kazue Inoue 

Retired Characters:

Sofie Monrad of Denmark
Julian "Shank" Einschenk of Germany
Anton "Foxboy" Jermaine of England
Rodrigue Zapha of France

Clement Sanchez of France


Top Five Highlights:
(since last milestone)

- A Visit to NHK Studios
- Tokyo Disneyland
- The Penis Festival
- Kappa Hotel and its Onsen
- The Robot Restaurant


Still to Come:
- An Island Trip
- The Abandoned "Western Village"
- A Cafe with Goats
- The Sanja Festival
- The Giant Monster Bar

Dancers, Robots, and Dancing Robots

As far as unique attractions go within Tokyo, this one's been tugging at my sleeve for a while. At the steep price of 6000¥ per entry, Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku isn't cheap, and I thought for certain it was merely a very high-budget themed restaurant, where the waitresses serve the customers while piloting robots. Neat, but you can imagine I wasn't keen on the price.
 Thankfully, I was wrong. Robot Restaurant is much more than restaurant with a theme. Actually, food is more of an afterthought, even. Robot Restaurant delivers a show rather than a meal, and it's much more like a circus act than any kind of actual dining establishment.
 If you're looking for a place like the others, where odd assortments of food are brought to you from a theme-specific menu, you won't find what you're looking for here.
 But I can tell what you will get is a performance unlike any other you can find in the world.

Before I even get started about the show itself, it's important to bare one thing in mind which I myself hadn't figured would be of any importance before stepping in.
Robot Restaurant is in Kabukicho. That's the red light district of Tokyo, a fact I would've almost forgotten if men in suits hadn't stopped Basil and I in the middle of the street, while saying "wait, wait! Look, sex!" while showing us brothel catalogs.
 The show has a distinctive Kabukicho twist to it, in that the robots are really only half of what draws the crowd in. The "Gira Gira Girls", a small army of scantily clad young women with a multitude of talents, are in truth the main performers here.

Not suitable for the very young or the epileptic.

The show is actually 75 minutes long and divided into several segments, each one quite a bit different from the next. Upon arriving, customers are seated in rows and told not to leave their seats, seeing as the show itself takes pretty much all the space of the venue, with many of the robots and performers coming surprisingly close to the front row. Both in English and in Japanese, the customers are instructed to "dodge" any of the robots' or platforms' protruding edges. Alarming, but I can dig it!

 Our show opened with the incredibly cool "Girls' War" segment, where the Gira Gira girls make their first appearance riding large mechanical platforms lined with drums, with one such contraption on either side of the stage. They then engage in a team-drum face off, with their platforms spinning around each other and going around the stage, while other dancers dart between them, carrying dragons and wearing masks. It's pretty engaging, and I definitely thought it a highlight.

From there on, the show cascades into singing performances accompanied by bands, with all performers dressed in really interesting shiny robot themed-apparel, to straight on mock-boxing matches, with people in robot suits fighting each other, with an announcer and all that jazz. There is also pole-dancing on moving platforms, and a short skit featuring amazons versus robots. The segments flow from inspiring, to cheesy fun, to provocative, to just downright surprising and full of special effects.
The final segments in particular bring out a tank, motor cycles, and big-ass robot suits, which is pretty sure to make you piss yourself in excitement if you're any kind of fan of those mechanical suits as seen in Gundam.
 All throughout, the show doesn't fail to be entertaining and, most importantly, unique, which is really a huge point in favor of Robot Restaurant.
 Being that the show is both in English and in Japanese, it's pretty easy for foreigners and locals alike to enjoy, and, indeed, the seats were mostly occupied by tourists.
 Come to think of it, I think it's a pretty good representation of what draws tourists to Japan, and specifically, to Tokyo. It's quirky, sexy, modern, and different, and at the end of the day, I don't feel like the sixty bucks I paid went to waste at all. Granted, I wouldn't do it again any time soon, but I might just end up bringing all my friends who visit Japan to this place. It's not like there's any other place where you can find robots dancing to Gangnam Style.

Brief Note(s): Baz the Alien / I'm Moving!

Communist alert!

 My good friend Basil's in Tokyo! He'll be spending two weeks in the capital, the second of which I'll have off from work as well. It'll be a good opportunity not only to show him the best of what I know to be here, but also to have a look at things I've always wanted to as well. Adventure awaits!

 Furthermore, I'll be moving out of Hermit Fortress as of mid May! The new apartment is much more spacy, better-looking, and, well, fun in general. I'm excited to move in!

 There will be updates!

Kappa Hotel: Up Above and Down Below

As the night stretched on, so too did we speed up our exploration. We were no longer stopping in every individual hotel room. It was time to head straight to the important points - and with the map in hand, finding each of the interesting locations was a breeze. We hit our destinations with good speed as made our way through dining halls, lounge rooms, a billiard room and a table-tennis room.

Anything here?

 Though elevators were once a valid way of getting around, with the power grid being off, it was the stairs all the way for us. It was no sweat finding an emergency staircase to lead us all the way to the roof. By this point, we had already found out that, inside the hotel, every door would open to us. It was just a matter of picking which doors to open. When we came out into a dark, quiet night, nothing but the sound of the river raging below broke the silence of the sleeping town.

Discarded analog televisions and karaoke units lined the way to the rooftop, further cementing into our minds how much time had stopped since this place was left unattended.
 Unlike some hotels in the very same region that had baths installed at the highest place possible, Kappa Hotel had nothing much going for it on the roof - but for the view upon the rest of Kinugawa.

What was I expecting to see?

Having scouted the way up, we now knew that the next destination was down. But we knew we hadn't seen the last of this roof.
And so we backtracked and took the staircases lower than where we had even started. One item on the map in particular had me curious, reading "Kappa Country."
 It was with great surprise that we found it to be an arcade, and a sizable one at that. Nostalgia took us. Would that we could've shipped a whole console home.
 We paused here only briefly though, before the rest of our descent.
 Along the walls, guide arrows lead us to our next destination: the baths.

Being that the Kappa Hotel was situated in an onsen town, and given the sheer size of the place, it almost seemed only natural that it would have six bathing halls. The state they were in when we found them, though, was less than pitiful. Ornaments had been smashed by previous explorers, and we even found a dead rat in one of the baths.
 By far the biggest bath was the Kappa Bath, remarkable also with its small Kappa ornaments staring back at us as we explored the room.


Legend had it that these amphibious monsters were notorious for stealing children away, drowning people and their animals, and even rape. They were regarded as a form of imp or demon, but they're much more iconic nowadays. Even still, it's no wonder this place is so popular with the urban exploration community in Japan. The room would've been a little creepy had I been alone.

Most of the other buildings are also hotels.

It was growing late. We took a break at this point, and even a short nap, before heading to the very top of the building once again. All went according to plan.
As the clock struck 5', we stood atop the abandoned hotel and caught sight of the town in its waking hours during the sunrise. The exploration had left us tired, and we watched as people came out on the roofs of other hotels to take baths. The clean mountain air mingled with the smell of rust from the roof's railings.

We were just about ready to leave the hotel to its loneliness when we decided to have one last peak at the Kappa Bath again, wondering what it would look line now in the light of day.

The beautiful thing about Haikyo is not having to share.

With such a nice view on the woods, the cliffs, and even the river, if one got close enough to the window, it's a bit of a shame that the Kappa Hotel was one amongst the handful of hotels to close down in Kinugawa. Had it still been running, the Kappa Bath by itself would've been enough to make the place the talk of the town, it seemed to me. But one only understands so much by visiting it after its fall.

See you next time, Kinugawa.

We were exhausted and our clothes were filthy by the time we left. Bumbling out of the hotel, we tried to find our way into a hard-earned bath, with no success whatsoever. The hotels still running wouldn't let us use theirs (some do, though apparently not in this town) and other places wouldn't open in three hours still - which wouldn't give Millo enough time to get home for work.
Damn! What a bummer.
We stumbled onto the train and slept the way home. One more Haikyo off my checklist.

Kappa Hotel: The Middle Floors

The supper before the deed.

 The plan was simple - to take a train to Kinugawa Onsen town, arrive in the dead of night, grab a quick bite, stock up on food and provisions, spend the rest of the night in the haikyo, and find access to the rooftop by the break of dawn, and watch as the sun rose upon the town. And maybe explore a little more afterwards. Of course, we'd top it all with a soak in the hot bathes of Kinugawa.
I geared up - flashlight, camera, first aid kit, and warm clothes, and met Millo in Ueno station, and we headed for the mountainous Tochigi prefecture.


 The ride there was somewhat of a confusing mess, but when we did emerge in Kinugawa Onsen station, even later than we thought we would, light snow was falling. We stocked up on easy-to-eat food in a convenience store, and followed the river up to our destination: Kappa Hotel.
The place was a gigantic megaplex of a hotel built on the side of a cliff - two wings connected by a central building, each wing eight floors high, and most of all, in a visible state of decay. Once upon a time, it must've been a really majestic building, but it was abandoned in 1999 due to a decrease in tourism, and left to fall apart where it stood. Finding our way in and through wasn't an issue at all. We were more concerned about whether we would be able to go through the whole thing in the time we had.

It won't be long before this one's overgrown too.

 We entered through the ground-level floor, easily finding a sliding window that would let us in within the first five minutes of arriving on site.
 I say ground-level floor, but truly, this was the fourth. The floors below descended into the cliff, deep in the shadow of the valley.
 As one would suspect, after 15 years of decay, the ground level floor was blasted to hell by the elements, and this would be the one floor in the deepest stage of being taken over by nature again, with weeds growing out of the very cracks in the floor, and the boards of the floor itself completely rotten. We fell through several times, hitting the foundation of the building itself and thankfully never getting injured in the process.
But we knew this floor was only a tough passage into the more interesting floors above - and eventually, below.
The west wing staircase was not as hard to find as it was to walk to, with the floor giving way beneath us, but we managed.

One of what could've been 50-70 similar rooms.

Making our way up, we arrived upon troves of interesting rooms, giving us a peek at what the place must have been like in the past. We darted in and out of the traditional tatami rooms of the hotel, still fully furnished with chairs, bedding, tables, framed paintings, fridges, each of which even was filled with old alcohol. Hallways too cluttered with debris made us go through balconies to clear rooms. But in walking through the rooms as so, we found some inside which practical guides to the hotel still remained. And inside such a guide, one inevitably finds a floor map. I held onto that.

The invaluable map. I was thankful I could read enough to understand all this.

Once a clubroom.

Using the map, we easily found the rooms we were hoping to stumble upon that might have taken us quite a bit of exploration otherwise. The banquet hall, with its cafe and bar clubroom formed the bulk of the central and west wings of the fifth floor, and truly, these rooms must've once been grandiose. Pictures of the very banquet room we stood in lay inside an album on the bar counter, showing us scenes from the past where the hotel was bustling with visitors. But now, there was so much clutter and overturned tables and chairs that it was hard to make our way through at times - a fact made worst by the darkness.

 When exploring haikyo, vandalism is the only certainty, so it was par for course that tables would be overturned. Messages written on the walls, such as "this is a place to die" or simply, "die, die, die" were something we had expected. Other messages were just interesting or even entertaining: "this room is sweet!" it said on a door, and at one point "this is the Master Key" a message said, with an arrow pointing at a dangling key.
 Of course, names of people and dates were written all over by groups that had cleared the haikyo before us.

But what truly was disturbing was that which was just plain unusual: in one of the bathrooms, hair was scattered across the floor - intentionally cut, by the looks of it. Whether it was a person's or a doll's couldn't be told from a mere look.
 And then, it was on the sixth floor that our flashlights caught sight of antlers. Surely the layout of the place was tampered with - there was no other explanation as to why there would be two petrified stags in the middle of a hallway.

There are two in this picture.

For fear I'm dragging on too long for a single article (at least where this blog is concerned) I'll stop here, but all this is only half of what we've seen in Kappa Hotel. The very top and the very bottom floors still beckoned to us, and I'll go on about that soon enough.

Kanamara Penis Festival: Dicks, Dicks Everywhere

The time has finally come.
 Twice in the past have I missed out on the Kanamara Festival due to work, but that streak has finally been broken. This year, I took all precautions necessary to not miss my third chance. And I'm so glad I did. The Kanamara Festival - or the Festival of the Iron Phallus, as it would be named in English - is fascinating, fun, and a worthwhile experience, on top of being something I've heard about long before I had even come to Japan. This is the stuff of legend. What a good time it is.

"I bow only to you, Lord Cock and Balls."

Let's start off with a little bit of history. The site of the festival is a small shrine in the town of Kawasaki, now located right beside a preschool establishment. It's a strange choice of placement (the kindergarten was, of course, built after the shrine itself,) but a little context can help clear things up.
 In the olden days, people would come to the shrine and pray for all things sex related.
 Some accounts have it that prostitutes were the most numerous visitors, praying that they not catch any diseases. Often, too, did people pray here for their marriages, or for an easy childbirth, or for fertility. However, the most well-known story is more of a legend, with a lot less fact involved. Stories tell of a woman with a demon hidden in her vagina, who would bite the penis off any man who would dare have intercourse with her. In a last resort attempt to rid herself of the curse, she went to a blacksmith, who broke the vagina demon's teeth with a penis forged of iron. Hence, the Iron Penis Festival!

Dicks EVERYWHERE.

 On to the excitement. On the day of the Kanamara Matsuri, the first Sunday in April, all matter of stands are put up, just like any other Japanese festival. However, on top of selling the regular food items such as chicken or squid on skewers, a whole plethora of dick-related items are also sold! There are wooden dildos and toys and key-chains, but particularly popular are the (in)famous penis lollipops, which sell in great numbers - leading, of course, to a bunch of people sucking on penis shaped lollipops on the festival grounds: men, women, and even children!

Notice my less popular vagina pop.

The festival easily draws thousands of people. Most of them are young adults just looking to soak in the happy, fun atmosphere, but there are also numerous curious foreigners, and the occasional daring person seeking to take advantage of the very sexually-liberated ambiance to do something they couldn't get away with elsewhere. Enter a woman in latex with a hole cut out to expose her ass, a man with a giant dick hat, an old guy with no pants. And people still bring kids here? Truly, anything goes on this day. Ask anyone if they mind you taking pictures, and they generally don't.
 And of course, no great festival is complete without a giant float being carried across the streets. After a very ritualistic prayer by an important priest, the floats are blessed and the go is given for them to be lifted off the ground and brought out of the shrine grounds.
 The procession is actually beautiful, with young maidens leading the way, giant colorful banners being flown, holy priests marching along, and, of course, the giant penis floats. First comes the holiest one, a black penis the length of a grown man's forearm, carried along by any one who volunteers to, as they chant to give their companions and themselves the strength to bolster the heavy, enshrined float. But it's the next one that draws the most attention. The most well-known one float is a one meter-and-a-half tall pink penis. As if that's not enough to draw the eye, this float can only be carried by transvestites in pink garb. That's right. The float is carried by drag queens.
 The Kanamara Matsuri is lots of fun, guys. You really don't get a chance to see anything like it elsewhere in the world (though there is another penis festival in Nagoya.) I simply wouldn't recommend missing it. It's fun, it's free, and it's unforgettable.

His 80-Year-Ancient Majesty's Imperial Ancient-Ass Blossoms

I don't even know if you're supposed to call an Emperor "Your Majesty" (nor if you're supposed to capitalize the word "emperor") but Akihito, the Emperor of Japan, turned 80 this year. In and of itself, that's not big news, but it's been decided that the Imperial Palace would be open for five consecutive days in celebration of the event, coinciding with the cherry blossom season. Today was the second of those five days.

 Now you've got to realize one thing: the Imperial Palace never opens to the public unless it's for the New Year's Greeting on the 2nd of January, or the Emperor's Birthday on the 23rd of December. Both those days happen to be in Winter. That's sucky.
 So you can imagine that the combination of the exclusive 5-day opening of the castle grounds plus the cherry blossom season would draw quite a crowd, right? So what's your idea of a sizable crowd for this kind of happening? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? A million?

Yesterday drew 4 fucking million people - a figure similar to the entire population of New Zealand. And that was Friday. Today's Saturday.
And I went!
Flowing through the Sakashita Palace gates, I drifted amongst a human sea to look upon the Emperor's palace grounds and the blossoms within.
 I expected something truly majestic - like the moment I'd enter those gates, It'd be walls of pink on either side of the crowded inner-palace street, but what I got was something totally different. If you minus the whole crowd of millions, the inner palace grounds are serene, of
a zen-like beauty.
 The trees stand in the one place in Tokyo where they are undisturbed for almost all of the 365 days of the year, and have been kept in the same state for many decades. The Emperor's cherry blossoms, they're not huge trees with flowers weeping from great branches, nor are they even numerous. But they do have an ancient feel to them. Their trunks, their branches are gnarly and cracked, with the smaller flowers peaking through the seams.

Against the backdrop of the castle walls and the moat, I felt like it was somewhat of a really authentic Japanese experience. Was it worth the three hour line? In truth, maybe not. I can't say I was overwhelmed with beauty, nor do I know or care so much about the historical significance of the Imperial Palace, but it was an experience I'm glad I went through, if only to say that I did enter through the great palace gates and strolled through the grounds.

But you know, this is the third consecutive year I've spent the blossom season in Tokyo, and it's grown no less beautiful. The exploson of pink in every corner of the metropolis really gets you the chance to see Tokyo under a new lens, and at times, you don't have to go so far or somewhere so crowded to find the best sights. Though last year I enjoyed the flowers in Yoyogi Park, and in Ueno Park the year before that, I found that this time around, my very favorite cherry blossom spot was just around the corner from where I live. Ah! Simplicity!

Dark Souls

A few days ago had Papa Lo and I going to the Dark Souls restaurant/bar. For those of you who are unaware, Dark Souls is a video game, and one I'm quite fond of at that. The game is notorious for being much more difficult than other video games of the same genre, which probably repels as many potential players as it draws closer. But many, such as myself, relish in the challenge. That aside, it's actually a really well-designed game.

Woo!

The restaurant itself does its best to evoke imagery of the haunting, yet eerily beautiful settings
from the game, and succeeds in some places. Right off the bat, people walking in are greeted by an unspeaking, suspicious, dark figure in mixed-and-matched bits of armor, wielding a large sword threateningly. Not as subtle a way to evoke the mood as the game, but hey, I guess that works.
 Of course, on top of being decked out in dark curtains, armory and weaponry, with branches from so
many dead trees sprouting out of the walls, the place also features a lot of advertisement for the game itself. Dark Souls II was released in March, so really, the whole place was a big promotion ploy to up sales. So, that being said, whatever wall space remained was filled with posters and banners for the game, alongside a giant television screen playing the trailers on repeat, while the game's soundtrack is played on the speakers.

Praise the Sun!

Upside of the place! The restaurant has event nights! I happened to reserve our spot on one such event night, where they allowed customers to try on armor. It was actually quite heavy. Since there weren't that many people lining up to try, I could've easily fucked around with the armor for quite a while. And I did for a bit, posing up and taking my merry time. That was actually fun!
When it comes to food, you pick from a special menu. All drinks are named after spells in the game, and food is named after characters or antagonists. Really, none of the items on the menu really look like anything from the game itself, with the one exception being the beer-based "Estus Flask." But that's just me being a dork. The menu itself is cool-looking.
 However, the items available were quite unique. I opted for kangaroo meat skewers, whereas Papa Lo went for the ostrich steak. Yeah, you read that right. We did hope to get a little more in terms of portion size for what we payed, but hey. It's not like either of us really know the standard pricing for that type of meat.
 The downside? Well I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you guys in advance that the service was really disappointing. So slow! And so difficult to call a waitress! Might it be that our waitress in particular just sucked? Maybe so, but who knows.

 This is usually the bit where I recommend people to go check out the restaurant or whatnot, but I'm afraid this boat's just about to leave dock. The Dark Souls restaurant is opened for a limited time only until the 4th of April, seeing as the game was released.
Yikes! Better go soon!