Japan '08: Harajuku

Entrance to Yoyogi Park in Harajuku.

There is an obnoxious stereotype that underlies much of the discussion of Japan on the internet, and even worms its way into supposedly serious consideration of the Far East in mainstream media. Apparently, the country's population consists mostly of pretty ladies in kimonos who spend their days performing tea ceremonies, and weirdos who wish they were American. Nobody I know in Japan fits into either category, but walking around Harajuku on a warm Sunday afternoon, you can sort of see where a naive visitor could get that impression. I would not presume to say that the guys in the photo above (or their poodle-skirted girlfriends) literally want to be 1950s Jerseyites, but they certainly have a peculiarly well-developed interest in certain aspects of American pop culture.

Walkway in Yoyogi Park.

Harajuku is in the western portion of Tokyo, midway between Shibuya and Shinjuku, and thus on the opposite side of town from where my gang was staying. We headed there on a Sunday, which is when amateur musicians congregate in Yoyogi Park, as well as a peak time for people to visit nearby Meiji Shrine. Quite a few fellow tourists apparently thought out their sightseeing itineraries along the same lines that we did. So, the place was completely overrun by visual rockers, goths, German backpackers and ladies in kimonos, and was eerily similar to the Japan of internet and TV fantasy, at least superficially.

Prime Addict at Yoyogi Park. These guys struck me as one of the more enjoyable and polished acts in the park that day.

The musicians congregate along the road through the southern side of Yoyogi Park (best reached from the JR Harajuku Station: just follow the throngs over the bridge over the tracks, and bear left). The performances ranged in degree of elaboration from lone guys with guitars, up to nearly professional bands with truckloads of equipment and cadres of groupies.

Path to Meiji Jingu from Harajuku Station.

Meiji Shrine, dedicated to Emperor Meiji (1852-1912), is one of the major Shinto shrines in Tokyo. It's located on the east side of Yoyogi Park, in a densely forested area that also functions as an arboretum of native trees. The trees at the entrance in the photo are Camphor, Cinnamomum camphora.

Giant gate along the way to Meiji Jingu.

I probably saw more people in kimonos during a quick dash through Meiji Shrine than on the entire remainder of the trip, including lengthy tours of Nara and Kyoto. It's a pleasant walk to the shrine from Harajuku Station; you'd hardly think you were in the middle of Tokyo.

Street protest in Harajuku.

Later, we ran into this protest march, which as near as I could tell was concerned with poverty and the banking crisis. 60s-style student radicals, with hardhats and bandannas covering their faces, were conspicuous by their absence, which was sort of disappointing.

John and Sujith at Fujimamas.

My ex-pat friend John was kind enough to show us around Harajuku for the day. After getting the tour, we headed to Fujimamas, an Asian fusion bar and restaurant that John frequents. The Japanese beer industry has long been dominated by a handful of giant breweries, which produce quality if somewhat monotonous product. Small independent brands seem to be starting to catch on, though, and I wonder if the Japanese beer market isn't going through something like the microbrew revolution that happened in the US 30 years ago.

Japan '08: Shibuya

The 109 building in front of Shibuya Station. This intersection appears all the time in film and anime, usually viewed from above with thousands of people in the cross walks.

Shibuya is best known as a place for hip young cosmopolitan urbanites window-shopping for $400 shirts; in this respect it is not really ideal Matt habitat. Shibuya does include some prime sight-seeing opportunities, though, as well as a couple of O.G. anime shopping venues.

Here is the statue of Hachikou, in a little park just outside of the Hachikou gate in Shibuya Station. This is a really famous place to arrange to meet people, and like the neighboring intersection, frequently gets referenced in various media. The statue commemorates a loyal dog who would meet his master at the station every evening at the same time. Even after his owner died, Hachikou would come to the station and wait.

Mandarake, Shibuya shop: the Rulers of Time.

Mandarake Shibuya is one of the oldest Tokyo otaku landmarks (some half-hearted searching failed to turn up the date when it opened, but it was well established in the mid-1990s). Mandarake strictly deals in used goods, and carries a little bit (actually, a lot) of everything that has an otaku following: toys, anime, games, manga and doujinshi.

Shibuya Mandarake is intimidating. The stairs are dark and made up to be somewhat cave-like, and it's a surprisingly long descent to the Area-51-warehouse-like shop. The stairwell ends in the boy's-love section, in an arrangement that almost seems designed to scare off more timid souls, who would be well served taking the elevator in the center of the building. Once I was safely through the yaoi gauntlet and sorting through used anime DVDs, however, all was right with the world.

The Mandarake chain plays music over its P.A system, like all of the anime stores. Mandarake always had the best tunes, though, with famous themes from the likes of Z Gundam, Macross, Evangelion in heavy rotation, interspersed with more obscure material. I just about plotzed when I recognized the theme for Cougar-Man, the fake sentai show in Masami Yuuki's 1990 OAV Assemble Insert, coming over the loudspeakers at the Shibuya branch. A store that is playing the Cougar-Man theme for its patrons in 2008 is hard core: these guys are the rulers of time.

Bome 10th anniversary exhibit in Parco Factory, Shibuya.

After dragging ourselves away from Mandarake, Ray and I (Sujith was off playing Street Fighter IV at an arcade, I think) dropped in on the local COSPA, then checked out an art gallery exhibit on the history of bishoujo figure sculptor Bome, at Shibuya Parco, a hoity-toity department store. I'm not much of a figure collector, but it was fascinating to see the evolution of Monsieur Bome's talent from his garage-kit days in the 1980s. An early sculpture of Lum from Urusei Yatsura almost looks like something that I could have attempted in my misspent youth; his modern stuff is almost miraculous in the way that it takes fundamentally two-dimensional characters and makes them into three-dimensional objects.

Catalog and flier for the Bome Exhibition.

Lucky Star Tourism Research

Lucky Star related visits to Washinomiya Shrine have been in the news again this week, with the start of 2009 bringing a record number of hatsumoude (New Year's visits)--about 420,000 people according to Animaxis--to Washimiya, with many pilgrimages no doubt inspired by the continued popularity of Kyoani's slice-of-life comedy. The Lucky Star tourism phenomenon is apparently starting to attract some academic attention, with Takayoshi Yamamura, a cultural tourism expert from Kyoto Saga University of Arts, recently writing a paper titled: "Study of the birth and development of a sacred place for anime fans." An abstract is available in English, though the paper itself is Japanese only:

This paper is a survey of how the town of Washimiya became the "sacred place" for anime fans ever since fans from all around the country rushed to visit the town after it was used as a setting for the animation "Lucky Star," leading also to the town successfully holding two events for these fans. The following three points were discussed.
1)The process leading up to the town becoming a "sacred place."
2)The process leading up to the town welcoming tourists.
3)The roles of tourist related corporations outside the town.
As a result, it was found that in each process the local commerce and industry association played a central role. It was also found that with the town's commerce and industry association at the core, a local shrine, local shops, fans, and corporations from outside the region (copyright owners and a tourist agency) were able to build a relationship of mutual benefit as a backdrop to the current success.

Anyone out there feel comfortable reading communication science papers in Nihongo?

Yamamura, T. 2008. Study of birth and development of "sacred place for anime fans": discussion of tourist promotions based on animated work "Lucky Star" focused on Washimiya, Saitama Prefecture. The Journal of International Media, Communication, and Tourism Studies 7: 145-164.

Japan '08: Ghibli Museum

Studio Ghibli, of Totoro, Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke fame, operates a small museum on the outskirts of Tokyo, on the edge of Inokashira Park in Mitaka. The Ghibli Bijutsukan isn't a traditional museum so much as an attempt to recreate the ambiance of a Hayao Miyazaki film in three dimensions: the interior space is all dark wood, brass, wrought iron and rough stone; there are alcoves and stairs of doubtful utility everywhere and a lingering smell of cedar in the air. The grounds and even the roof the museum (where the Laputa robot in the photo lives) are landscaped with a chaotic half-wild mix of ferns, grass and trees. The closest thing to an ordinary museum exhibit is probably a studio mock-up, where you are permitted to leaf through original pencil storyboards (my group spent a good 20 minutes very carefully poring over Miyazaki's latest, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea). A visit to the Museum is, I suspect, a bit like spending a short vacation inside of Miyazaki's brain.

It's easy to find the Museum from Mitaka Station: just head out of the south exit, and follow the path along the stream angling off to the left, to the park. Or you can just look for the Totoro-themed bus (round trip tickets, purchased from a vending machine at the bus stop, are 300 yen).

Access to the Ghibli Museum is limited to a set number of ticket holders per day, and it tends to sell out well in advance. It's easiest and safest for American visitors to arrange for tickets through JTB before leaving the States. I used JTB for plane tickets and rail passes as well, by the way, and have nothing but good things to say about them; their airfares were cheaper than anything I could find through the usual online sources.

There's a fake ticket booth off to the side of the real entrance to the museum, staffed by Big Totoro. We visited on a national holiday, so the usual Connecticut schlemiels were joined by native guides R.-san and S.-chan, who had the day off.

Photographs aren't allowed inside of the Ghibli Museum, so my visual documentation is limited to the outdoor exhibits. Inside, we saw a film, Whale Hunt, which is one of a series of shorts only available for viewing at the museum. The film rotates every month, and R-san says that she returned in December to see the Totoro spinoff, Mei and the Kitten Bus. Whale Hunt was excellent, but I'm still jealous. Also inside the museum was a room full of animation-related displays and contraptions, the most impressive of which was a bunch of 3-D model tableaus involving Totoros on a table, which created a little looping animation when spun.

Here's me at the stone control panel on the roof. Presumably, only Miyazaki himself knows the incantation that causes the museum to self-destruct. I couldn't even figure out how to make the cafe give me a free beer.

Here we are at the deck outside of the museum eatery, the Straw Hat Cafe. There is a sit-down area inside, but it was totally jammed, so we ordered from the takeout window and ate outside. The menu has sort of a picnic theme, with a limited selection of sandwiches available. The cafe's exclusive brew, Kaze no Tani (Valley of the Wind) Beer, is good stuff, a bit meatier than the usual from Kirin/Sapporo/Asahi.

Japan Expedition 2008

Stone lantern in the courtyard of Heian Shrine, Kyoto.

Last October, I spent two weeks on vacation in Japan. As I get around to writing about the highlights of the trip, links will be collected here.

• Introduction - liveblogging Japan.
• Overview - basic rundown on the trip, posted at Burger's Onion.
• Lodging - where we stayed.
• Washinomiya Shrine - the oldest shrine in the Kanto region, now the destination for a new type of pilgrim.
• Asakusa - iconic Tokyo cultural sites.
• Odaiba - Tokyo's artificial island utopia of the future, today.
• Akihabara I - an introduction to the anime city.
• Akihabara II - in which our heroes sightsee, appear on national television, and selflessly attempt to mitigate the Japanese recession through consumer spending.
• Shinjuku - skyscrapers in the heart of Tokyo.
  
• Ghibli Museum - a journey into Hayao Miyazaki's mind, with a goth-loli cosplayer guide.
• Shibuya - old and new Tokyo collide.
  
• Harajuku - indie rockers, ex-pats and Shintoists mingle in Yoyogi Park, in what is probably some sort of allegory about the importance of tolerance.
• Nakano - before Akihabara, there was Nakano Broadway.
• Tokyo Miscellany - quick odds 'n' ends from Ochanomizu, Hongou and Ikebukuro.
• Nara - a day trip and 1300 years of history in one of Japan's old capitals.
  
• Kyoto I (central and western) - another former capital. Bring spare camera batteries.
  
• Kyoto II (eastern) - the Higashiyama district, the wellspring of Japanese culture, according to tourist pamphlets from prominent Higashiyama attractions.
  
• Loot Roundup - K-Books is a harsh mistress.
  
• Japan Trip Finale - all's well that ends well. Mostly.

Japan '08: Shinjuku

Shinjuku looking southeast (Tokyo Tower is the orangish spire at center on the horizon).

Shinjuku, in west-central Tokyo, is the place with all the giant skyscrapers familiar from travel brochures. The most recognizable structure in the area is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, with its twin towers. You can take the elevator to an observation deck on the 45th floor for free, for superb views of the greater Tokyo area.


This is the view out to the northeast, towards Hongou and my home base at Homeikan Ryokan. It's too far away to see much detail in that part of the city--Tokyo is mind-bogglingly huge--but I'm pretty sure you can make out Tokyo Dome a little right of center, which is fairly close to where I was staying.




Shinjuku is a high-powered business and government oriented place, with attendant upscale and semi-upscale restaurants where we wound up eating dinner on several occasions. We tried Toriyoshi on our first full day in Japan, on the recommendation of Ray's friends Manami and Hiromi. Toriyoshi is a small chain of restaurants that specializes in yakitori and other chicken-oriented dishes, and was good, if not exactly my thing. Ootoya, a nationwide chain, is highly recommended for tasty food, including many seasonal items, at reasonable prices.

The one significant failure of the trip occured in Shinjuku: we tried to catch Biohazard: Degeneration (A.K.A. Resident Evil: Degeneration) in the theater on its opening day, but it was sold out by the time we tried to get tickets. As setbacks go, that was pretty minor; Biohazard was relatively low on my list of movies to see in Japan.