Toontown IRL: An Ex-Ninja’s Pilgrimage to Japan!

Remember Toontown in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Eddie Valiant and his trusted colleague Benny the Cab drives through a dark tunnel and arrives in Toontown; the wildest, loudest and most colorful place in the world. That’s how it is in Tokyo. You can walk on a dark back alley (totally safe by the way, there’s never a sense of danger in that town), turn round a corner and WACKATACKAKAAZINGBOOM, there it is, the colour extravaganza, the sound and music from every store, people dressed extremely hip, very office stylish or just walking along in their kimonos or, if you’re a tourist, shorts and a silly t-shirt. But no one cares. This makes the “we don’t care, look how you want to”-style in New York mean nothing! This is fucking it.

One thing we never saw was babies in strollers and dogs. Except the one time we saw a man driving a dog in a stroller. We choose to stay at an hotel in Shinjuku, Shinjuku-Sanchome to be more correct, quite close to Chome 2, the big gay district - packed with friendly restaurants and bars. A few minutes away is Golden Gai, the old area of establishments from the 20’s, a former prostitution area, now with hundreds of very charming, sometimes VERY local, bars and so-called restaurants (which often means a slice of microwave pizza to make it okay to serve alcohol). But more to that place later. If you walk a few minutes in the wrong direction you come to the infamous red-light district Kabukichō, which we did once in the evening and I’ll tell you: never again.

I feel very uncomfortable with people talking with me if I know they just want my money - or my body. And if this is the place you want to be robbed and drugged, go there man! Don’t blame it on me! I’m not kidding you if I tell you this is exactly what we experienced: every 10-20 second a dude, a living incarnation of Ving Rhames, walks up to you and as you if you want to be “enjoyed”. He grab your hand, your arm, shakes it, wants you to “take a look” at this place with all the beautiful women. And as soon as you managed to get rid of him another guy, looking exactly the same, comes up to you and repeats the procedure. After the tenth guy doing this I went sarcastic and even before he said something I told him “I hate to be enjoyed”.

But I guess we need to blame ourselves here, two dudes - obviously tourists back backpacks, decides to walk through the most notorious district in Tokyo. It doesn’t matter if we’re gay, they would probably have found a solution for that also. We later walked very close to that area with a Japanese friend (after eating tongue at nice little restaurant), and he told us the best way is just to hold up your and like an a dismissal sign and don’t look them in their eyes. Here’s a fun article on the subject, btw: http://streetcarnage.com/blog/10-steps-to-getting-drugged-and-robbed-in-tokyo/

But Japan, and maybe Tokyo in this case, is so much more than being a scared tourist trying to avoid whore and drug-mongers. Actually, that part is so small you won’t probably experience it again if you aren’t stupid enough to go there waving your yen’s and screaming “I want to be drugged!”. For me Japan is Kaiju and Tokusatsu. Kaiju (or Kaiju Eiga to be more correct) is monster movies, like Godzilla and Gamera and Tokusatsu is special-effects drive TV-shows (or films), for example Ultraman, Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. So here’s a few places you MUST visit if you’re a fan of this and happens to be in the land of the rising sun:

Ultraman World M78 (Tokyo Station)
The official Tsuburaya Productions Ultraman store is located at the Tokyo station, at the underground shopping facility - which is a labyrinth. Smile at a guard and ask him to point the direction to Tokyo Character Street and you’ll find 15-20 small stores of pure geekiness. UItraman World M78 might be more aimed towards kids, but is a lot of fun to look through and the toys they had there are fun! The latest product seemed to have been a water pistol shaped as a flying Ultraman and the targets where lightweight Ultra monsters!

Toho Studios (Seijogakuenmae Station)
I had to go into a Lawson store to ask for the direction, but it sure helped me I wore a Toho t-shirt that day. We walked for maybe 10-15 minutes and a sign directing us to the left showed us the HUGE new Godzilla mural, which just is stunning! Not far away from there is the Godzilla statue, a perfect Instagram moment (the mural also!), but that’s about it. You won’t get any closer! But it’s worth it, it’s god damn Toho and Godzilla! And you will have a like-monster like no other pic on Instagram!

Kadokawa-Daei (Chofu, Tamagawa Station)
Not far away from Tamagawa station you’ll find this studio, the home of Gamera, Daimajin and Sadako. At this moment it was raining like hell, and it was a pleasure to see that their gift store was open and a very nice manager welcomed us (he’s good in English to!) and after that I spent way too much money on stuff I won’t need - but I love. Of course you need to take photo outside with the cool Daimajin statues guarding the studio!

Godzilla-Ya (Koenji Station)
It’s a bit tricky to find, but let my photos guide you. At the main exit, go over the street to the left, ignore the ugly McDonalds restaurant and you’ll see two streets: one tourist shopping street straight ahead, with lots of stores under roof - not a bad place by the way - and to the right a narrow street with the traintracks above you on the right. Go to the end of it, until there’s a road and there somewhere, under the tracks, you’ll find the best little toy store in the world, specialized in Kaiju and Tokusatsu! It’s so much stuff in this store, SO MUCH, you won’t fucking believe it. It’s pricey, but there’s a lot of collectors items here, but you will buy so much stuff anyway. Here I also got a chance to pose with the original, handwritten, script to King Kong Vs. Godzilla. That was cool!

Yamashiroya (Ueno Station)
The Toontown parable first came to me while entering Yamashiroya, probably the loudest toy store you’ll ever visit. I’m not a big fan of toys in general, except the Bandai stuff, but here… wow, I could buy SO much stuff! The somewhat silly creativity of Japan comes into full bloom here, with stuff you can’t imagine exist. The latest in fashion was robot fishes, behaving like real fishes in water, even stopping to eat from the plastic sea weed. Their corner with Bandai and other Ultraman and Godzilla-related stuff is really good and I bought… enough, to say it discreetly. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s worth a visit.

But we did a lot of other things while being in Japan. We travelled to Kawaguchiko, rented bicycles a couple of days - visited the infamous Aokigahara forest, which might be the strangest, darkest, weirdest place I’ve been at. It’s still a popular place to commit suicide in. The countryside in Kawaguchiko is amazing and it’s a good rest from the pleasant chaos in Tokyo. We also had to visit a real tourist trap - which was well worth the visit: Tokyo Tower, a place torned down by Godzilla and friends over and over again through the years. The view is fantastic and it’s a cool place for a Kaiju-fan like me to have visited. One evening we also went over to Roppongi (where I, like alway while travelling abroad, fell and hurt myself) and took a look at the giant spider outside the Mori Tower - until we discovered we could actually go up to the 52th floor in that skyscraper! Fantastic view and G spent at least one hour there taking photos. And on the way down we shared elevator with some young, trendy celebrities - don’t know who they where, but a body guard was waiting for them downstairs.

Before we left I’ve read and heard a lot of warnings, but let me tell you these four things:

1. Japan is not especially expensive. Sweden is way more costly, and that’s my home country.

2. With a smile and Konichiwa and Arigato you’re welcomed everywhere.

3. The metro isn’t THAT hard to understand and there’s English signs everywhere.

4. You’ll find Wifi everywhere.

Here’s three tips for travelling more comfortable:

1. Cash is king. If you, like me, have a MasterCard, 7/11 is more or less the only place to take out money. There’s also some kind of rule of how much money you can take out during a certain time, so take out cash before going to Japan (I took out 300 000 yen, and that was enough for two weeks of intensive shopping, eating and everything else).

2. If you don’t want to look for WiFi hotspots everywhere, rent a portable router at Japan-Wireless. They will deliver it to your hotel so you have it when you arrive, turn this little fucker on and put in the bag (it’s lightweight and small, so don’t worry), and you’ll have wifi exactly when you need it! It costed me 7000 yen for two weeks (plus insurance and shipping, 1000 yen). That’s absolutely nothing and it helped us so many times!

3. There’s a lot of confusing reports regarding what kind of card you shall use at the metro. Don’t listen to the other fuckers out there, just do like us: go to a SUICA card machine at the Shinjuku station (for example, it’s black-grey-ish) and fill it up with 1000-2000 yen, then you can travel with it around Tokyo until the money runs out and you need to refill it again. Very easy, very cheap and it saves a lot of time.

I’ve gone through a lot of geek things here, stuff you might enjoy. Me and my man had a fantastic time outside of those things also. Lots of photography, food, meeting old and new friends. But I won’t go into that because it’s just not important for the blog. But two highlights I want to add was when we went to the Shinjuku Gyoen, a nice and big garden, almost hiding the hectic streets outside. A nice place indeed, but just before the main entrance, on the street leading from Shinjuku chome 2, we found a small second hand store. It’s so small I’m not sure you can count it as a store, it’s just some stuff in a window and inside there’s a lot of dust and papers laying around. But I spotted a nice photo of Shintaro Katsu (you know, Zatoichi and Hanzo the Razor), in the window and asked the owner, an old man who just before we came was balancing on a ladder outside the window trying to repair something. The old man wanted 50 yen for the photo and I asked him if he had some other photos of Shintaro, and he dug up a few more...including a signed photo by this late superstar! I mean, wow! A signed (yes, a real signature!) photo by Hanzo the Razor? I bought it of course, it costed me 100 yen. I will frame it. And worship it.

The evening before we left we planned to meet a friend, Mao. He took us to eat tongue at a famous little restaurant close to red-light district (he was also the man showing us to ignore the Ving Rhames-clones offering us sex, drugs and getting drugged). Afterwards I asked him if he knew where Cambiare was, the famous Suspiria bar, and he then took us to Golden Gai. Golden Gai is lovely, intimate place, with streets so narrow I hardly fit in them. Most of the bars are of the locals, and with just three-four seats in them. I guess a lot of beer and Sake has been flowing through these streets over the years. When we arrived to Cambiare a signed told us - in Japanese, so Mao had to read it - that this was the monthly Kaiju evening! Wow, that’s awesome! I didn’t expect it to be so bright and the Suspiria-theme was kinda lost in the atmosphere of the evening, but instead the guests, I guess only regulars, were watching DVDs of one Tokusatsu TV-credit sequence after another - and singing all the lyrics, while drinks and beers were flowing! There was even a weird-looking Kaiju suit there, looking like something from a kids show! The guy handling the orders works for real with the Ultraman show as a scriptwriter and (as I understood it), director for the monster scenes and not long after we arrived Mr. Takayuki Oe introduced himself, a Japanese Dario Argento expert and horror fan - now holding an Argento symposium in July! I wish I could have stayed to visit that one! And they actually served Dracula 3D wine there. That's a bizarre form of respect! ;)

There’s so much to do in Japan, there’s so much to shop in Tokyo. I wish I could tell you all, but it would be boring. I learned another thing though, to eat breakfast, lunch at 12 PM and dinner at 5 PM. Or else I’m turning into a monster. A real monster, not made of rubber. A real, bitchy, annoying, slightly rude I’m Hungry As Fuck-monster. An important lesson learned.

I’m home in Sweden now. It’s so quiet here, so grey. People are rude and the public bathrooms stinks. I’m gonna go back, sooner or later.

You better believe it.

5 Comments

Fint med bilder! Men du, Japan ligger väldigt långt bort. Hur orkar man/du/folk åka såååååååååå långt?!

Jag håller dock med om att svenskar är ohyfsade, både utom- och inomlands. I London märks det direkt vilka som är svenskar, dvs de som går in i en, knuffas, och ser allmänt efterblivna ut. Faen! Har de aldrig hört talas om det lilla ordet "sorry"??!!!!!!

Själv ska jag till vår granne i öster nästa vecka. Och har jag tur blir det även en tripp till vår andra granne, fast i väster då, i augusti.

Posted by: Kristina | July 07, 2014 at 15:59

Jag är verkligen ingen fan av själva resandet, men finns det nog med saker att göra (dvs titta) på flygplanet så brukar det gå väl! Under 12 timmar från Tokyo till Munchen så kollade jag på fem långfilmer t ex ;)

Men jag hade nog hellre haft en teleportör eller nåt. Orka resa liksom. Jag är 37 år och vill ha det bekvämt!

Grannen i Öster? Och väster? Vilka menar du då? Finns ju massor på båda sidorna :D

Posted by: Fred Anderson | July 07, 2014 at 16:22

"Remember Toontown in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

I sure do.....I wanted to live there......hahhahahhahahha

"If you walk a few minutes in the wrong direction you come to the infamous red-light district Kabukichō, which we did once in the evening and I’ll tell you: never again."

hahahahhahah...if I go to Japan....I´ll probably stay there......you had me at redlight district.

"The latest product seemed to have been a water pistol shaped as a flying Ultraman and the targets where lightweight Ultra monsters!"

I think you showed a cooler thing on Instagram.....ice cubes in the shape of Ultraman.

"But it’s worth it, it’s god damn Toho and Godzilla! And you will have a like-monster like no other pic on Instagram!"

Exactly.....trust me, I´m jealous.

"Here I also got a chance to pose with the original, handwritten, script to King Kong Vs. Godzilla. That was cool!"

Damn you!

You get to do all kinds of cool stuff......

"Their corner with Bandai and other Ultraman and Godzilla-related stuff is really good and I bought… enough, to say it discreetly."

Any problems with the customs?

"visited the infamous Aokigahara forest, which might be the strangest, darkest, weirdest place I’ve been at."

You are a braver man than me......brrrrr......some scary fucking place...

"Here’s three tips for travelling more comfortable:"

Thanks Fred.....might come in handy, someday.....

"I bought it of course, it costed me 100 yen. I will frame it. And worship it."

Of course you will.......if I found a nude pic of Miki Sugimoto, signed by her......I would start a religion or at least build a cathedral bigger than Sainte-Chapelle.

"Mr. Takayuki Oe introduced himself, a Japanese Dario Argento expert and horror fan - now holding an Argento symposium in July! I wish I could have stayed to visit that one! And they actually served Dracula 3D wine there. That's a bizarre form of respect! ;)"

The japanese....very loyal fans according to some sources.

And the wine as well...?

How was it?

"I learned another thing though, to eat breakfast, lunch at 12 PM and dinner at 5 PM. Or else I’m turning into a monster. A real monster, not made of rubber. A real, bitchy, annoying, slightly rude I’m Hungry As Fuck-monster. An important lesson learned."

It is important to eat healthy during trips, a lot is new for your body, time change, climate etc.

Great fucking post....I´m so fucking jealous!!!!!

arghhhhhhhhhhh....thanks Fred.

Posted by: Megatron | July 07, 2014 at 19:21