Robot Claw

That’s me on the way to the Ultraman Live Show we attended yesterday. I was excited, since we attended one last year and it was fantastic and my expectations were high!

That’s me posing outside the venue (the Prism Theatre at Tokyo Dome) with Ultraman Zero and Z. There were all sorts of banners and signs outside, and a fairly large crowd for a 10 am performance on New Year’s Eve. My excitement level rose.

Inside the venue there were many things to see, including kaiju suits and a large display of upcoming product releases. Lots of standees as well, and plenty of advertising for the upcoming movie.

That’s Dark Arc, from the upcoming film. You could buy advance tickets at the event, which came with an exclusive promo card for the Ultraman TCG. Even though I wouldn’t have been able to use the ticket, I was tempted to buy it just for the card 🙂

Even though we purchased out tickets only the day prior they were pretty good. This is a photo from my seat of a (cute) Pigmon, part of the warm up act that taught the audience the rules and how to interact with the show. At this point my excitement levels couldn’t have gotten higher!

And of course it was great! Photos are not permitted except at specific moments, so all of these come from the ‘post show’ portion where other Ultras made an appearance.

The main show was an Ultraman Arc story where he saved us all from evil robots created by Alien Mefilas, and there were cameos from Ultraman Blazar, Earth Garon and Sevenger. Dozens of kaiju made appearances, and the sound and light effects were top-notch. I loved it!

I said this last year but it beats repeating: it’s so unusual that the actors from the show are in these stage shows! The above is Yuki Totsuga, who plays Yuma (Arc’s host) in Arc, and we watch him every week on the show. This must be incredible for kids who are young enough to still think of him as the character.

Sho Kaneta, who plays Shu on the show, also appeared. He probably had an even bigger role than Yuma (who naturally left the stage when Arc himself was present), and it was very much like seeing the character live. That’s Ultraman Arc in the photo btw. Was he looking at me?

As I said it was wonderful, and I’m already looking forward to the next time I can see one. Afterward we visited the large and well-stocked shop (I didn’t buy much…) before heading to Tokyo station for lunch and a bit of shopping.

We had originally planned on going to Asakusa shrine to ring on the new year, but I was getting tired and feeling a little poorly so we went over earlier in the evening. I had some corn…

And a candy apple…

And bought an Ultraman Arc mask! It was cold and windy, so we bailed early to return to the hotel and watch idols on tv until we fell asleep.

Happy New Year!

That’s me eating an ‘American Dog’ purchased from 7-11 while standing across the street from Lawson (on the right) with Fuji in the background. Apparently a TikTok video made taking photos of Lawson with Fuji looming over it the thing to do, and there’s lines of Chinese tourists attempting just that. I snapped this one quickly as we strode past.

Our destination was a place called the ‘Nostalgic Toys Museum’ but was actually a showcase of a Japanese celebrity collector. While much of it were toys, there were other items as well including magazines, records and movie posters. Most of it was very old, but it was well presented and a fascinating (but small) museum.

The staircase art is handdrawn using markers directly onto the white wall by an artist named Nobumasa Takahashi. It may have been the best part of the entire museum!

Apparently it was done freehand without planning and took 1.5 years. It’s a massive piece that spans the entire staircase and you could spend hours examining the details.

The guy that owns the collection is currently an appraiser for Antiques Roadshow Japan, and is well-known for his collection of old tin toys. The bulk of the collection were examples of these, ranging from simple figurines to space toys and mechanical ones such as this infamous monkey.

The highlight for us was a case containing dozens of the worst Mickey Mouse stuffed toys we have ever seen. They were deformed and evil-looking and it’s hard to imagine any child being happy with them!

The description says these are known as ‘spider Mickeys’ by collectors (due to their spidery limbs) and were made by a British company in the mid 20th century. Apparently Walt Disney was so horrified by them he prevented them being exported and they are therefore very collectible today!

We laughed so hard at how awful these were that I almost coughed out a lung. Today’s blog title was my exclamation; it’s difficult to believe any factory could produce licensed toys of this low caliber today.

It was a good museum, although I think only truly nostalgia for the centenarians amongst us. For my toy nostalgia, I still prefer the retro shops in Akiba and Nakano!

Next we stopped at a small gemstone museum (both of these are right on the lakefront near our hotel) and looked at pretty rocks for a while.

They had a great collection and went into exhaustive detail about how the stones are formed, coloured and cut. I liked that most cases included an unfinished stone as well as cut versions.

That gigantic quartz crystal behind kls is real and weighs over a tonne! This part of Japan used to be famous for cut crystal and the museum had examples of tiny stones with elaborate scenes carved into them. Apparently they used to be popular in kimono sashes and hair clips, but the skills died out decades ago.

This afternoon will be more rest and relaxation and then an early start back to Tokyo tomorrow morning. The hot springs have worked and we’re both mostly better, and we’re also looking forward to the warmer weather back in the capital 🙂