Tokyo 2007: "Bye-bye, Robot-san!"

Yesterday's weather in Tokyo was quite Hawaii-like -- apparently typical of the monsoon season. The sun was out as we walked to Cafe Momonga for breakfast. As we sat savoring our thick toast, the rain started. And started getting heavy. And then started sheeting off the sidewalk and rising in a mist of smashed raindrops. And then lightened. And then stopped. Within the space of about an hour. We just ordered extra cups of tea and waited out the weather.







That day, we took the train to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka -- a must-visit for any anime fan; and a heavily-visited one, judging from the capacity crowds we saw on a Wednesday afternoon.

This trip, like the previous day's visit to Akihibara, was partially designed to redress an injustice during our 2004 Japanese vacation: When we visited the museum that time, the tour guide gave us just one hour to look at the museum -- the result of both the traffic jams encountered driving through Tokyo, and of three members of the tour who wanted to go to a concert later that evening. (They eventually decided not to go to the concert.) This time, we arranged the trip ourselves; and we were able to devote four hours to the museum, enough to sample all of the delights there.



Even better, because we took the train over (which we managed with only one problem -- a train that left Shinjuku apparently for Mitaka, but then reversed itself just past Nakano) and walked the 1.2 kilometers from the train station to the museum, we were treated to an environment that seemed ripped from a Hayao Miyazaki movie: We strolled along a stream covered with foliage, cicadas shirring in the heavy September air, past apartment houses and narrow streets with a mixed European and Japanese look.







The museum was terrific. Along with some of the stuff we saw last time (such as the mockup of Miyazaki's study, and the room explaining the process of making animation -- now updated with materials from the Ghibli movies SPIRITED AWAY, HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE, and TALES OF EARTHSEA), there were new exhibits -- such as a mockup of the Three Bears' house, from an illustrated children's book; and a gallery of art from a French animation director's film PRINCES AND PRINCESSES. As usual, the theatre at the museum showed a short subject. This one was called GORO NO DAI SENPO. It featured the simplest of stories -- a little girl's dog, Goro, runs out of her front yard, and runs around the neighborhood -- but was rich with details of everyday Japanese life. Further, it made no attempt to anthropomorphosize Goro; he was recognizable as a not-to0-bright but enthusiastic puppy.







The museum was filled with delighted children. Thus, the capper to our visit: As we left the museum, a Japanese child gazed up at the rooftop -- where one of the robots from LAPUTA stood patiently, always prepared to pose for photos -- and called up, "Bye-bye, Robot-san!"



After a dinner in Mitaka, and a train ride back (which got crowded when we boarded the train at Shinjuku for Ikebukuro), we ended the evening by experiencing an anime movie in its native habitat. Specifically, we went to the Sunshine Cinema to see the just-premiered movie version of Neon Genesis Evangelion, titled "Evangelion 1.0: You are (Not) Alone." Evangelion was the science fiction anime series of the mid-nineties which turned the whole giant robot genre on its ear; it featured giant armored biological constructs that could only be piloted by teenagers with various emotional problems. The kids would be put into bio-plugs and injected into the Evas. The movie apparently exists as a vehicle to sell even more Evangelion merchandise to the Japanese fans, besides getting them into theatres and having them pay 1,800 yen to see what their older siblings saw for free on TV. Indeed, the movie copied numerous scenes from the TV series nearly verbatim -- albeit with better animation, and rampant product placement (particularly of UCC Coffee and Doritos, both of which issued packages of their products with Eva characters on them). The movie even featured a TV like episode title card (although it wasn't shown until an hour into the movie); and a preview of the next installment of the movie series, designed to look just like the "next episode" clip at the end of each episode of the TV series -- complete with the voice-over from the Misato character.

Despite these disparaging words, the movie was tremendously exciting. There's a reason Evangelion has remained popular on both sides of the Pacific for over a decade. Amy enjoyed it too, even though she had not seen the original series, and the movie was entirely in Japanese without subtitles. And the film must be doing well, since it filled the theatre on a Wednesday evening.