Adventure 22/50 : Tokyo DisneySea

Another "must-do" for our trip to Japan was to visit the Tokyo Disney Resort, and spend a day in each of the parks: Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.

These parks are different from their American cousins; you need to buy a ticket for a specific day, for a specific park. Once we picked our dates, we tried to buy tickets online from the states, but we could never get a transaction to go through. This is pretty common, judging from discussion boards -- so we decided to go to the Disney Store in Shibuya on our first evening in Japan to secure our tickets.

We would be straddling Halloween Time ... a time of special shows, parades... and full-blown cosplay for adults FOR NEARLY TWO MONTHS. We had booked a hotel near the parks for one night, and decided to spend our first day -- when it wasn't quite Halloween Time -- in Tokyo DisneySea, and the second day in Tokyo Disneyland.

Typhoon Faxia nearly had other plans -- it hit Tokyo the night before, causing a lot of damage and snarling the trains.

Of course, this is Japan, so the trains were pretty much unsnarled by 10am... But we had planned to get on the train to Disneyland at 6:30, and read the trains wouldn't even begin to start until 8, and even then it would be a bit of a struggle. But we got there -- and got to experience a bit of (delayed) rush hour crush en route.

We arrived at the resort -- a couple of hours after we had planned, but, hey, did I mention that a typhoon is what we call a hurricane??? We took the monorail first, just for the fun of it:

It's a little weird that it's not included / free unless you are staying in a Disney hotel, but we decided to think of it as an extra "ride". The train itself is very cute, with Mickey silhouettes in the door windows:

and diffrent Mickey faces in the other windows. Plus, look at those handles!

We put our extra stuff in a locker outside the main entrance, and then went straight in. Tokyo DisneySea is totally different than every other Disney park, though some of the rides exist in other parks.

The park is undergoing renovations, so there wasn't a great "grand vista" at the gate. We started off in the back lanes of Venice:

but we soon arrived at the Mediterranean Harbor:

The buildings around the harbor are actually a hotel -- so beautiful!

We wandered around and noticed that a lot of things were closed, and despite the really hot weather, there weren't a lot of stands selling water or drinks. And then we realized that the staff probably had just as rough of a time getting to the park as we did! And as the day passed, more and more things opened.

It was definitely an unusual day, however. The park stayed pretty empty. The rides that were open were crowded, and they didn't offer fast passes on most rides, so we didn't really ride that many things. But all we really wanted to do was walk around, look at things, people watch, and take it all in.

We liked the American Waterfront area, with Tower of Terror 

and big ocean liner (smokestacks under renovation...):

The ocean liner houses the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge.

We wanted to get a bite to eat there, but the kitchen wasn't fully open yet. Again, I'm guessing it's because they were still trying to get the staff in!

The lounge looks the part of an old lounge on an ocean liner, and the cases hold TR memorabilia. (Nothing rare, mostly magazine covers and books, but still a nice touch.)

And the bar is held up by bears. Of course.

Port Discovery is future themed; we didn't spend much time there, but we did love riding Aquatopia -- and even enjoyed getting sprayed with water because it was so hot.

We also really just skirted around the Lost River Delta -- only looking at the Indiana Jones ride from the outside. 

The Arabian Coast was where we rode our first ride, Sindbad's Storybook Voyage -- which was a very cute retelling of some of the Sinbad tales, all in the same style as It's a Small World.

And we explored the Mysterious Island, where we rode the little submarines in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Both the queue area and the ride were excellent! (So good I didn't take any photos inside...)

Here's sorta what it looks like, including the submarine, from Tokyo DisneySea's site:

 But our favorite part of the park had to be the Mermaid Lagoon.

We held our breath and went "underwater" into a huge covered area full of rides suitable for little kids -- think Bugs Land in California Adventure.

But the surprise highlight of that land was watching King Triton's Concert at the Mermaid Lagoon Theatre. Some days this is a Fastpass attraction, but we pretty much just walked up and got in the first seating area. We didn't know anything about it, but it combines puppetry, animatronics, video screens ... and Ariel swimming overhead. And it's GREAT. Sure, I know it's a woman in a flying harness and a tail costume, but it was a really effective way to represent singing. 

Photos aren't allowed inside, but these are from the Tokyo DisneySea site:

The park was beautiful and it was fun to feel "lost" in a Disney park. Even rides we didn't want to go on were compelling. Look how gorgeous Toy Story Mania is:

Plus who can resist a great photo op? Not us.

As it got dark, we sampled some essential food. #1 must eat? The little green men mochi:

Flavored popcorn is a big deal at Tokyo Disney Resort, with seasonal flavors and highly collectible "popcorn buckets" available for sale in different areas in the park. We didn't try many flavors, but we couldn't resist "Garlic-Shrimp". (Verdict -- nice, more garlic than shrimp.)

Some of the best part about our visit was the people watching, even though we didn't take all that many pictures of people. These people were only slightly over the top, with their backpacks completely covered with the "plush badges" -- a small stuffed animal on a pin. These were much more popular than the pins we're familiar with from the US parks -- we saw very few of those in the shops, and none on the visitors. But plush badges were everywhere:

As were people in full costumes. Again, we didn't take a lot of photos of people, but inadvertently caught this Jasmine, Aladdin, and Genie group while taking a picture of Mount Prometheus, the volcano that serves as the centerpiece of the park:

Tokyo Disney Resort allows adults to wear full character costumes every day during Halloween Time + one day prior. We were surprised how many princesses we saw in very detailed ... and probably very hot ... costumes. But we loved the more obscure characters, including an excellent group from Hercules. (You'll have to trust me.) The only costumes off-limits to visitors are park employees -- so no dressing as a tour guide, a Jungle Cruise skipper, etc. 

We capped off our visit by gathering around the Mediterranean Lagoon to watch Fantasmic! Performed in the round, there are a lot of similarities to the CA and FL versions, but also some nice differences, like a floating "sorcerer's hat" in LEDs, and these giant balloons that had images projected on them.

Oh, and that lovely, lovely dragon:

I love how the wings are represented by illuminated water.

Of course, the happy ending is celebrated by boats full of characters waving and dancing...

and Mickey gets the final laugh. Or chuckle. You know what I mean.

It had been a long, hot day -- so after Fantasmic we did a little shopping and then walked 25 minutes to our hotel -- the Nice Inn Hotel Tokyo Bay Premiere -- where we had a fantastic stay (here's my review on TripAdvisor)  and almost wished we could stay more than the one night. It gave us the chance to rest up for the next day : our visit to Tokyo Disneyland!

Adventure 21/50 : Takarazuka Revue

After climbing Mount Fuji, the second item on my "must do in Japan" list was see a show at the Takarazuka Revue.

I had heard about Takarazuka years ago -- the all-female theatre company that puts on elaborate stage shows, always with a musical component. Founded in 1914 as a way to attract riders on a railway company, the Takarazuka Revue has been entertaining fans ever since -- even during WWII.

Auditions for the all-female company are fiercely contested -- there are even schools where young women attend for years to prepare for their audition. Young women 15-18 can audition, and the lucky ones get to attend the Takarazuka Music School. They then undergo years of training before they become true "Takarasiennes" and appears on stage. Even then they take roles in the large chorus of one of the five troupes and, over time, start to specialize in male or female roles.

Each of the five troupes -- Flower, Moon, Snow, Star, and Cosmos -- has a "top star" and a "top female star", two performers around whom each show is built. Top stars stay in their positions until they retire, and during their reign attract fanatical followers who stand outside the theater to see them arrive and depart... every night. Their developing chemistry -- sometimes the top stars stay together for years -- causes lots of off-stage rumors, too. In the documentary I saw about Takarazuka, a retiring Top Star was asked if she would marry now that she was retiring ... she said she wasn't sure she would be willing to be submissive to a man, since she had spent so long acting like one.

The five troupes are always in the process of rehearsing or performing one of their elaborate shows. The types of shows performed are very diverse, from adaptations of fairy tales, to operas, to classical Japanese plays, to American musicals, to takes on Hollywood movies. And in each performance, the main play is followed by a 15-20 minute intermission, and then -- a "revue" that's mainly an excuse to have a lot of singing, dancing, and sparkly costumes. So, really, even if you can't follow along with the story of the main play, you can still really enjoy the revue!

When we booked our flights it seemed like we wouldn't be able to catch a show -- one was ending in Tokyo on the day we arrived, so I couldn't imagine another show launching before we left two weeks later. So imagine my thrilled surprise when I saw that another show would launch only 5 days later -- God of Stars / Éclair Brilliant!

The Takarazuka website has plenty of information in English, and listed exactly when the tickets for the next round of shows would go on sale. So I made sure I was online at the exact time, selected the first date that worked with our other plans, and bought a pair of tickets. After making sure I had gotten the confirmation email and lowering my heart rate a little (buying tickets online always gives me an adrenaline rush!), I looked at the other dates briefly. The entire run -- some 36 performances -- had sold out. In about 10 minutes. 

Fast forward a couple of months and it was time for our show! Because we had booked tickets from overseas, we had to pick them up at will call, so we arrived at the theater early. 

The current Tokyo Takarazuka theater was built in 2001 to replace the original theater built in 1934 to give the company a venue in Tokyo. After World War II, apparently, the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater was renamed the Ernie Pyle Theater and managed by the Allied Powers. The company spent ten years performing in rented venues across the city until 1955, when they got the theater back. In 1998 it was demolished due to disrepair.

The new venue has a stage set up nearly identical to the Takarazuka Grand Theatre, which allows sets and blocking to be easily transferred between the two -- which is why they can move shows so quickly!

We picked up our tickets, noticing a group of young women holding boxes. Each of these women were showing their collections of ticket stubs to prove how dedicated they were, and hoping to be chosen if anyone had an extra ticket. There was no "anyone have tickets?" sort of shouting... the women just stood there, quietly hopeful.

We had a little time to kill before the performance, so we slipped over to the Old Imperial Bar at the Imperial Hotel Tokyo -- the ill-fated yet glorious hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and dedicated the day before the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Though much of Wright's buildings survived the quake -- and Allied bombing in WWII -- the foundations were damanged and the buildings were eventually demolished in 1976 to make way for a modern high-rise. The facade and pool were moved to an architecture museum, but the only other sliver of Wright that's left is in the Old Imperial Bar, where of course we had a classic Mount Fuji cocktail.

But we couldn't linger too long -- we needed to get over to the theater! Another sold out performance, and the fans were buzzing with excitement. I had heard that the audience was primarily female, so was surprised to see a good number of men in attendance, too. The auditorium is large but designed to give everyone a great view -- and even from the second to last row on the main floor, we felt we could see everything.

Here's a view from the side of the auditorium showing the balcony:

Eventually, the show kicked off. God of Stars was a slightly convoluted story about chefs competing in a cooking competition ... and a planned food theme park that would kick a traditional food court off its land ... and then a treacherous betrayal .... and then a contest ... and then a disappearance ... and then A HAPPY ENDING, OF COURSE!!!

I don't have any photographs of the performance, but these shots were in the gallery on the Takarazuka website:

Here's Top Star Yuzuru Kurenai in the lead role of Hong Xing-xing, the greatest chef in the world.

  

And here's top female star Airi Kisaki as Eileen Chow, the plucky young woman who runs a restaurant in the food court. I love how anime she looks:

And here are the two of them sparring at their first meeting. Girl meets boy, argues with boy, saves boy, boy saves girl, boy and girl fall in love... Yes, she's fighting with her shoes agains his ladle and wok...

Though the sets were simple, the production values and especially the costumes were impressive. But what I really wanted would come after the encore...

Éclair Brillant!!!

The premise was that a young man (Top Star Yuzuru Kurenai, of course) floats down to earth from space, and then sings and dances around the world. This is what we came for!

Singing, dancing, costumes galore! The crowd really loved this, and as different performers sang their solos, the audience would sometimes erupt into applause... but sometimes not. It was clear that some of the performers were audience favorites, while others were still working their way up. Yuzuru's numbers were always greeted with cheers, of course!

Sometimes a few dozen people were on the stage at once, always centered on the Top Star:

But the numbers I really loved were the ones that looked like 1920s musicals ... with the Top Star in a simple tuxedo:

... backed by dozens of other dancers, dancing their way up and down the stairs.

But that's not enough ... every revue has a grand finale, and Eclair Brilliant didn't disappoint. LOOK AT THESE CRAZY FEATHERED COSTUMES!!!

You never need wonder who the Top Star is ... he's the one with the most ridiculous costume in the center, of course! And the Top Female Star is on the right in the pink dress, and I am going to assume the the #2 star is on the left. Still a fancy costume, but not compared with the Top Star!

I don't know this for sure, but I did wonder if the stars they hold in their hands are to highlight that they are the "Star Troupe" ... and whether a performance by the Flower Troupe would feature flowers, the Snow Troupe snowflakes, etc. 

After the show we went to the shop in the lobby, where we got a bit overexcited and bought a bunch of merchandise. I really liked the posters showing Yuzuru in various roles through the years. Apparently her all-time favorite role is Percy from the Scarlet Pimpernel...

What did we buy? Well...

If you are going to Tokyo and you can possibly time it for a show, I can't recommend Takarazuka enough. Sure, it takes some planning (you'll need to be ready to buy tickets when they go on sale), but it's very Japanese and really good fun. And if you still don't believe me, watch this video.