Cosplay – Tokyo For 91 Days

Cosplay at Tokyo Big Sight

Tokyo Big Sight is an exhibition hall which opened on Odaiba in 1996. In addition to its strange name, the complex is known for its radical architecture: four interlocking, upside-down, titanium pyramids. We approached against a tide of anime fans, all of whom were going the opposite way. A convention called Comic City had wrapped up for the day, but we noticed that the crowd was made up almost entirely of women -- this convention had been dedicated to manga written for the female market. There were guys here, too, but they were all photographers hoping to get portraits of the cosplay girls. We joined in.

Other Sights of Odaiba Island

There's so much to do on Odaiba, you could never hope to see it all in a single day. Even if the attractions aren't always impressive on an individual basis (and many are simply malls), the very fact that such a large section of Tokyo has been given over to leisure and shopping is amazing. We've written quite a bit about Odaiba already, but here are some other sights which warrant mention.

Look at You! You Think You’re Ready for Harajuku!

We knew it was going to be crazy. We'd seen pictures! We had read online accounts and talked to people who'd been there. Sure, Harajuku was going to be nuts, especially on the shopping street of Takeshita-dori, but we were ready. I mean, this is still Earth, people are people, and a crowd is a crowd. Am I right? It can't be anything we haven't seen a million times before.

A Perfectly Normal Day in Yoyogi Park

It's hard to say exactly when Tokyo started to frighten me, but it was probably during our visit to Yoyogi Park. While watching Japanese rockabillies bounce-step to Joan Jett, I moved out of the way for a couple dressed in... let's call it "Victorian Gothic Steampunk, Pastels Version." And that's when it hit home: something's not quite right in this city.