Archive for 'Tokyo' Category

Super Kabuki “One Piece”

“One Piece”, one of the most famour and popular Japanese manga is now dramatized as “Super Kabuki” play. (http://www.kabuki-bito.jp/theaters/shinbashi/2015/10/ii_1.html)

The play is performed at Shinbashi Enbujou, one of the major kabuki theaters in Tokyo Oct. 7- Nov.25. “Kabuki” is a traditional stage performance of Japan with more than 400 year history and most of its subjects have been tradtional stories or period dramas. However, these days, modern stories or even manga, anime works have become the plots. Thus happy fusion of old traditional arts and modern or contemporary culture are enhancing the both and attractions seem to be even progressing.  For example, parents and children or grandparentens and  their grand children  go see the work together, as  the older generations are fans of kabuki,while  the younger generations are fans of One Piece or other manga works. Thus cultural fusion also work   to  connect different generations and broadens the cultural zones.

Majibu won the grandprix of “Wakatabi” of JTA

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA)(http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/en/index.html) released the results of  “Wakatabi”(/ a young travel), the awards to recognize people or businesses that have made efforts to promote travels of young people on Sep. 16.  The winner of the grandprix is Majibu (/マジ☆部, a serious club), a platform of  application for various services for young people to enjoy  travels and related pleasures.(https://majibu.jp/). The platform is run by Recruit Lifestyle (http://www.recruit-lifestyle.co.jp/english/).

The ceremony of the Wakatabi Awards was hosted at the venue of the Japan Stage of “Toursim Expo Japan 2015” at Tokyo Bigsight in Tokyo on Sep.25. (http://t-expo.jp/en/)

Five sports adding to Olympics 2020 proposed by JOC

Japanese Orgazining Committee of Olympics (JOC) resolved to propose adding five sports to the official program of the Olympic Games 2020 to IOC on Sep.28.  The five sports are, namely, baseball, softball, karate,roller sport, and surfing. The committee also resolved to propose 18 sports in total.  IOC will officially resolve which sports to adopt for the 2020 at its general meeting in the next August.

The proponents and athletes of  the proposed made comments full of happiness,hopes and enery ,while those of  the sports not proposed ,such as bowling, seemed dissapointed, still trying to improve positions.  People expect the coming Tokyo Olympics to be lively ,glorious ,and successful ones with new or fresh aspects.

Hokkaido Shinkansen’s grand opening next March

JR Hokkaido and JR East Japan jointly announced on Sep. 16 that  they were going to launch the remarkable new services of  the Hokkaido Shinkansen (The Bullet Train services in Hokkaido )  on March 26th 2016.

The hisotorically new services of the Hokkaido Shinkansen will provide totaly 13 round-trips of  “Hayabusa”and “Hayate” cars between Tokyo and Shin-hakodatehokuto (about 146km) on a daily basis.  10 out of them will be for the full distance and one for Sendai station-Shin-hakodatehokuto station, one for Morioka station- Shin-hakodatehokuto, and one for Shin-aomori station- Shin-hakodatehokuto station. The “E5 series” of JR East and the “H5 series” of JR Hokkaido will be used as the cars of the new lines.   The will include economy classes , Green Cars’ and the Grand-Place seats.

Hotel Okura’s renewal construction plan

The main building of Hotel Okura in Tokyo is going to be closed at the end of thsi August and a reconstruction will take place which will have finished by the coming spring in 2019 in order to meet the timing of preparation for the Tokyo Olympic games in 2020. (http://www.hotelokura.co.jp/tokyo/en/)

The current main building of 11 floors with 408 guest rooms will be replaced by two new buildings of  41 floors and 16 floors with 510 guest rooms due to  decrepitude.  The current one was open n 1962, two years before the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964 as its preparatory inflastructure and now the new ones will be created as a preparation for another Tokyo Olympics in 2020. However, a lot of  people including foreign celebrities who have stayed at the hotel are reluctant to accept the reconstruction and against the plan of  demolision because  of  their sweet memories with building of  the beautiful conbinations of traditional Japanese artistic  and western modernism.  Famous writers,  foreign monarchs, well-known business people and so forth enjoyed the lavish stays at the hotel in the past 50-year history and some of those influential foreign visitors  even conduct protest sign-in campaigns against the demolision plan.  The culturally important asset of the hotel building might be spared and might be preserved in some other way due to the passions of  those who love those works and facilities.

At any rate, the hotel will remain open in business operation even during the reconstruction utilizing its annex building.

9,140,000, the record high number of foreign tourists to Japan in a half year

JNTO (http://www.jnto.go.jp/) announced  the number of foreign tourist to Japan of 9,140,000 in the first haf year of 2015 (Jan.-Jun.) marked the record high.

The number of 9,140,000 is a 46% increase compared to the number which had marked the record high at the same timing last year.  The number of Chinese tourists,who are of the top number, hasincrease by 2.2 times compared to the number last year at the same timing.   Shigeto Kubo, the Commissioner of Japan Tourism Agency gave comment that the total number of  foreign tourists to Japan in the end of this year 2015 would have reached about 18,000,000.

 

Summer plants examination fair for the Tokyo Olympics

An examination fair to rate and select excellent summer  plants was held at a metropolitan park in Koto ward  Tokyo on Jul.24. This fair was to choose good plants or flowers in respect  of beauty and perservarnce to survive in  vivacity in a hot mid summer time as a part of preparation for the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games 2020.

About 200 types of plants were exhibited and examined, which had been grown by producing companies or horticulturists including cultivar improved ones.  The fair will have been held until September three times in total to decide excellent plants which are to decorate places around the Olympics venues and areas along the marathon courses in the big events in five years.

 

Tokyo Olympics’ and Paralympics’ official emblems

The officilal emblems of the upcoming  Tokyo Olympic Games and Paralympic Games 2020 were released by The Tokyo Organizing Committee of  the Olympic and paralympic Games at a special huge eventatteded by many people and athletic celebrities held at the front square of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office Building in Tokyo on Jul 24, which was just the date to five years for start of the Tokyo olympic Games 2020.

 

The emblems were chosen out of 104 candidates in the design contest for this purpose. The Olympics’ emblem uses “T” form as its basic design, which symbolizes “Tokyo”, “Team”, and “Tomorrow”,while the Paralympics’ is based on a degin of “E” form,which symbolizes “Equal”. The embles will be used for related events, memorial goods,  sign borads,and so forth from now on for the  upcoming world biggest events in five years.

Rino Sashihara regaining the No.1 postion at the AKB48 general election

The 7th “general Election of AKB48” was held at “Fukuoka Yafuoku! Dome ” in Fukuoka City , Fukuoka pref. on the Jun.6th. (http://www.akb48.co.jp/)

 

Totally 272 members of  AKB48 and its sister groups(SKE48,NMB48,HKT48 and some members from JKT48,SNH48,NGT48, and Nogizaka46) ran for the election and the Selected Members for the new single CD(1st-16th), the Under Girls(17th-32nd), the Next Girls(33rd-48th),the Future Girls(49th-64th),the Upcoming Girls(65th-80th) were announed out of 272 candidate members of the groups.  Rhie election event now draws attention of not only fans of the groups but also mass nationwide and the course was broadcast live at CXTV.   Rino Sashihara, a memeber of Team H of HKT48 won the No.1  for the first time in two years and regained the “queen’s throne” of the event.  Yuki Kashiwagi, a member of Team B of AKB48 rated the second, and  Mayu Watanabe, a member of Team B of  AKB48  who was the No.1 winner of the event last year got the third and could not get the first position in a row.

The Selected members are as followes;  1: Rino Sashihara(194,049 votes,TeamH of HKT48), 2: Yuki Kashiwagi(167,183 votes,TeamB of AKB48 & NGT48), 3: Mayu Watanabe(165,789 votes, TeamB of AKB48), 4: Minami Takahashi(137,252 votes, TeamA of AKB48), 5: Jyurina Matsui(105,289 votes,TeamS of SKE48 & TeamK of AKB48), 6: Sayaka Yamamoto(97,866 votes,TeamN of NMB48 & TeamK of AKB48), 7: Sakura Miyawaki(81,422 votes, TeamKⅣof HKT48 & TeamA of AKB48), 8: Sae Miyazawa(75,495 votes, TeamSⅡ of SNH48 & Team S of SKE48), 9: Haruka Shimazaki(73,803 votes,TeamA of AKB48),  10: Yui Yokoyama(63,414 votes, TeamA of AKB48),  11: Rie Kitahara(61,566 votes, NGT48), 12: Miyuki Watanabe(55,715 votes, TeamBⅡof NMB48  & TeamB of AKB48), 13: Kaori Matsumura(53,667  votes, TeamKⅡof SKE48) , 14: Akane Takayanagi (52,609 votes, TeamKⅡ of SKE48 ) ,  15: Aya Shibata(49,199 votes, TeamE of SKE48), and 16: Tomu Muto(44,637 votes, TeamK of AKB48).

 

“Blood Blockade battlefront” Character store opens at Tokyo station

A temporary character goods store, or a “chara-pop store” of “Blood Blockade battlefront”(/血界戦線, Kekkai Sensen), a popular manga and anime work will open Jun.16-Jul.31st on the B1 floor in “Tokyo Eki Ichibangai(Tokyo Station First Street)” , the biggest station basement shopping arcade zone of Tokyo.(http://kekkaisensen.com/)

 

This manga and anime work is a fantasy about an imaginary world where the human world and and a fantasy world exist together and describing stories of a secret order.  To the work, such a chara-pop store is the first one and is going to sell relating goods to the work. The store will prepare wagons at selling stages and also provide special lottery services whose special goods are available only there.

LAOX SHINJUKU Main Store Opening

Laox, a major home electric appliance tore chain opened a new store in Shinjuku, Tokyo on Jun.6th. (http://www.laox.co.jp/)(http://www.laox.co.jp/en/)

The new store is located on 3,4,and 5th floor of JTB Shinjuku Kyodo Building  near Shinjuku Station, which is the busiest commercial area in Tokyo. The store space is about 2140 ㎡ and the management expects mainly Chinese and Islamic tourists for huge shopping visits.

The store provides wide range of goods, such as PCs, TVs, watches, cosmetics, video games, goceries and so forth. The opening cerempony was held on the opening day and a famous Taiwanese actor, Lin Chi-ling  turned  up and did promotion of the new store, saying, Laox chain is a well-known and popular duty free and home electric appliance chain even in China. She showed  a Chinese character calligraphy, “美 ”（/beauty）.

Tokyo Governor announces launching “Omotenashi Tokyo”

Masuzoe Tokyo Governor hosted a regular press conference at the Tokyo metropolitan Government and announced the government launched a plan of volunteer city guide services called “Omotenashi Tokyo” to help foreign visitors to Tokyo as a part of special services in preparation for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics in 2020 on this May 29th. (http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/index.htm)

Masuzoe also introduced and showed the blue uniform of  Omotenashi Tokyo, the volunteer city guide groups.  He told he had impressed by the Korean volunteer guides’ warm services he had received during his stay in Soul, Korea. The Korean volunteer guides wore red uniforms and now he has chosen “blue” ones for the Tokyo guide groups, expressing the similar hospitality of the volunteer guides.  He says  he expects the new system’s volunteer guides will be a good help speaking foreign laungages for foreign tourists to Tokyo.   Omotenashi Tokyo will start its services on Jun. 19 at Shinjuku station West Exit area and area of Ueno station, with about 1,000 enrolled member guides who are housewives, students and others that meet conditions such as a ceratain English proficiency. The services hours are 11:00-17:00 on Friday,Saturday,and Sunday and services will expand to 10 venue areas withen 5 years.

Meat Festival in Tokyo 2015 Spring

The second “Niku- Fesu”(/Meat Festival) in Tokyo is being held April 24-29, May 1-6 at Komazawa Park and May 1-10 at Toyosuna Park in front of AEON Mall Makuhari. (http://nikufes.jp/)

At the two venues in Komazawa Park and Toyosuna Park, various meat dishes from all over the world are introduced,promoted, and sold. A lot of shops are there and supported by world’s embassies and other associations which could be a “meat world expo”. the host Food Nation has a purpose of promoting cultures through foods and started the meat festival last year, which was so successful with 290,000 and 420,000 visitors to the events.  Visitors can enjoy variety of meat dishes and enjoy food cultures of the world.

The first Tokyo My Matsuri at Ueno park

The first Tokyo My Matsuri was held April.25-26 at Ueno park, which is quite famous as one of the best sites to appreciate beautiful cherryblossoms in spring in Tokyo. (http://tokyo-dance.jp/yousu)

This was a dancing festival and competitions of children’ dance teams supported by educational organizations and local commericial associations. About 50 teams joined the event and two teams of “SAKADO WINDS” and “dancecompanyREIKA組” won grandprix.  I wass there on the 26th and ate some food at  stall shops in the venue, The atmosphere there was quite lively and a lot of people were enjoying the festival. The second Matsuri is going to be held in Shinjuku on Oct.3-4.

Hokuriku Shinkansen finally launched operation on Mar.14th

Hokuriku Shinkansen (The North-central Bullet Trains ) grand opened its full service (Tokyo-Kanazawa)on this Mar.14th. (http://hokuriku-w7.com/about/)

Hokuriku Bullet Trains started  its operation partially just between  Takasaki and Nagano in 1997 and  Tokyo-Takasaki (Tohoku Shinkansen) and Takasaki-Nagano(Nagano Shinkansen) became  a part of Hokuriku so that the line Toky0-Nagano began as “Nagano Shinkansen”, which is a part of the planned total line of  Hokuriku line.  However, this time Takasaki-Joetsumyoukou-Kanazawa line opened on the 14th and the “full line”(Takasaki-Kanazawa 117 km plus  the existant Tokyo-Takasaki line). Another bullet train line between Kanazawa and Atsuga is also planned to be opened in 2023 to be a part of the Hokuriku line.

Now due to the launch of the new line, it has come to take only 2 hours and half  ,while it used to take  about 4 hours including  transferrings.  Since this new convenience of  shortening time,  Kanazawa, which is the capital of Ishikawa Pref, and is a traditional city of  traditional cultures and history, now is even more popular among tourists.  To tell the truth, I used this new Hokuriku Bullet Train line from Tokyo to Kanazawa just  one week  after its grand opening. The new Shinkansen “Kagayaki”(/ a Shine)  was quite comfortable and other passengers seemed so happy and enjoying the trip as well.   Though I had been to Kanazawa many times, this time visiting the city by Hokuriku Shinkansen was a fresh and exciting experience.  Kanazawa is full of attractions with historical sites and tangible and intangible cultural things, such as Kenrokuen garden, The 21 Century Museum, gold leaves, Wajima-nuri, Kutani-yaki porceline ,and others and  seemed quite lively and full of energy with the new attentions by the sightseers or visitors. I hope  the attractions there will be recognized even more and more popular.