Day 5 of University Graduation Trip, Digimon Tour of Tokyo on May 4, 2017
Fifth day of our graduation trip in Japan.
The friends that were staying in the same apartment with me in Tokyo all expressed that they weren't very much into Japanese animations. After some brief discussions we found that our common ground was only "Digimon Adventure", so we decided to carry out a "Digimon Tour" of Hikarigaoka and Odaiba.
The images in this post are hosted on Imgur. Email me should there be any display problems.
Since this is a public post, usual components of graduation trip such as poker games, pillow fights, ghost stories won't be part of the post. Since we were casual visitors, our Digimon Tour was also half sightseeing, so we didn't store in our cell phones for frame-by-frame reference. So the angles of our photo may be different from the ones in the animation.
So in the morning we took the metro to Hikarigaoka Station. Hikarigaoka happened to be the terminal station of Oedo Metro line.
Hikarigaoka
Hikarigaoka didn't appear quite often in "Digimon Adventure", it's mainly in the first movie (Birth of Koromon) and season 2.
Since it's Japanese golden week, there were some festival party going on at Hikarigaoka Park, one of them is this Mongolian Sumo. After watching them for five minutes, my friends and I came to the conclusion that it's team briefs versus team trouser.
In summary, Hikarigaoka was a lively residential community, as we were surrounded by locals enjoying their holiday, no tourists. Cars passing by were all astound that we were enthusiastically taking photos of a certain road post.
After leaving Hikarigaoka we headed for Odaiba, which included a ride on the picturesque Yurikamome train. Most of the real-world stories of Digimon Adventure 1 happened in Odaiba. Due to the presence of major companies, shopping and entertainment complexes, this aftificial island is becoming one of the major sightseeing sites in Tokyo.
Odaiba
A pedestrian cable-stayed bridge.
It was a festive day at Odaiba, as the Promenade Park was filled with visitors and vendors alike.
The cars on display were mostly of Toyota's unassuming eco-friendly line, the only thing slightly more exciting was this sporty police car.
I hadn't tried out any Ferris wheel so I was quite keen on this one at Odaiba (in Digimon Adventure Tri the protagonists spent five minutes chatting in these Ferris wheel carriages), but the lines were stretched and it's not early in the day, so decided to carry out our Digimon Tour without that.
シーリア前 Intersection
The image of which was frequently seen in Digimon Adventure 1.
It was all festival going on at Odaiba Beach, with a national beach volleyball contest going on.
After comparing the rather mainstream apartment of Yagami Taichi and the apartment of Izzy Izumi with front sea view, which quite corresponded to the setting of Izzy Izumi in the animation as a well-off boy.
Fuji TV Station
This place should witness more battles in Digimon Adventure than anywhere else, its image should be in the mind of every Digimon audience. In Digimon Adventure 1 it's the headquarter of Vamdemon.
At Fuji TV we found that we could visit the observatory located in that globe, and ticket was rather affordable, so why not?
Quite good greenings on its exterior wall.
There were quite some people visiting Fuji TV Building that day, and it was hot in these escalators with glass cover.
The latest animation characters (that I never heard of)
The latest animation characters (that I never heard of)
Usually crawl cranes were for dolls, it's the first time that I saw the ingenious Japanese people invented one for garage kits.
And downtown Tokyo in the background.
After that we checked out the Statue of Liberty at Odaiba.
100 years after the French Revolution, United States sent a smaller Statue of Liberty to France as a return gift. During the Japan's "French Year" of that smaller statue was borrowed by the Japanese and put on display in Odaiba. After that, the Japanese government requested to construct a copy of that statue, which was granted. The copy statue was finished in 2000 and put on display here at Odaiba.
After that, we figure out that we still have time to visit "Tokyo Big Sight", another site that frequently appeared in the Digimon Series, so we were on the picturesque Yurikamome train again.
Side of Odaiba Ferris Wheel in the background.
Tokyo Big Sight
In Digimon Adventure 1, this is where men for Vamdemon kept the kids that they captured; in Digimon Adventure Tri, this is where the protagonists were suck into a different dimension.
It's already 5pmn in the afternoon, and my friends and I reserved restaurant seats near our apartments at Shinjuku at 6pm for a party dinner, so we headed back.
Summary of Odaiba Digimon Tour
First, there are two references that I used about this tour (in Chinese)
http://blog.roodo.com/just_like/archives/9285699.html
http://blog.roodo.com/just_like/archives/9285773.html
And since we were casual visitors, we won't be going frame by frame to find exact angle or every location in the animation that's also in the real world, like the terminal station of Yurikamome Line Shinbashi Station, bus signs under Odaiba viaduct, but we covered most of the scenes in the animation, and we were pretty pleased with that.
Shinjuku Kabukicho
Only cinemas in Japan would put such a giant model of Godzilla on its walls.
A rather deceptive design.
That's my last visit to a convenience store in Tokyo for some cold drinks, and I ended up with such a deceptive smoothie, which I will end my day on.
END