Think of the craziest show you’ve ever seen and then multiply it by a million. You will have something halfway close to the insanity that is the Robot Restaurant in Tokyo. Firstly, a disclaimer: this is not a show that draws on some ancient Japanese culture. It is purely for entertaining tourists. If you’re happy to join the ranks of Australian and American tourists who are out for a night of joyous calamity that embraces the quirky kawaii of comic book culture, this is the thing for you. If you want zen gardens and authentic ancient samurai swords, move along.
Robot Restaurant is situated in the heart of Kabukicho – a suburb of Shinjuku known for its bright lights, pachinko parlous and host/hostess bars. It is essentially a night life district but far safer and cleaner than Kings Cross or equivalent districts in other nations. It is easily accessible and only a short walk from Shinjuku station. You will need to pre-book your tickets online and collect them from the ticket counter opposite the restaurant around half an hour before the show begins. Don’t worry if you’re discombobulated by the bright lights and loud music, there are plenty of staff wandering the street, ready to point you in the right direction.
Once you have collected your ticket, you will proceed to the restaurant entrance, go down some stairs decorated in a style that seems like (trucker hat designer) threw up his most audacious designs and enter a waiting room decked out in a mix of porn star’s boudoir and Liberacci.
Here you can cash in your free drink ticket and relax in a luxuriously cushioned nautilus shell
and be serenaded by a pop singer and her band of musical robots. I’m not kidding.
Then comes the show itself. I can only really describe it as one of the most joyously neon lighted robotic nights of my life. The show is filled with crazily kawaii dressed dancers that twirl and flip and scream HAH! At what seem to be random intervals, then, when it couldn’t get any more random of crazy, the robots enter. The dances and robots seem to change from season to season but the theme and quality seems to remain the same.
There will be a sweet robot dancing number, a fight to the death involving pretty Japanese girls and robotic dinosaurs or similar giant creatures, and an upbeat dance and song number to round out the show. A short interval punctuates the brain overload and gives you a little bit of time to catch your breath (and purchase quite outrageously priced food/souvenirs) but really, the show is all colour, all loud, all of the time.
At the end, I had huge sequin envy, huge neon envy and seriously considered trying to learn to dance so that I could join the ranks cast members who seemed to be having the times of their lives. Have you been? Did you enjoy it? Could you understand what on earth was going on? Leave me a comment!
