Misakubo Matsuri: Chin-Spot Heaven

I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to take part in a local festival in Misakubo town, Shizuoka — dressed as AKB48. Every year, the residents of sleepy Misakubo join forces to put on a show so breathtaking it whips the pretentious sparkly knickers off the likes of the X-factor and Strictly Come Dancing. Five teams (of grown adults) spend weeks preparing for the day by making elaborate, mind-blowingly imaginative backdrops/stages from scratch, and devising a series of skits to be performed by the members of the team. The teams then battle it out in front of three sets of judges until a winner is chosen. The sheer naff-ness of it all had me weeping tears of joy, and by the end of the evening I felt I had found my place in the world, as part of a huge family of chin-spot loving weirdos.

Heso (bully button) Festival

One of my B-spot missions whilst living in Japan was to visit the Heso (belly button) Matsuri (festival) in Furano city, Hokkaido. This dream of mine came true last July when I made the long trek up north to the very centre (or belly button, if you will) of Hokkaido to witness this jolly parade of drunken (and portly) tomfoolery. Furano is known predominantly for its beautifully vivid lavender which blooms in early summer. I managed to distract my beating heart for a few hours in the flower fields before dusk fell, but what I longed to see were topless fat men with massive, grinning caricatures painted on their almost-pregnant bellies. The evening epitomised everything wonderful about Japanese festivals — a local and extremely friendly atmosphere, beer flowing freely to the sound of an old lady warbling post-war songs through a crackly sound system, and an eye-poppingly spectacular parade. I was convinced that I had found the most fantastically bizarre festival in Japan. And I had… almost.

Kagaya

Kagaya is more well-known than your run-of-the-mill B-spots. This is most likely thanks to its insane but strangely charming owner and entertainer, a man who goes by the name of Mark (despite being Japanese). Ostensibly, it is a totally unremarkable izakaya (restaurant/pub), that is, until you receive the menus and Mark’s outrageous slapstick performance begins. The menus are scrawled in crayon in children’s school exercise books, but there are only three courses to choose from: a light snack, a moderately sized meal, or an I-want-to-give-birth-to-a-food-baby all out feast. When you order, you must pick a country–the food and drinks will be served in the ‘style’ of the country you choose. Not quite sure whether Marky boy has ever been abroad, given that Brazil involved him storming into the room wearing an octopus hat and flailing uncontrollably. I can only assume this was meant to be the Samba. There is also a hilarious and painful (in equal measure) finale with some sexually repressed frogs. All the while, his mother who prepares the food in the kitchen shakes her head and looks on in disbelief.

Tobu World Square

Tobu World Square is a miniature world, somewhere near Kinugawa onsen in Tochigi prefecture. With only the pyramids and a nondescript desert hosting a handful of animals representing Africa, it’s not exactly a convincing replica. My friends and I went there during Golden Week (a series of public holidays in Japan) and to our surprise, the park was full of ‘chinpira’ men (gaudy tracksuits, slicked-back hair, jewellery) taking their girlfriends out on a date. Boy do those chinpiras know the way to a girl’s heart! Happily, I can confirm that Tobu World Square is one chin-spot（珍スポット）which is still alive and kicking!

Pyramid Onsen and Other Oddities

Nasu is a hotbed for downright wacky places. At the zenith of the pyramid of wackiness is….. a pyramid onsen hotel. This place is b-spot gold, quite literally. The owner is some new-age old-age pensioner who used to make chips for mobile phones but has now found his calling in life and “invented” the pyramid onsen to attract spacey power from the sky. The place is crammed with tacky Egyptian-looking sculptures and other random tat, which of course adds to its brilliance. We were guided up to the “Power Space” at the top of the pyramid — a luxury which would normally set you back 800 yen but for some reason he wanted to treat us. Mr. Pyramid hit the lights and the room was transformed into a mini planetarium (sort of) with a huge gold rock standing in the middle. He lay on the ground and started to meditate. It was at this point when I began to wonder whether we would have to get naked. Luckily for us, we didn’t, but left feeling confused and ill at ease. My favourite part about the whole experience was wearing pyramid-patterned yukata. A subtle marriage of Japanese culture and b-spot wackiness.

A taxi ride later and we were exploring the other delights on offer in Nasu — a war museum, a massive gold statue, a massive blue statue, and so on. There are still so many places I have to visit, including a creepy mask shop and “SL Land”, a theme park for grown ups with some tenuous connection to steam locomotives (I believe that is what SL stands for, but could be wildly inaccurate).

Visit Nasu! Go on!

 

Robot Restaurant

I am very late posting this. I actually went to the notorious Robot Restaurant in September last year. It was, predictably, one the best nights of my life. I won’t bother to give a lengthy explanation of the place, as I think the pictures speak for themselves. (There was an English recording at the start of the performance attempting to give some semblance of a narrative explaining why women on dinosaurs had to fight gyrating robots, but I don’t remember the details.) The place is like something straight out of the bubble era and I only wish I could have come to Japan twenty years earlier. Happily, the Robot Restaurant reconfirmed my belief that Tokyo is the best city in the world.

Frog Sumo

Issa Matsuri is held every November at Entenji temple in east Tokyo. The main event is a haiku contest in which local junior high school students participate. I came purely for the fringe event; a surreal sumo competition with wrestlers dressed up as frogs. The festival itself was named after Kobayashi Issa, a famous haiku poet who composed a haiku poem about a frog at Entenji temple. Well, that explains–not much. Anyway, I didn’t try to understand it, I simply basked in its unabashed brilliance.

Crying Sumo

One of Japan’s many strange and amusing traditions is known as “crying sumo”. Perhaps somewhat of a shocking concept to the average western reader, this “competition” involves real sumo wrestlers holding up babies and making them cry. Only baby boys can participate, the idea being that the more they cry, the stronger they will become. Although it was rather baffling to see so many parents beaming with glee at the sight of their little ones balling their eyes out, I appreciate the fact that parents are not as overprotective in Japan. Who knows, perhaps I witnessed one of Japan’s future emperors in the making!

Hinomaruken (日の丸軒)

When reading about Hinomaruken prior to my first visit, I managed to misread a kanji character and thought the restaurant specialised in medieval Eurasian food. Disappointingly, I later found out that medieval was actually mid-level. A strange choice of adjective to use when promoting one’s own restaurant, especially when the food is excellent and not outrageously priced. Despite not being medieval, the restaurant exudes a wonderfully surreal atmosphere, and its chef Pepe Andre is a real-life member of the Adams family. Some of the culinary highlights included tomato and octopus dip, lamb skewers and bright green croquettes. A real must for any adventurous diner in Tokyo!

Space Village (宇宙村)

Space Village is a shop of sorts, it sells all kind of junk including stuffed tanuki and space stickers which apparently bring the bearer good luck. However, its real purpose is to trick simple folk into buying meteorites for exorbitant prices. The largest ‘meteorite’ (it glowed from the inside when space grampa flicked a switch) was going for a cool 300 million yen. I wanted to point out that if such a beast were to have struck the earth at some point, we would likely all have been crushed to within an inch of our lives. I didn’t though, I just stared, mesmerised by it all.