Doraemon

We admittedly don't let our son watch very much television.  He's too busy playing and doing.  Despite the lack of TV in his life, he still knows a lot of popular TV characters.  He probably learns about them from friends at school and at the park.  I might know a Japanese TV character's name, but I certainly can't tell you what they do.  My son has details for lots of characters, even when he's never seen the show.

One beloved TV character in Japan is a large blue robotic cat named Doraemon.  Doraemon (door-eye-ya-mon) was originally featured in manga, a Japanese comic book, in 1969.  He then starred in a televised cartoon in the 1970s, before building an empire including television, movies, and merchandise galore.  Doraemon is arguably one of the most famous and beloved faces in Japan.

I honestly have never watched a single episode of his show or one of his movies.  Yet, he lives in my house.  We have a Doraemon game and several toys.  He is also featured in some of my son's educational workbooks. 

So, when I saw there was a Doraemon festival near my husband's office, I decided to take my son.

All around Roppongi Hills were 4 foot tall Doraemon statues.  My son and his buddy that came with us, jumped around at each sighting, excited to see the huge cat.  At first I couldn't believe how many people were there to see the festivities.  But then I remembered that this is Japan - a land of obsessive people.  They don't just love things a little bit here - it's all or nothing.

Everywhere I looked, people were wearing their Doraemon t-shirts, backpacks, and other trademarked garb.  Not only did they come to see all the fun exhibits, they dressed for the occasion.  We've always joked about my husband always having "official" shirts for everything - while camping, he wears a shirt with deer on it; while playing board games, he wears a Twister game shirt; and so forth.  I thought it was his thing.  Turns out, it is part of his cultural identity.  Everyone seems to do it here.

After wandering around Roppongi Hills, we walked over to Asahi TV station where the big draw was located.  My husband had purchased tickets for us to enter the TV station for an interactive Doraemon event.  The crowds were thick as people participated in various games around the lobby floor.  My son played a swimming video game where he competed against other kids by waving his arms wildly, trying to get from one side of the pool to the other.  There were lots of other things as well, but many were not geared for my son, telling me Doraemon is beloved by all ages, not just young kids. 

Even though our tickets gave us a specific entrance time to the interactive exhibit, it was actually a get in line time.  We got in line at the indicated time and proceeded to wait for almost 45 minutes to actually enter the exhibit.  Inside, we were all given iPads.  We used them as part of a treasure hunt, looking for popular things from the show and taking a photo of them to collect points.  The room was so well decorated, you really felt like you were in Doraemon's world looking for his stuff.  My son really liked it, but was frustrated when he couldn't find one of the items in the time allotted.  As we left, my friend laughed "almost an hour of waiting for 3 minutes of fun!" 

We then went outside to enjoy some amazing kakigori, shaved ice.  We purchased tickets from a vending machine for our flavor of choice.  The ticket then told us which booth to go to (1 of 4) to pick up our treat.  The system worked really well.  Despite the crowds, we had our passionfruit mango shaved ice in record time.

We thought we had seen it all.  And at that point, we were quite impressed with how much there was to see and do.  But then we saw you could go the roof of the television station for more.  Up we went and were delighted to see tons of physical activities for kids to participate in.  My son loved jumping on the trampolines, running a race while trying to avoid hazards, and acting like a maniac in a ball room with huge fans that made the balls dart all over the place. 

There were lots and lots of other things to do as well.  Even though we were there for 4 hours, we didn't even do half of the stuff there.  Some of it wasn't age or size appropriate (didn't meet minimum height requirements), and some just wasn't interesting to me.  But for those 4 hours, we were very entertained by a character we only really know by name. 


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For those daily readers - please note we'll be on vacation for a couple days.  I'll be back with a full report!  :)