Review of the Robot Restaurant
"Are you ready for more crazy robot show?" the Eastern European hostess asked the crowed during intermission to get us hyped. There has been some intrigue among Western travelers in relation to the show at Tokyo's Robot Restaurant. Anthony Bourdain apparently remarked that his feeling upon viewing the hyper neon sensory explosion of the show must be how Eric Clapton felt upon hearing Jimi Hendrix's music for the first time. This writer, however, would strive for a more nuanced description.
I visited the show with my friend Dave, who happened to be passing through Tokyo, while Christine stayed at the airbnb with Bobby; he's not yet ready for flashing lights and loud music. Maybe in college you can get a strobe light and a Jimi Hendrix album, Bobby.
The reviews on TripAdvisor call the show hilarious and unique. Before I visited, I thought maybe the show would be mocking of Japanese culture. I mean, some Westerners may have the idea that modern Japanese culture is just all about robots, flashing lights, anime cartoons, and strange phenomenon that Western people don't readily comprehend. Would this crazy robot show just perpetuate that stereotype?
The most surprising feature of the show was the low-tech nature of the performance. The "robots" were most often just highly-decorated stages for dancers. Some of the stages were pushed onto the floor by humans, some were pushed by electric motors controlled by humans with remote controls. Indeed, the show would more properly be called a cabaret show than a robot show because it mostly featured dancers, albeit dancers with some "crazy" props. During the intermissions and before the curtain came up, hostesses were selling beer and popcorn. Despite this supposedly being a "restaurant," few were eating much more than popcorn.
I found the show to actually be consistent, in some form, with the arc of Japanese culture, if maybe catering toward Western people who want to be shocked and amazed at a "crazy" spectacle. The dancers wore costumes hinting at superhuman characters from manga comics. Indeed, the show may be considered a live action manga dancing spectacular. The first act featured taiko drumming, a traditional form of Japanese percussion. The drummers were dressed in fierce costumes, aggressively hammering large drums in unison, with measures punctuated by shouts, again in unison. The second act featured a story about a tribe of machines invading a land of dinosaurs; the dinos won eventually, I think. The third act featured dancers performing impersonations of Michael Jackson dance moves to a medley of his popular songs; the dancers were head to tow in black, with even their faces covered, but holding glow sticks. In this act, there were also humans dancing in robot costumes, and I believe this was the closest we got to actual robots. The walls were covered in flat screen televisions with various neon scenes blasting forth.
While the show's marketing is aimed at foreigners and promises "craziness," we can see some actual aspects of Japanese culture, old and new. These include the taiko drumming and the drummers' costumes, which referenced manga, anime, dragons, and tokusatsu (kitschy movie special effects, such as in Godzilla). So in the end, I didn't feel so much like we were making fun of Japanese culture, rather than experiencing some modern and popularized form of it. However, a fan of manga or anime may have appreciated the show more than me.
I visited the show with my friend Dave, who happened to be passing through Tokyo, while Christine stayed at the airbnb with Bobby; he's not yet ready for flashing lights and loud music. Maybe in college you can get a strobe light and a Jimi Hendrix album, Bobby.
The reviews on TripAdvisor call the show hilarious and unique. Before I visited, I thought maybe the show would be mocking of Japanese culture. I mean, some Westerners may have the idea that modern Japanese culture is just all about robots, flashing lights, anime cartoons, and strange phenomenon that Western people don't readily comprehend. Would this crazy robot show just perpetuate that stereotype?
The most surprising feature of the show was the low-tech nature of the performance. The "robots" were most often just highly-decorated stages for dancers. Some of the stages were pushed onto the floor by humans, some were pushed by electric motors controlled by humans with remote controls. Indeed, the show would more properly be called a cabaret show than a robot show because it mostly featured dancers, albeit dancers with some "crazy" props. During the intermissions and before the curtain came up, hostesses were selling beer and popcorn. Despite this supposedly being a "restaurant," few were eating much more than popcorn.
I found the show to actually be consistent, in some form, with the arc of Japanese culture, if maybe catering toward Western people who want to be shocked and amazed at a "crazy" spectacle. The dancers wore costumes hinting at superhuman characters from manga comics. Indeed, the show may be considered a live action manga dancing spectacular. The first act featured taiko drumming, a traditional form of Japanese percussion. The drummers were dressed in fierce costumes, aggressively hammering large drums in unison, with measures punctuated by shouts, again in unison. The second act featured a story about a tribe of machines invading a land of dinosaurs; the dinos won eventually, I think. The third act featured dancers performing impersonations of Michael Jackson dance moves to a medley of his popular songs; the dancers were head to tow in black, with even their faces covered, but holding glow sticks. In this act, there were also humans dancing in robot costumes, and I believe this was the closest we got to actual robots. The walls were covered in flat screen televisions with various neon scenes blasting forth.
While the show's marketing is aimed at foreigners and promises "craziness," we can see some actual aspects of Japanese culture, old and new. These include the taiko drumming and the drummers' costumes, which referenced manga, anime, dragons, and tokusatsu (kitschy movie special effects, such as in Godzilla). So in the end, I didn't feel so much like we were making fun of Japanese culture, rather than experiencing some modern and popularized form of it. However, a fan of manga or anime may have appreciated the show more than me.
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