One of the must-see places in Japan for us (well at least for Pauline) was Sanrio Puroland, home of all things Hello Kitty and etc. Puroland is a 40 minute subway ride from the west end of Tokyo and a 5 minute walk from the subway station. I thought it would be a Wonderland/Disney World-type park but actually it’s just one large warehouse! Admission was about $45pp for an all-attractions pass which is pretty expensive for such a small place. Right?

Puroland was as expected, filled with kids of all ages – some more adult than others and lots of images of Hello Kitty, Cinnamon Roll (and her friends Mocha, Espresso, Ciffron, Milk), and other now-second tier Sanrio characters (Keroppi, Batz Maru, etc). There were a couple of furries around, but they were usually swarmed by kids looking for a picture. There were a couple of rides: a boat ride/tea party, a motion ride featuring some Bandai characters (I guess from the boys who have to accompany their sister to Puroland); and a bunch of shows. That’s where things completely fell off the wheel.

The shows were short plays featuring Sanrio characters, usually centered around song and dance numbers. The furries didn’t dance, but there were lots of other Japanese girls in not-very-clothed-costumes dancing! The perverted thing was that the first row was right up to the stage, in upskirt territory. Here’s a video of one of the song & dance numbers:

The coolest thing happened before Puroland closed down, most of the kids had left but the last show of the evening was something called Top the Tops. It started out with two pre-hosts going on enthusiastically for about 10 minutes (in Japanese), then the over-the-top host coming out to yell for another 10 minutes (in Japanese). It was crazy, we had no idea what was going on, and what I would expect one of those weird Japanese game shows to be like. The show was a bit like Electric Circus, where there was a mingling period in which the audience could dance along with the show’s dancers – and where certain audience members were picked to dance in the next round. These audience members then went, one-by-one, on stage to dance in front of everyone to win some Sanrio-related prizes. I don’t think this sort of public embarrassement would fly in North America!

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: japan, travelling