The Epic Shibuya Cosplay Tour (Part 2: Even more locations)
Part 1: Six overenthusiastic cosplayers take on Shibuya
As I mentioned in passing in the first post, pinneagig and I got to go back to Shibuya on the last day of our trip (in costume, though sadly sans the rest of the group) on a mission to track down some more of the in-game locations we hadn't had time to get to first time through, and, in required cosplay-tourist fashion, take photos of ourselves in front of them.
Station underpass
First up, on account of us arriving by train, was the station underpass. One thing the game will not tell you is that the real thing is cardboard box city, and does not much give the impression that any of the people under there had anywhere else to go. We didn't venture any further in.
Pork City
Not far out from the station was 'Pork City', called 'Mark City'. This actually came as a minor disappointment given that by that stage of the trip we'd passed a couple of outlets of a chain store called 'Park City', so of course that was what we'd been expecting 'Pork' to turn out to be. Either way, it went without saying we had to get a shot of Sho in front of this one.
By the time you get to the Scramble Crossing, there were landmarks all over the place.
Here they are all labeled, in case you're wondering if you missed any. The Center Street Entrance is right below HMV too, if you look carefully.
AMX
Here's a closer view of one of them, the AMX/HMV store.
Shibu Department Store
The twisty route we took through the suburb meant we didn't actually spot the Seibu Department Store until we were on our way back, though it was in view from the Scramble all along.
Cadoi City
The real equivalent of Cadoi city was an outlet of a common chain store called Marui City. This is not all that obvious until someone explains that maru = circle in Japanese, so the name on the side of the building is supposed to be interpreted as "circle + I = maru + I = marui". Unaware of this as we were for most of the trip, and common as Marui City outlets had been, we'd been happily calling them all 'OiOi'. The one native any of us got around to telling about this apparently laughed herself stupid, and will never be able to look at the chain the same way again.
Molco
The real 'Molco' is a place called 'Parco' in suspiciously similar font. Despite the indisputable fact Japan practically runs on mobile phones these days, there really were phone booths all along the street leading up to it, so naturally we picked one at what looked like the right location for the 'phone booth of love' in the game.
(Fun fact: I twice tried phoning our Neku cosplayer from there, but she didn't pick up. Alas, perhaps it was simply not meant to be. Mostly we figure Sho's just ordering a pizza. Probably with exactly 2.236 pieces of peperoni and olives arranged in a fractal pattern.)
Tower Records
The similarities between 'Tower Records' and 'Towa Records' was pretty stunning even by the standards of the rest of the game.
Naturally, we stepped inside to buy the WEWY soundtrack while we were there. ;)
Tin Pin Arcade
While it was less obvious than many places we passed, it seemed like a good guess that this was the real equivalent of the game centre. Also, given the name, it seemed kind of appropriate to photograph Joshua in front of it too.
Shibu-Q Heads
The real equivalent of 'Shibu-Q Heads' was 'Tokyu Hands' (note how both so cleverly take a location - Shibuya or Tokyo - replace the end with 'Q' sound and tack on a body part! If only all legal complications could be so easily avoided!) One of our party who'd previously spent a year on Japan on exchange assures me that in real life, its merchandise is just as random and confusing.
Udagawa
The last post featured plenty of pics of the Udagawa mural, but since I made the point that the real thing looked enough like it did in the game to be spotted at a distance, here's a couple more photos looking up and down the stairs leading up there.
Miyashita Park Underpass
One of the bigger disappointments was getting to the underpass to discover that if all that funky graffiti ever existed there in the real world, it must have been well and thoroughly painted over between the day the game developers saw it and when we got there (especially given that Udogawa had been accurate right down to the paper stuck to the railings and the locations of the shops on both sides). The shape and position of the windows in both sides were still very distinctive though.
And on the other side, we stopped, looked around a couple of times and immediately found ourselves thinking, “Huh. Looks like we just reached Cat Street.”
Cat Street
Note especially the symbols on the road, and the fact we've hit one of very few areas in Japan with real street trees. Nice area, very appropriate that it contains what seems like one of the few safe-havens in the game.
Miyashita Park
Miyashita park was about the size of a tennis court, but it had some genuine greenery which did make a nice change from the urban jungle around it.
The next photo shows little better how this area all fits together in the real world. Note: underpass, running along the start of the area you should recognise as Cat Street, with Miyashita Park greenery surrounding the bridge overhead.
The view from the overpass also gave us another place where several game landmarks were all visible at once.
And again with everything labeled.
"All this SHALL BE MINE!!!"
Finally, a few extra photos we took along the way. Not from any particular location we managed to identify, just a few more spots we liked the look of when we passed them.
Next: Fun with paper dolls, plus a few miscellaneous shots taken in other locations.
As I mentioned in passing in the first post, pinneagig and I got to go back to Shibuya on the last day of our trip (in costume, though sadly sans the rest of the group) on a mission to track down some more of the in-game locations we hadn't had time to get to first time through, and, in required cosplay-tourist fashion, take photos of ourselves in front of them.
Station underpass
First up, on account of us arriving by train, was the station underpass. One thing the game will not tell you is that the real thing is cardboard box city, and does not much give the impression that any of the people under there had anywhere else to go. We didn't venture any further in.
Pork City
Not far out from the station was 'Pork City', called 'Mark City'. This actually came as a minor disappointment given that by that stage of the trip we'd passed a couple of outlets of a chain store called 'Park City', so of course that was what we'd been expecting 'Pork' to turn out to be. Either way, it went without saying we had to get a shot of Sho in front of this one.
By the time you get to the Scramble Crossing, there were landmarks all over the place.
Here they are all labeled, in case you're wondering if you missed any. The Center Street Entrance is right below HMV too, if you look carefully.
AMX
Here's a closer view of one of them, the AMX/HMV store.
Shibu Department Store
The twisty route we took through the suburb meant we didn't actually spot the Seibu Department Store until we were on our way back, though it was in view from the Scramble all along.
Cadoi City
The real equivalent of Cadoi city was an outlet of a common chain store called Marui City. This is not all that obvious until someone explains that maru = circle in Japanese, so the name on the side of the building is supposed to be interpreted as "circle + I = maru + I = marui". Unaware of this as we were for most of the trip, and common as Marui City outlets had been, we'd been happily calling them all 'OiOi'. The one native any of us got around to telling about this apparently laughed herself stupid, and will never be able to look at the chain the same way again.
Molco
The real 'Molco' is a place called 'Parco' in suspiciously similar font. Despite the indisputable fact Japan practically runs on mobile phones these days, there really were phone booths all along the street leading up to it, so naturally we picked one at what looked like the right location for the 'phone booth of love' in the game.
(Fun fact: I twice tried phoning our Neku cosplayer from there, but she didn't pick up. Alas, perhaps it was simply not meant to be. Mostly we figure Sho's just ordering a pizza. Probably with exactly 2.236 pieces of peperoni and olives arranged in a fractal pattern.)
Tower Records
The similarities between 'Tower Records' and 'Towa Records' was pretty stunning even by the standards of the rest of the game.
Naturally, we stepped inside to buy the WEWY soundtrack while we were there. ;)
Tin Pin Arcade
While it was less obvious than many places we passed, it seemed like a good guess that this was the real equivalent of the game centre. Also, given the name, it seemed kind of appropriate to photograph Joshua in front of it too.
Shibu-Q Heads
The real equivalent of 'Shibu-Q Heads' was 'Tokyu Hands' (note how both so cleverly take a location - Shibuya or Tokyo - replace the end with 'Q' sound and tack on a body part! If only all legal complications could be so easily avoided!) One of our party who'd previously spent a year on Japan on exchange assures me that in real life, its merchandise is just as random and confusing.
Udagawa
The last post featured plenty of pics of the Udagawa mural, but since I made the point that the real thing looked enough like it did in the game to be spotted at a distance, here's a couple more photos looking up and down the stairs leading up there.
Miyashita Park Underpass
One of the bigger disappointments was getting to the underpass to discover that if all that funky graffiti ever existed there in the real world, it must have been well and thoroughly painted over between the day the game developers saw it and when we got there (especially given that Udogawa had been accurate right down to the paper stuck to the railings and the locations of the shops on both sides). The shape and position of the windows in both sides were still very distinctive though.
And on the other side, we stopped, looked around a couple of times and immediately found ourselves thinking, “Huh. Looks like we just reached Cat Street.”
Cat Street
Note especially the symbols on the road, and the fact we've hit one of very few areas in Japan with real street trees. Nice area, very appropriate that it contains what seems like one of the few safe-havens in the game.
Miyashita Park
Miyashita park was about the size of a tennis court, but it had some genuine greenery which did make a nice change from the urban jungle around it.
The next photo shows little better how this area all fits together in the real world. Note: underpass, running along the start of the area you should recognise as Cat Street, with Miyashita Park greenery surrounding the bridge overhead.
The view from the overpass also gave us another place where several game landmarks were all visible at once.
And again with everything labeled.
"All this SHALL BE MINE!!!"
Finally, a few extra photos we took along the way. Not from any particular location we managed to identify, just a few more spots we liked the look of when we passed them.
Next: Fun with paper dolls, plus a few miscellaneous shots taken in other locations.