{"id":7474,"date":"2014-11-07T23:21:15","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T14:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/?p=7474"},"modified":"2015-01-26T16:03:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T07:03:31","slug":"halloween-in-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2014\/11\/07\/halloween-in-tokyo\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween in Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"

In about ten years, Halloween in Japan has gone from a small foreigner-oriented Roppongi event, to a massive country-wide phenomenon. As far as Western holidays go, there are\u00a0worse ones to import:\u00a0any chance to dress up in silly outfits and go party it up with friendly strangers is good to take (the whole kids&candy part hasn’t really made it with the rest).<\/p>\n

This year’s 31st being a Friday, helped reach unseen level of costumed\u00a0street craziness<\/a>\u00a0in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Taking the title over skeevy\u00a0Roppongi, Shibuya has now become a much bigger epicentre for Halloween revelry: I had never seen that many people in the streets there. Not during the World Cup, not during New Year’s Eve1<\/a><\/sup>To be fair, only very clueless\u00a0foreigners still regularly show up there, clinging to the hope that there will\u00a0be a countdown party.<\/span>, not ever.<\/p>\n

Crowd was mainly Japanese, costumes were the usual declinations of sex, blood and cute cartoon characters. Usually all at the same time: from zombie sexy snow-white, to blood-drenched sexy teddy-bear. If originality was not always at its peak, the amount of effort (\/money) put into it was undeniable.\u00a0The bar-counter sociologists would have also noted a huge preponderance of group costumes.<\/p>\n

\"ClockworkFor once, yours truly did put some efforts\u00a0into that costume thing. The end result surpassed our expectations, mainly thanks to the magic of Internet shopping and Japan’s mind-blowingly fast delivery services.<\/p>\n

We were expecting little recognition from the average Japanese Halloween partier (hell, even from the average mid-twenties Westerner), but figured the outfits would look weird enough as a group to make for a good costume anyway…<\/p>\n

In fact, not only does Clockwork Orange has its fans amongst young hip Tokyoites, but the ones that are into it\u00a0are really<\/em> into it. Which lead to an uninterrupted stream of young Japanese devotchkas\u00a0in various goth-y outfits stopping us, proffering their love for \u6642\u8a08\u3058\u304b\u3051\u306e\u30aa\u30ec\u30f3\u30b8<\/a> with much shrieking and asking for group pictures. You know you’ve been in Japan too long when you don’t bat a (long) eyelash at repeated mentions\u00a0that\u00a0Alex\u00a0is sooo\u00a0kawaii<\/em>. Because nothing says cute, like\u00a0cod-piece-wearing sociopathic rapist-murderers.<\/p>\n

I expect there are now\u00a0hundreds of pictures floating out there, featuring smily blood-drenched Japanese girls surrounded by creepily-dressed foreigners in\u00a0vaguely threatening (and increasingly lewd as the night went on) poses. Which I realise sounds like the exact description of a Roppongi club on a Saturday night, but was actually a lot more wholesome (and fun) than that.<\/p>\n

After spending most of the evening\u00a0in\u00a0the streets (and street-side caf\u00e9s) of Shibuya, the late-night clubbing at Trump Room<\/a> nearly felt dull\u00a0by comparison: dark confined spaces probably aren’t the best place for watching cool costumes. But what wouldn’t a true droog do to dance on\u00a0some Ludvig van, or whatever closest musical approximation they can find.<\/p>\n