Tokyo Midtown 5th Anniversary

The last few weeks have been exceptionally rainy here in Tokyo and while passing Tokyo Midtown the other day in pouring rain I saw these decorations outside the Tokyo Midtown main tower in Roppongi. It’s a bit late to take part in the celebrations but there might still be a few events going on into late May!

Roppongi Itasha

Walking in Roppongi I saw these two gloriously decorated cars parked on the side of the road just outside Tokyo Midtown. Itasha, the practice of anime fans to decorate their cars with the favorite anime series has been going on for quite some time but it’s always fun to see them in the wild! An Audi and an Alfa Romeo, fun thing is, both parked outside the Roppongi Mercedes dealership. I love how the owners of these cars are so fantastically devoted to their favorite shows that they would decorate a multi-million yen sports car like this. Both of the owners were standing near the cars when I stopped to snap these but they didn’t mind at all. Must be getting used to the cameras by now!

Mercedes-Benz Electric Anime Cars

Visiting the Mercedes-Benz showroom in Tokyo’s Roppongi district (just opposite of Tokyo Midtown) I saw these two electric anime decorated cars! Not what you’d expect from MB perhaps, but pretty cool. I’m all for electric cars, especially in a city like Tokyo. I believe that the anime on the cars is the Madoka Magica (まどかマギカ) which seems to be everywhere right now. I don’t know anything about it but if you are a fan you might want to rush over and have a look! They have a pretty swanky cafe as well, for those who like having their coffee within arms reach of multi-million yen machinery.

Scrap Metal Fossil – Kuroudo Tsuji

At the annual combined graduation exhibition of the five major art universities in and around Tokyo, I saw this awesome scrap metal fossil, by a soon to be graduate of Musashino Art University (武蔵野美術大学, Musashino Bijutsu Daigaku, MAU), Mr Kuroudo Tsuji (辻蔵人). It’s hard to be an impartial critic when seeing something like this, as my childhood memories of hours spent over books on robots and dinosaurs and even the robot dinosaur toys – Zoids! I didn’t catch the title of this work of art, but I think it speaks for itself. If Mr Tsuji ever creates anything like this again I’ll be first in line to check it out. Oh, and speaking of dinosaurs, maybe you remember the toy dinosaur from a couple of years ago?