Kaylyn and Josh Touch Down in Japan (11-18-2023)
On November 17th, Josh and I got on our plane to Narita. We started our day bright and early. We'd hired a cat sitter for our two cats, drove to the long-term parking facility, and rode the parking shuttle to LAX. I gotta say, some technology for travel purpose has greatly improved the speed and convenience of things over the years. Getting checked in and having luggage checked ahead of time makes getting into the airport a breeze now, even if LAX is otherwise kind of a nightmare.
I'd purchased TSA Pre-check a few months back, but Josh had to go through normal security. Shockingly, normal security wasn't even especially heavy that morning. TSA Pre-check is pretty sweet because you don't have to unload your bags of all your electronics or take off your jacket and shoes. But the thought crossed my mind that, if airport security is that easy for TSA Pre-check, then there's genuinely no reason why we should have normal security the way we've grown to know it over the last 22 years. We now pay for the same convenience we used to have over two decades ago. There's literally no point. The only thing you still can't do is have friends and family walk all the way up to your gate with you, which I guess is probably the least of my concerns when it comes to the changes in airport security. Either way, rejoining Josh didn't even actually take all that much time, and we were off to our gate.
Waiting at our gate and watching the other boarding groups board the plane ahead of us, Josh shook my shoulder and said, "Kaylyn, look! Does that look like Kota Ibushi to you?" Sure enough, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the person I was looking at was very likely NJPW pro-wrestler Kota Ibushi, who had just performed in an AEW match in Los Angeles a couple of days prior, seeming to board the same plane as us, probably somewhere in business class. It was hard to hide his wrestler physique, even while wearing a long-sleeved shirt.
The flight itself wasn't awful. It's about as comfortable as you could have expected out of economy seating. I'm surprised Josh and I got assigned seats together at all, since this was a flight where we couldn't pick our seats. We had an aisle and a middle seat. We found ourselves sitting next to a late middle-aged, maybe early senior woman. I didn't foresee a lot of issues, aside from knowing that if she ever needed to get up to use the restroom we'd both have to move out of her way. But there were some things about her that were just kinda odd. She muttered to herself a lot. She couldn't sit still or pick an activity to stick with for any length of time. She'd start trying to watch an in-flight movie and then switch to a book, which she'd only get about a paragraph through before trying to dig through her bag, then poking around on the headrest screen and seeming very agitated and confused about how to make anything work. She figured out how to dim the window tint (a cool new feature on this plane that dims the window rather than using blinds to prevent outside light), but then she got confused about how to un-dim the window again, even though it was literally the only button right next to the dimmer. She ordered Sprite and wine, then asked for yet another Sprite, then had multiple drinks on her drink tray and couldn't keep them from nearly sliding off, so she kept performing this weird balancing, juggling act trying to keep them all up. She finally conked out after a while and started snoring. But after 11 out of our 12 hours in the air, she woke up, had breakfast (she chose the eggs--NEVER choose the eggs on an international flight!), and then found herself feeling immensely ill. She went to the restroom, but came back seemingly even more ill than when she left. We were just minutes from touchdown, and I swear, I thought she wasn't gonna make it. She was leaning up against the wall of the plane with a pillow between the wall and her head, trying her best to keep it together and making uncomfortable noises the whole way down. I'm shocked we made it to the ground without her upchucking.
Well, we made it to Japan, at least! I'd seen photos from other people, but Nintendo has plastered Narita's immigration gates with "Welcome to Japan" signs featuring the cast of Super Mario Bros. Immigration wasn't too bad. Having done a QR code registration before getting there made coming in pretty easy. Somehow, I didn't have a QR code for Josh, though. I must have just misplaced that code. But still, getting his info filled out wasn't that bad.
The efficiency of Google Maps to get around Japanese train systems has also vastly improved since last I was here. It was useful the last time I used it, but now it's extremely reliable. I used to spend ages studying maps of the Tokyo Metro and JR lines, but now Google Maps does so much of the work for me, I spend much less time thinking and worrying about how I'm going to connect from point A to point B. With that and the Suica cards we'd ordered before leaving on our trip, tapping into the gates and hopping on a train has never been easier in my whole life.
From the airport, there are plenty of transportation routes we could have picked. But we are cheapos, so we just took the normal commuter trains. There are other faster lines to get from Narita into Tokyo proper, but we weren't especially in a rush, and I like spending less money.
We spent our first night in Kabukicho, in Shinjuku, Tokyo. My memories jumped back to when I was studying Japanese in school and had a teacher that insisted we never go into Kabukicho. But honestly, if you keep your wits about you, there's not a lot to be worried about. Is it the red light district? Sure, and there's lots of host/hostess clubs and bars. But if you're just going where you need to go, there's not much to worry about.
It was pretty crazy how easy the streets were to navigate based solely on how much time we've spent playing the games in the Yakuza franchise. Several in-game locations are very clearly based on real-world locations, right down to where they're really located in reality. The area's not all that big, all things considered, and was very easy to explore. We stayed at the APA Shinjuku Kabukicho Tower, a hotel located in a large town square. In the Yakuza games, it's the location of a club known as Debolah/New Debolah, and eventually in Judgment even becomes a hotel that looks exactly like the APA hotel.
One activity Josh and I did on a whim was actually finding out a movie we had been dying to see was still screening at local theaters and going to see it. For those who don't know, Josh and I run a weekly podcast called "MokkoriPlay: A City Hunter Podcast", where we discuss an episode of the City Hunter anime every week. A new City Hunter film called "City Hunter: Angel Dust" had release about two months ago. We were pretty convinced that there was no way they were still going to have showings of this movie by the time we made it out here, but as luck would have it, it was still showing! We went inside the Toho Cinema building (the same movie theater with the giant Godzilla head on top of the building) and went to a kiosk inside to buy tickets. A very easy process, all things considered. It's interesting, this is my fifth trip to Japan, but this is the first time I've ever actually seen a film in a Japanese theater. I was a little curious about the Japanese concessions, but ultimately decided I wasn't gonna stress myself out about picking something. They were, however, selling various movie goods, including a "City Hunter: Angel Dust" program guide. Josh bought one and was very happy about it. He also was low-key cosplaying as the main character Ryo Saeba, so it was pretty perfect.
Outside our screen was a digital poster for the movie. A lady was taking pictures of the poster, which was something I wanted to do, too. But, well, the lady just wouldn't stop taking pictures of it! She clicked shots again, and again, and again, over and over and over. I have no idea how many she took before she finally stopped. It was actually getting kind of absurd. I don't know how many pictures you need to take of a movie poster to make sure you get the perfect one. It was kinda funny, but I was no longer willing to wait to get my own picture, so Josh and I took our seats.
Watching Japanese pre-show for movies is really interesting. I guess it's not all that different from America pre-shows, all things considered. Advertisements, the theater telling you to buy their concessions, etc. One thing I was especially excited for was finally getting to see the It's-Illegal-To-Film-The-Movie-Screen mascot. If you haven't ever seen him before, it's the guy with a video camera for a head, being chased around and arrested by a mascot with an emergency vehicle light for a head. Our specific advertisement featured the camera mascot doing parkour to escape the cops, then getting caught by an entire sentai team of emergency-vehicle-for-a-head guys.
"City Hunter: Angel Dust" itself was great, especially if you know a lot about the history of City Hunter itself already. I feel like describing the whole movie here would be counter-intuitive for this blog. Obviously, when we come back from our trip, Josh and I will discuss it more for our podcast. On top of that, the movie is already being developed for English North American distribution, rumored to be happening in January. I suppose we could have waited to see it either subbed or dubbed at that point in time, but it was too good of an opportunity for us to not take it.
I was already aware that Japanese theater audiences are very quiet and polite. That was certainly true in our screening. But, man, it's still weird to sit there and witness it for yourself. In moments where we really wanted to laugh, or even gasp in shock, there was absolutely nobody else giving any sort of a visceral, emotional reaction to anything. I was lucky enough to be sitting next to an older guy who seemed to know and appreciate exactly what City Hunter was. He was kind of having to do everything in his power to stifle laughter when he found something to be funny, and he was nodding his head slightly along with the music when an old classic song from the TV series would pop up. God bless that guy. He just wants to openly enjoy his movie.
We were really, really tired after the movie was over, but we still had one more task we wanted to do before wrapping up. We didn't get super detailed shots, but we brought our camera out and started taking video of a walking tour of Kabukicho to compare it to the in-game locations of Kamurocho in the Yakuza franchise. During our walk, we seem to have stumbled direcly past popular YouTuber, Sora The Troll, who was in the middle of doing a livestream to his audience in Kabukicho right at that very moment. We didn't stop him or say hello or anything, but it was kind of crazy that we saw him out there in the real world at all, just kind of on accident.
Not much left to say about the day. But I'll say this much. Although Kabukucho has had a reputation for being full of actual members of the yakuza at one point, that's really not the case anymore. Honestly? You have to be more worried about the other foreigners around you deciding to take advantage of the location to do crazy shit. And, without elaborating too much more, long story short, uh, yeah, just kinda keep your head on a swivel and be mindful of the people around you. You'll be safe if you're smart enough. But some people? Some people are just looking to start trouble, even if you aren't doing anything wrong. There's people like that everywhere, though. Just do the best you can.
That's it for now! I'll check in again when I can. Off to finish off another good day.
