This afternoon I dropped by Soshigaya-Okura, otherwise known as Ultraman Town, to shake hands with the man himself. Since the last time I was in the Ultraman Shopping Street there seems to be more Ultraman stuff. Now they play the Ultraman theme on the train platform. It’s the only station on the Odakyu line that plays a platform theme song. JR Stations have different tunes at each station but the private train lines don’t usually have them. These large posters were all over the station welcoming people to the area.
A few more posters, these seems to be permanent fixtures. And these huge banners hung over the platform. The town is really exploiting their Ultraman heritage to bring visitors to the area.
It seems to have worked since there was a huge line of people, mostly children, lined up to shake hands with the 3 Ultramen. They were only available for 20 minutes so a staff member was literally pushing people past. No one really had anytime to take a decent photo with Ultraman.
Then at the end they did the Ultraman pose and disappeared behind a Family Mart to change their clothes and have a smoke.
I got an Ultraman candy when I bought a manju from the Shotengai. Cool.
So cool.
Thanks to your blog I too made a visit to Soshigaya-Okura during my first visit to Japan about a week ago. I went on a Sunday morning and there were hardly anyone out on the streets.
That’s great to hear!
Heh, “Ultramanjū”… Kind of reminds me of “Tonosamanjū”.
Roy, I really enjoy your blog. The layout, topics and your eye for photography.
Have you ever visited Suginami-Ku off the Koenji stop? I went there to find TurboSonic a shop that refurbish and sell old boom boxes. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the neighborhood has various stores that sold second hand stuff. Also went in a store where a guy that makes very nice jewerly out of silver. Wish I could remember the name of his shop.