Here’s the entrance to Takeshita Street, Harajuku in Tokyo. It’s across the street from the trainstation.
Photography
Linnea Quigley at Horror-Rama Toronto
Linnea Quigley (NIght of the Demons, Return of the Living Dead) during her panel at Horror-Rama Toronto 2018.
Photographing the Robot Restaurant, Shinjuku, Japan
The Robot Restaurant, located in Tokyo’s red light district and nestled between numerous massage and pachinko parlours has become one of the top tourist destinations for foreigners visiting the city. If you’ve looked up ‘Things to Do in Tokyo,’ you’ve no doubt seen the pictures; likely because the restaurant encourages photography (but prohibits video).
After buying a ticket across the street, you head into the restaurant’s ridiculously ornate bar to watch the warm-up acts.
You are then led down to a sub-sub-sub basement where the stage is located.
The show consists of a series of skits and dance numbers in which the cast wears colourful costumes that draw a lot of inspiration from Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Apparently, Robot Restaurant began with more sexy / burlesque type numbers, but it has cleaned up its act in recent years for the tourist market.
The skits are broken up by short intermissions where they draw for prizes based on seat number as well as sell drinks and souvenirs.
For my visit to the Robot Restaurant, I brought my Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II and the 25mm f/1.2 Pro lens. Since the lighting quality is spotty and there’s a lot of fast movement, I opted for Shutter Priority Mode and set it to 1/250 s.
Shutter Priority (the S on the mode dial) lets you choose the shutter speed you want, and then has the camera adjust the aperture and ISO to get the best results.
Shutter speed is the amount of time that the shutter stays open to allow light into the image sensor. If the shutter speed is too slow, the subject might move while the shutter is still open, which will cause motion blur.
The downside of a fast shutter speed is that it lets less light in, which can make the picture darker. To compensate for this, the camera will adjust the Aperture (the size of the opening that light travels through), and the ISO (the image sensor’s sensitivity to light).
The camera kept the lens at its maximum aperture, f/1.2, and set the ISO to 1600.
The E-M1 Mark II performs well, even at that ISO setting. The pictures turned out sharp, and it did a good job of preserving the many and varied colours.
The biggest problem I ran into was that the room was relatively small, and the seats were close to the stage. Having a wider angle lens would have helped to capture more of the scene, though the lower maximum aperture in Olympus’s wide angle lenses would have created other problems.
It’s a cool show, and well worth seeing. We didn’t try the food (and didn’t hear anything good about it) but there are plenty of great restaurants in the area. (And despite by talk about this being the red light district, it’s actually a safe area; as long as you ignore the people trying to call you into a back alley bar. (Pro tip : Legitimate establishments don’t need people to drag in customers).
Hanazono Shrine at Night
Hanazono Shrine, Shinjuku.
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 25mm f/1.2
Local Comic Book Shop Wednesday – L.A. Mood
As a comic store, L.A. Mood is pretty light. There’s a limited selection of graphic novels and comics in the back.
The store is more concerned with gaming, particularly Magic the Gathering. I can’t speak to it’s selection on that front, as games aren’t really my thing. But the store seems like a great place to go if you like Magic, it frequently holds tournaments and events for the game.
Website: http://lamoodcomics.ca/
Address: 350 Richmond St, London, ON
Alley in London Ontario
An alleyway in London, Ontario
Local Comic Book Shop Wednesday – Heroes
Heroes is an awesome store. First, it’s really big. It’s thin, but really long (that’s what she said). Plus it has a second floor. It’s quite possibly the biggest comic store I’ve ever been to (bigger than Paradise Comics, or Beguiling). Its manga selection is fairly light, but for mainstream comics, it has a bit of everything; and a wide assortment of toys, too.
But what makes the store truly special is its huge selection of discount books. The entire length of the store is lined with comic boxes filled with 50% off books; that’s in addition to the whole second floor devoted to the same (along with piles of books for $3.99). It’s the only store that can rival BMV for deals.
Website: http://www.heroescomics.ca/
Address: 186 Dundas St, London, ON
Groundhog
A groundhog at the University of Waterloo.
Local Comic Book Shop Wednesday – J & J Cards & Collectibles
It’s a bit of a cheat to call J & J a comic book store. All they have in the way of comics is a couple long boxes on the floor of one aisle with some single issues and old trades. But if you like the other stuff that comic books stores sell, namely toys and board games, you might find something here. Board games in particular seem to be their specialty. They have a really impressive selection and pretty good pricing.
I like that they gave the outside the facade of a castle, along with a cartoonish blue and red paint job – it certainly lets you know what you’ll find inside.
Website: http://shop.jjcards.com/
Address:230 Weber St N, Waterloo, ON
Woman with Umbrella
This was shot just outside Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, Japan
Legends of the Silk Road Come to Light at the CNE
A new display at this year’s CNE, ‘Legends of the Silk Road Come to Light.’
Fort George
Squirrel Girl
I don’t actually know if this on is a girl.
Local Comic Book Shop Wednesday – Conspiracy Comics
Conspiracy Comics is Burlington’s premiere comic book store. It’s the one I went to all through high school (it being one of the only sources of anime and manga around at the time). The store managed to outlive all its competition and now, around 20 years later, it’s not only still standing, it has even expanded to four locations.
The store keeps a wide selection of comics, trades and manga, along with toys, anime, and merchandise (though the non-books are fairly expensive). It’s a dependable store for new releases.
Website: http://conspiracycomics.com/
Address: 2388 Fairview St, Burlington, ON
Live Action Mario Kart in Akihabara
One of the fun activities you can do in Japan’s geek district, Akihabara. I’m not sure if it’s actually legal; and I doubt the drivers and pedestrians are fans.
