TGC and More: Part 1 – Life in the Land of Slow Moving Typhoon (post 1/2)
I had barely recovered from the “porno summer” when it was already time to head back to Tokyo for Laputa Asagaya’s 32 movie TGC program (more about that later), which was jam packed with Pinky Violence, female yakuza and lady karate films. I actually wanted to drop by in August already, but that being the hottest Japanese summer vacation season the flight prices were off the charts, so I had to settle for two September trips.
This was actually a joint trip with my wife. I‘d been eyeing a chance to bring her to Tokyo for movies and more, and figured this was as good a timing as any. Due to our differing work schedules she’d fly there ahead of me and I’d follow later.
And then there was the damn typhoon.
Day 0: Saturday
With 1500 km / 900 miles between you and a typhoon, you’d think you’re safe. It was the notorious "Typhoon Shanshan" that was supposed to reach Tokyo and even Hokkaido by the end of August - just when we travel - but didn't, because it was for some reason moving at snail speed. Little good did that do. I only learned later that this beast had the power the turn the entire country’s weather system upside down, no matter how far it was. So I wake up with all trains cancelled because part of the railroad is flooding. Getting to work was a pain in the ass. Getting to the airport after work went just fine, but my late evening flight was delayed 45 min due to late arrival. And that was a massive issue in a country where public transport pretty much shuts down at night. How am I going to get from Narita Airport to Tokyo's Ueno, where our hotel was? That’s 65 km / 40 miles. With the flight expected to land after 11 P.M. I knew it would be too late for the last airport train (at 23:11). I knew I’d stand a slight chance of catching the last bus (at 23:20) if I ran like hell. Which I did, and arrived one minute early. The only problem was that the bus would go to Tokyo St., not Ueno. I had already mentally prepared for a one hour walk from Tokyo St. to Ueno (done it before, but not in the rain, and not at 1 A.M.), but surprisingly enough the bus reached its destination early and I managed to catch the last Yamanote train to Ueno at 0:38!
Day 1: Sunday
Solo day today as wife went to the Mickey Mouse Land with a friend, and I headed to
Laputa for their
TGC Tatakau Girl’s Collection (“Fighting Girls Collection”) retrospective (that’s a reference to the fashion event “Tokyo Girl’s Collection”, something I would never have gotten had the wife not pointed out the obvious). It’s too bad I couldn’t drop by in August already when they screened tons of good stuff, like the first two Crimson Bat movies from Shochiku, the first two Rising Dragon films from Nikkatsu (I’ve seen the first, not the second, neither have ever been released on video), Kanto Woman Scoundel (also never been released on video) from Daiei, the 2nd, 4th and 5th Girl Boss movies from Toei, and more.
Sadly the massive billboard they used to have on top is gone. It was missing during the Roman Porno retrospective, and still is. Cost cutting?
My first film in the retrospective was
Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (1970), which was playing for a near full house (zero women in the attendance, however). To be honest this isn’t a particularly great picture, which some sloppy filmmaking and miscast Akiko Wada in the lead, however, it does come with tons of early 70s pop culture relevance that makes it a fun watch. Decent enough print, but blacks looked a little weak. Oddly enough I’ve now seen all the odd numbered Stray Cats in 35mm (Sex Hunter twice), but none of the even ones. I recall part 4 being my favourite in the series, though I haven’t seen it since it aired on Finnish TV about 15 years ago.
Besides Stray Cat Rock, I was also considering killing time by seeing the new Ryan Gosling movie Fall Guy in some Toho multiplex, but decided my time would be better spent if I went to see the
world’s biggest projection mapping at Shinjuku instead. I’d been keen on seeing the
Godzilla / Attack on Tokyo projection they do only on weekends. Sadly, it was cancelled due to the typhoon even though the weather was perfectly fine. I didn’t realized this until I arrived at the site. At which time it was also too late for a movie. Damn. No Godzilla. No Gosling. Damn.
Day 2: Monday
This was a bit of a dramatic day, and the reason why this report comes so late. I wasn’t quite sure how to put this in words, or if I should type it down in the first place. But fear not, there’s a happy end to it. And I don’t think there are more than two or three people reading these reports anyway. Also, I’ve still got a few paragraphs to get through before the drama starts.
So my wife is back from her Disneyland adventures and it’s time for our shared program. First up was
teamLab Planets, the highly popular interactive digital art museum where
“the boundary between the body and the artwork dissolves”. Cool place, with massive Interstellar vibes, and easily worth the admission. Just look at the photos.
Our plan for the rest of the day was to head to Higashi Nakano for ramen, and then continue to Laputa for Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom and Sex and Fury, before ending the day with a night view of the Sensoji temple in Asakusa. But as my wife was very curious to learn about the following day’s “secret program”, I went ahead and spilled the beans early. Which, at first, didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped.
This had been a long term project that, unbeknownst to her, had been put into motion already a few months earlier when I insisted that we watch all the Magic Mike films! Which she greatly enjoyed, but was probably left a bit puzzled as to why I wanted to watch them (actually I’d always been slightly curious to see them). And we even followed that with The Full Monty! Had to stop there as I couldn’t think of any more male stripper movies!
I’m not sure how much good that mental preparation did, but when I told her that next day we’d be heading to Tokyo’s legendary (female) strip theatre
Asakusa Rock-za, her smile became a bit forced and nervous. I could tell she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea and all its connotations, including the fact that I’ve been there before. But I wouldn’t have included this in our program had I not been fairly confident that it would work out in the end. But I also didn’t want to talk about it in advance, because (to quote one of the Magic Mike films) some things just can’t be explained. And yet I tried to do just that. I should not have.
As it was obvious neither one of us has the mood for movies anymore, we decided to switch program dates and get Asakusa out of the way today, and leave the movies for Tuesday. That actually turned out to be a winning idea anyway, as the weather was too good for movies, and that also freed time for Nezu Shrine (originally scheduled for Tuesday, when it would be raining).
So fast forward past Nezu to 6 P.M. and we are in front of Asakusa Rock-za, the legendary strip theatre that has been in operation since the 1940s (and I should emphasize it's a
theatre, not a club or bar. You sit down for a 2 hour show and the lights go off). Though the industry itself is in a sad decline, Asakusa Rock-za has only been gaining in popularity in the recent years. If you want to secure one of the theatre’s 129 seats on weekends or holidays, it’s recommended to arrive 30 min before the show (which start at 14:00, 16:10, 18:20, and 20:30). I’ve seen a line of 100 people forming up in front of the place on holidays before the 1st show. And recently even on weekdays they are selling out up to three of the day's four shows.
Do not pay too much attention to the poster; for some reason the dancers always look more beautiful in real than in the poster
The reason for this popularity is that the show is freaking amazing. If you read some Google reviews you’ll start to understand why this place as a 4.4/5 average rating (would be higher if not for a handful of negative reviews for the “rude” staff, though I never had any issue, and I can see some of those complaints come from idiots who were talking during the show and were offended when staff came to tell them to stop disturbing the show). Similar sentiments are echoed in almost every review:
“amazing spectacle”,
“must be experienced at least once in lifetime”,
“this will remove all your prejudices about striptease”,
“this is art, not pornography”,
“if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought I walked into a crazy dance party”, and
“whatever you were expecting, you’ll be surprised” (not direct quotations, just from my memory). Just ignore the sumo restaurant reviews that dumb foreigners keep posting accidentally under Asakusa Rock-za in Google Reviews because it’s located in the same building and they don’t seem to know where they went.
“The food was great and the show is family friendly” is my favourite comment, though!
I visited Asakusa Rock-za for the first time last year (you may have spotted some intentionally obscure references in my earlier reports) and was blown away. I’d been aware of this place for nearly a decade (though I didn’t know its former female president had convinced her close friend Takeshi Kitano to make
Zatoichi, so there’s movie trivia for you!), but like everyone else I though it must be something dirty and suspicious. For me, and for countless other people as I later learned, it was Nanami Matsumoto who eventually managed to lure me in for the first and unexpectedly totally not the last time. Turned out Matsumoto’s famous assets were the least interesting thing about the show, which is closer to a musical than any sleazy strip joint you may be imagining. The fact that it’s increasingly popular with women, who come to see the show alone or with female friends, should be telling. Of course most customers are men, and this place is still in the progress of being discovered by wider mainstream audiences, but it’s definitely turning into a trend. The most I have count was 27 women in the audience (which is 27 more than in many movie screenings I catch in Laputa). It’s much more about the incredible dance performances, fantastic costumes, and music and lights, than nudity. And even when they lose their clothes at the end, it's is more of art, or celebration of the beauty of human body, than anything else.
Two of my favourite dancers: Haruka Omi (left) and Swan Shiratori (right) in "Steps on Broadway" which I saw earlier this year
It’s a 1 hour 40 min show with a 10 minute break in the middle. The entire show is themed (e.g. "Steps on Broadway", where each performance was based on a famous Broadway musical, or "Earth Beat", where each performance introduces a dance style from a different culture ), and each performance is scripted accordingly to tell a story. There are seven dancers who all perform their own roughly 10 minute segment. The first half of each dancer’s segment is typically group number with anything from one to ten supporting dancers on stage (in addition to the seven main dancers, the theatre has four supporting, non-strip dancers at their disposal). It’s followed by their solo part, during which clothes eventually go missing. The show goes on for 20 days with the same cast, and is repeated with a new cast for another 20 days once or twice before an entirely new show is launched.
On my earlier visits I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Spectators literally moved to tears (including me) when witnessing former ballerina Swan Shiratori perform Les Miserables. Audience absolutely losing it with a bat shit crazy 80’s rock music / work out video pastiche performance starring my favourite dancer Haruka Omi. Shizuku Hanai exiting the stage after her Flashdance performance (where she danced to both “What a Feeling” and “Maniac”) by doing nude cartwheels. And I nearly peed in my pants when I realized that the familiar sounding music during Ryo Akanishi’s performance was the theme from La Califfa, composed by Ennio Morricone. Which raises the question, who on earth is their dance choreographer and producer?
Haruka Omi in "Breath" which I caught earlier this year
Speaking of which, though I know next to nothing about the industry, I know that this is one of the major things setting Asakusa Rock-za apart from other places: they have a dance choreographer who creates the show, and the dancers take 10 days of intensive lessons before their show stars. Another thing is that they have a costume designer who creates up to a 180 new costumes every year (there have been calls for her to hold an exhibition of her past creations.
This interview with her and Shiratori, who btw reveals she likes to buy additional dance costumes from Sayuri Ichijo’s shop (yes, THAT Sayuri Ichijo! Nikkatsu fans should know!) actually works as a good introduction to Rock-za).
Needless to say the production values are relatively fantastic, as are the music selections which range from Morricone to Robbie Williams and Irene Cara. There are plenty of customers – including most women I’d assume – who go there not at all for the nudity, but despite of it. Of course you still get the occasional" long neck" in the audience - as my wife billed the front row pervert whose neck seemed to grow longer everyone a dancer's pants came off - but perhaps they shouldn't be blamed: it is a trip show after all. Or shall I put it this way: Asakusa Rock-za is to strip theatres what Roman Porno was to Pink films. And I'm not talking about Katsuhiko Fujii films here. I'm talking about Tanaka, Kumashiro, Somai.
One more thing I should mention about the dancers is that they seem to be having an absolute blast doing these performances, and that enthusiasm really comes through to the audience, too. What’s also nice is that most of them seem to be best friends with each other. It’s quite fun to follow them on Twitter and see them hang out together on their free days, or snap photos backstage with other dancers who came to visit them during their performances. I couldn’t help but to laugh when Shitarori and Konoha Chihiro were posting pictures from Disneyland together! They all seem super supportive of each other, everyone’s referring to each other as little or big sisters, and frequently go see each other’s shows to show support and to learn from each others. This is the polar opposite of that piece of shit Paul Verhoeven film. Of course I cannot know everything that goes on behind closed doors, but the positivity and sisterhood on the girls' private twitter accounts is overwhelming. And yet in society’s eyes these girls are looked down on, moralized or seen as victims. As dancers no one expects them to be any good, yet they deliver an amazing show, and that’s why I think they deserve all the support and sympathy they can get.
Sept. 1-20 show: "Earth Beat - World Dance Review" dancers in group photo after samba finale
From left top: Nonoka, Marika Fujisaki, Love Saotome, Sara
From left bottom: Shizuku Hanai, Maaya Irita, Nagi Mamiya
So how did it go down with my wife? Well, it ended in tears… of happiness. She absolutely loved the show, and even wrote a fan message addressed to two of the dancers, Nonoka and Shizuku Hanai, telling them that they were amazing, the show was incredible, and that she’s going to come again to see the show all the way from Hokkaido! My wife has been dancing since she was five years old (with clothes on, I should add) as a hobby, and still performs every year at her home town’s biggest dance festival, so that’s some big praise coming from her. Anyway, after the show we headed to an izakaya, spent an hour talking about the performance, and booked me a flight for November so that I can take her there again when she’s on a business trip in Tokyo. She could go alone, I told her, but I want to come see the show also!
End of part 1. Next I will talk about movies, in case anyone still cares.
10 years ago I called him a "miserable over-actor". Now I fly to Tokyo just to see him in a bargain budget porno 
