Manga Tour Day 5: Harajuku and Nippon Animation

Ah, we're more than halfway through our Pop Japan Travel journey through manga-land, but Day 5 marks our last full day in Tokyo. Today's stops include Harajuku and a visit to the studios of Nippon Animation to meet anime art director Nizo Yamamoto.

It is, for the fifth straight day, rainy and cloudy. On the bright side, it has cooled off the hot summer weather a bit. However, it is still oppressively humid. As I walk past fashionably dressed and impeccably coiffed girls in Harajuku, I find myself wondering how they manage to look so immaculate when I constantly feel wilted. It's also a weekday, so it's not as packed with high school girls or frilly Lolitas.

While the rest of the group goes off to the Meiji Shrine, I head straight to Takeshita-dori, a busy warren of youth culture and frantic fashion. I didn't take too many pictures here, mostly because at almost every shop, there's big signs saying "NO PHOTO!!" -- some go so far as to tell would-be photographers to ehf-off. I wanted to take a photo of just the signs, but don't know enough Japanese to explain myself to an angry shop clerk, so I opt not to. Instead, I get a photo of the Crepe Girls 2008, which I guess is some kind of honor on this street.

Next, a stroll through LaForet, which is kind of a mini designer mall / department store. They're having some kind of big Avril Lavigne promotion, where the punk princess' image is everywhere. Tried on some clothes and discovered once again that American clothing sizing does not apply here. There is Size 1, which is tiny, Size 2, which is only slightly bigger and there's "F Size" which is short for "free size" or, in theory, one size fits all. In my case, it means "one size fits small" or at least about 2 sizes too small for me. Bah.

The one place where I CAN buy clothing is at the Uniqlo UT shop. Uniqlo is kind of like a Japanese version of The Gap -- lots of colorful cotton basics like jeans and tees at very reasonable prices. What makes it a must-see for a manga fan is the current limited manga t-shirt promotion in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of Weekly Shonen Sunday and Weekly Shonen Magazine. Sure, you can find some of these tees featuring Urusei Yatsura, Ashita no Joe, Fairy Tail and Negima! at the Uniqlo store in New York City, but what you can't get at the NYC store is the tees in commemorative plastic canisters, all for the low, low price of about $15.00. Woo!

Also hit Kiddyland on Omotesando, which had lots of cool, kitschy gadgets, cell phone strap mascots and even cosmetics, including a line of lipsticks, facial masks and moisturizers featuring Riyoko Ikeda's Rose of Versailles.

Stocked up on some odd Kewpie / manga/anime/TV character mash-up mascots including cutified / Kewpi-fied versions of Black Jack, Kikaida and even Rei, Asuka and Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Having a super cute version of super violent and macho seinen manga icons Golgo 13 and Devil Man must be so, so wrong in so many ways, but what the heck, I bought 'em anyway. You can check out what they look like at Strapya.com. Crrrrazy.

Speaking of crazy, had some insanely good ramen at Kohmen, which was just around the corner from Kiddyland. What was unusual about it was that the noodles were served separately with a bowl of thick, pork-bone based soup that had a lot of katsuo bushi (thinly shaved bonito flakes) in it. The rest of the toppings, including cooked spinach, crispy garlic chips, half of a cooked egg and melt-in-your-mouth tender slices of pork were on the side. Simply ah-mazing. Chewy, fresh noodles, tasty broth, perfect toppings. One of the best bowls of ramen I have EVER had, which was only slightly ruined by the chain-smokers who sat next to me.

Caught up with the rest of the group to catch a train and a bus to visit Nippon Animation Studios and to meet animation art director, background artist and director Nizo Yamamoto. Yamamoto-sensei is best known for his work on The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Grave of the Fireflies and Princess Mononoke. The staff at Nippon Animation were gracious enough to give us the full tour, showing us the complete process from pencil sketches to coloring, background painting, shooting and editing. As we looked over the animators shoulders, we saw them working on projects such as Soul Eater, Future Boy Conan, Chibi Maruko-chan and lots more.

Yamamoto-sensei is an affable, low-key guy who has a staff of four background artists with him. He answered all our questions about what he considers to be his most meaningful work (Grave of the Fireflies), his directorial debut (Miyori no Mori - Miyori's Forest) and his past collaborations with Hayao Miyazaki, who also once worked at Nippon Animation.

Upon returning to the city, the rest of the crew goes off to sing karaoke. It was a long day of walking and shopping, plus I had to catch up with my blogging, so I opted out. I headed back to the hotel to pack, since the next day will find us catching the Shinkansen (bullet train) for our next stop: Kyoto.

Image credit: © Deb Aoki