Japan 2015: One Piece Tower

We headed over to Tokyo Tower our second night in the city. I hadn’t visited this iconic landmark in my previous trips before. The closest I got was at Mori Art Tower in 2010 where I captured some moving cityscapes while a friend explained why the toilet bowls in Japan were separated from the shower. Good times, that. This time, Ai and I had to pay the tower a visit because there was a limited period where the One Piece Tower was exhibiting!

I love seeing patterns in the workings of architectural structures.
Our tickets to the One Piece Tower! This ticket set includes a trip to the 150m observatory for a total of ¥3,900 (SGD $50).
The Mugiwara (Straw Hat) Store resides on the lobby of the tower. We had a field day in there – so many awesome merchandise! Moving residences back home has leaned myself against souvenirs and decorative possessions, but even my inclinations couldn’t save me from purchasing some of the incredibly kawaii biscuit tins in there.
Trying on the Chopper nunettes shades.
We didn’t have time to visit the Mugiwara Cafe, but it sure looked enticing with the decor.
Done with the sights at the lobby, Ai and I left Ru behind to admire the art galleries and cafes in the tower and headed up to the 150 metre observatory. The animated, frosty projections at the observatory was beautiful. Here’s a silhouette of Ai peering out at the cityscape.
Don’t the roads look like Tokyo Tower?
This here is a very scratched-up Lookdown Window. No really, that’s what it literally is called. Pity about the scratches.
And then we headed to the One Piece Tower exhibit.
I originally received the Sanji entry ticket, and Ai the Franky entry ticket, but we swopped for our favourite characters. Super!!!
The first portion of the exhibit wowed us with blown-up manga pages and interactive visual and sound effects when you stepped closer.
One of the costumed staff was pretty adamant that she take a photo of Ai and I enjoying ourselves at the feast with the Straw Hat Crew. We were glad to oblige.
We also found out that there was a stamp collecting activity at this exhibit!
We didn’t buy the passport stamp booklet advertised in here, instead went around stamping the brochure that came with our entrance.
We also found the special Chopper stamp at the Tongari Store!!!! The staff behind the cashier was wearing the pink armband which was advertised in the stamp counters. She wound up stamping on our brochure. She’s so cute!
The escalators even sported artwork from the series.
We wrote some messages to celebrate Chopper’s birthday.
There were quite a number of immersive rooms in this exhibit. I’m a wuss when it comes to dark places, but luckily Ai was kind enough for me to cling to her arm in barely-contained panic in many of these situations. We even went into the Haunted House!
We toured the inside of the Thousand Sunny. This was the kitchen.
Decor at the bathroom.
We also caught the One Piece Live Attraction! I think we managed to catch the last showing of the day? It was freaking awesome. We were ushered straight to the front row and sat on the cushions laid out on the floor. The entire show was in Japanese, but it was pretty easy to get a rough grasp on what was going on.
Everyone got a torch which glowed different colours when we turned it on. Here’s our wildly-entertaining host instructing us on how it worked and when to use it during the show.
The story about to commence once our host received a call on a Den Den Mushi.
How adorable is Chopper and his puppeteer! I was extremely amused.
Franky was pretty intimidating!
Oh man I love Usopp’s face in here. Why do I have such a penchant for the derpy characters – Franky, Usopp, and Brook are my favourite characters from this series.
Gattling gun!!!