UWS AQUARIUM GA☆KYO, an aquarium inspired by Japanese traditions and legends, opened at Aqua City Odaiba on July 13, 2022. The curious aquarium and art facility is split into five spaces, each based on a particular Japanese legend or tradition. 

 

Area 1 – WABISABI

 

 

Area 2 – OIRAN

 

Area 3 – MANGEKYO

 

Area 4 – YURAKU

 

Area 5 – RYUGU

 

Virtual Goldfish Scooping

This mixture of aquarium and entertainment venue was produced by GA☆KYO. Each of the five spaces invites guests to understand and appreciate a particular part of Japanese traditional culture, as well as to experience the beauty of living things. Come enjoy this unique installation the next time you’re in Tokyo!

On July 13, UWS AQUARIUM GA☆KYO, an aquarium inspired by Japanese traditions and legends, will open at Aqua City Odaiba. Separated into five unique sections, this curious aquarium is located in a shopping complex popular with locals and tourists alike. 

UWS AQUARIUM GA☆KYO will depict five aspects of traditional Japanese life and history: Wabi-sabi, Oiran, Mangekyo (Kaleidoscope), Yuraku, and Ryuugu. These will be explained below if you aren’t familiar.

 

Area

 

WABISABI
Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic in Japanese art centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. In the aquarium, this is shown by using delicate driftwood, bonsai, and crystal. Characteristics of wabi-sabi include asymmetry, simplicity, and roughness.

OIRAN
An Oiran was a high-ranking courtesan in Japanese history. In this work, goldfish are surrounded by beautiful and enchanting features inspired by these gorgeous women.

MANGEKYO

Mangekyo is the Japanese word for kaleidoscope. This collaborative work invites viewers into a unique space filled with paintings by Tsuyoshi Nigamushi along with disco balls. You’ll want to snap some trippy pictures!

YURAKU
This special exhibition invites guests to experience virtual goldfish scooping and fortune-telling. Made using modern technology in a space inspired by Japan’s four seasons, yuraku means pleasure in Japanese.

RYUGU

Ryuugu refers to the Palace of the Dragon King found in the ancient tale of Urashima Taro. 

This spatial work will utilize the sea around Odaiba and transport visitors to another place and time.

 

Come enjoy these five unique spaces with your five senses and become more acquainted with traditional Japanese beauty.

ULTRA JAPAN 2022 will be held at TOKYO ODAIBA ULTRA PARK II in Tokyo on September 17 and 18, 2022!

 

ULTRA JAPAN is the Japanese version of ULTRA MUSIC FESTIVAL (UMF), one of the world’s largest urban dance music festivals held yearly in Miami since 1999. This year marks the 7th event in Japan, and the festival has been held in over 21 countries around the world. In 2016 and 2017, it was named the #1 festival in the world in a fan poll by DJ MAG. 

 

ULTRA JAPAN has become a staple of the dance music community in Japan, attracting over 530,000 people since it was first held in 2014. The festival has been number one in terms of attendance among all dance music festivals held in Japan, bringing together some of the world’s best DJs and delighting fans with intense special effects. The festival is only 15 minutes from Shibuya!

 

Stay tuned for more information about the artist lineup for ULTRA JAPAN!

teamLab Borderless, a digital art museum currently housed in Odaiba’s Mori Building, will be moving to a more central location in Tokyo in 2023. In preparation for the move, the Odaiba location will close on August 31, and tickets for July and August are available now. Each ticket must be purchased ahead of visiting, and each specifies a date and time for entry. Tickets are available while supplies last. 

 teamLab ‘Forest of Resonating Lamps – One Stroke’ ©teamLab

 

teamLab Borderless opened in Odaiba in June 2018 and features a group of artworks that form one borderless world. Artworks move out of rooms and communicate with other works, influencing other pieces and sometimes intermingling with each other with no boundaries. They also shift depending on the season. In its first year, the museum attracted 2.3 million visitors, surpassing the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands to become the most popular single artist’s museum in the world. People from over 160 countries and regions visited, and in 2019, teamLab Borderless broke a world record for the most visitors to a museum showcasing art from a single artist. Borderless received numerous national and international awards, including being named one of the World’s Greatest Places 2019 by Time Magazine and receiving a Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement at the 25th Annual Thea Awards.

Highlight Video: https://youtu.be/VowWhpZzH24

 

The 10,000 square meter complex will be open until August 31, offering visitors a singular experience through a borderless world of art. Expectations are high for the museum’s new location, scheduled to open in central Tokyo in 2023. 

teamLab Planets TOKYO DMM will be open in Toyosu until the end of 2023. 

Spring scenery will welcome guests to the teamLab Borderless exhibit at the Mori Building Digital Art Museum starting March 2, 2022. teamLab Borderless is a group of artworks that form one borderless world. Artworks move out of rooms, communicate with other works, influence, and sometimes intermingle with each other with no boundaries. They also shift depending on the season.

 

teamLab Borderless in Odaiba is scheduled to close on August 31, 2022, so this will be the only chance to catch this incredible display!

 

Forest of Resonating Lamps – One Stroke, Cherry Blossoms, teamLab, 2019

 

Forest of Resonating Lamps – One Stroke, Spring Mountain Fields, teamLab, 2019

 

Proliferating Immense Life – A Whole Year per Year, teamLab, 2020

 

Memory of Topography, teamLab, 2018

 

Flowers in Layered Ultrasubjective Space, teamLab, 2018

 

Flowers Bloom in an Infinite Universe inside a Teacup, teamLab, 2016

 

Tea Tree, teamLab, 2018

 

Drawing Factory

 

Each installation will filter through new colors and illustrations. A Whole Year per Year will include new spring flowers, multiplying to over 100,000 blooms before dispersing around guests. ‘Memory of Topography’ depicts a massive landscape based on Japan’s four seasons, and in March and April, cherry blossoms and lavender will appear beside terraced rice paddies, wisteria trellises, and gently flowing rivers. 

 

At the Drawing Factory, guests can also make their own original goods to be taken home as keepsakes. Get your creation printed on T-shirts, pins, or hand towels!

The Tokyo-based bathhouse Oedo Onsen Monogatari is set to collaborate with the anime series Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club with a special event titled ‘Tokimeki Onsen Monogatari’ from July 30 to September 5. This will mark the site’s final collaboration with an anime series as the bathhouse is closing on September 5.

 

For the collaboration, panels and decorations featuring original artwork of the Nijigaku members is featured around the bathhouse. There’s also a special photospot featuring a backdrop of a scene taken the anime’s second episode.

A lottery draw will take place where you can pay ¥550 for a chance to win a cushion, illustrated print, or bromide. There are also 10 collab drinks as well as three pasta dishes to pick from. Fans can also get their hands on exclusive merch such as keyrings, tees, tapestries, and more.

June 21 will mark three years since MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: EPSON teamLab Borderless first opened. Located in Odaiba, Tokyo, the digital art museum is commemorating its anniversary with two new installations: Sketch Aquarium: Connected World and Sharing Rock Mass, Transcending Space. Experience digital art, which blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, change in real time as people come into contact with it.

 

MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: EPSON teamLab

 

Sketch Aquarium: Connected World

teamLab describes this exhibit:

 

The fish drawn by everyone swim around in this aquarium.

Color in a fish on the paper provided. See the picture you have drawn come to life in the massive aquarium in front of you, swimming together with the fish drawn by other people. If you touch the swimming fish, they will swim away. If you touch the food bags, you can also feed the fish.

 

The tuna you draw will transcend the boundaries of the artwork and swim out into the Sketch Aquariums and Sketch Oceans of exhibitions around the world. And the tuna drawn in other parts of the world may appear and swim in the Sketch Aquarium right in front of you.

 

 

Sharing Rock Mass, Transcending Space

teamLab describes this exhibit:

 

A rock mass floats in the world of the teamLab Borderless museum in Shanghai. The rock mass floats through the hallway of teamLab Borderless Shanghai and sinks into the wall. The rock mass transcends the physical space of the museum itself, the part that sinks into the wall appears in the world of the teamLab Borderless museum in Tokyo.

 

When people touch the part of the rock mass emerging in Tokyo, it shines with blue light. This light flows to the rock mass sunken into the wall in Shanghai. When people touch the part of the rock mass sunken into the wall in Shanghai, it shines with a red light which flows to the rock mass here in Tokyo. When red light flows into the rock mass, it indicates that someone in Shanghai is touching the rock mass.

 

teamLab is represented by Pace Gallery, Martin Browne Contemporary and Ikkan Art International.

23 facilities including shopping centres, hotels, parks, and more in Odaiba are participating in Illumination Island Odaiba 2020, a large-scale illumination event that opened on Friday and is set to run up to Christmas Day.

 

This year’s event is bigger than the last, with only 10 facilities having taken part in 2019. The main park in Odaiba will also be lit up for the first time this year. The event is taking place to express gratitude towards those facing hardship during the pandemic – to connect everyone via gorgeous lights for a brighter tomorrow.

 

*Please note that illumination dates and times differ for each facility

 

Participating Facilities (Excerpt)

DECKS Tokyo Beach

The third-floor seaside deck faces Odaiba Marine Park and offers a gorgeous view of Tokyo Bay. Winter illuminations will serve cosy vibes around the rest area and plants, and serves as the perfect site to gaze at the lit-up Rainbow Bridge against the backdrop of Tokyo’s nightscape.

Running: November 14, 2020 – February 14, 2021

 

DiverCity Tokyo Plaza

The Festival Hiroba’s staircase will be colourfully lit up from 16:00 every day until January 31, 2021. After that, it will be lit up from 17:00.

 

VenusFort

teamLab – “The Tree of Resonating Colors of Life”　©チームラボ

teamLab’s towering digital art installation The Tree of Resonating Colors of Life is running at Odaiba until February 7, 2021. The 8-meter tall three-dimensional tree is created from an accumulation of light spheres.

 

Palette Town Daikanransha

The Daikanransha Ferris wheel is a symbol of Odaiba and offers a panoramic view of famous sights around Tokyo up 115-meters in the sky.

 

Winter Illuminations: December 1, 2020 – December 25, 2020

 

Statue of Liberty

Odaiba’s Statue of Liberty will be lit up with rainbow colours, changing the atmosphere in the area completely.

Running: December 11, 2020 – December 25, 2020

 

ARTBAY HOUSE

Japanese artist Takahiro Matsuo is also getting in the the action with the prism art at his PRISM/GLOW exhibition.

 

Running: November 27, 2020 – December 25, 2020

 

Tokyo International Cruise Terminal Station

A 5-meter tall Christmas tree is decorating Tokyo International Cruise Terminal Station.

 

Running: November 27, 2020 – December 25, 2020 (Not running select days)

teamLab Borderless is a world of artwork without boundaries, a museum without a map created by art collective teamLab. Over at their museum in Tokyo, MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: EPSON teamLab Borderless, they are exhibiting a range of autumn themed digital art in time for the changing seasons. Let’s take a closer look at what’s on show.

September Flowers

October Flowers

Proliferating Immense Life – A Whole Year per Year | teamLab, 2020, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

Proliferating Immense Life – A Whole Year per Year looks at the life cycle of flowers. Throughout the year, with the passing of time, flowers bloom and change. They bud, grow, and blossom before their petals begin to wither and eventually fade away. The cycle of growth and decay repeats itself in perpetuity as the flowers propagate. When too many flowers grow, they scatter and fade all at once. When people touch them, the flower petals scatter and fall away

 

A variety of autumn flowers will be recreated in digital art, such as Blackberry Lily (September) and Red Spider Lily (October). Visitors who touch these digital flowers will see them wither and decay, and subsequently bloom new flowers in their place.

Rice Fields

Autumn Colours
Memory of Topography | teamLab, 2018, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

This artwork installation depicts a rural mountain landscape of varying elevations. The scenery instills in the viewer a feeling of eternal permanence, however with the flow of real time the scenery is continuously changing. In the spring, the rice fields are still small and lush. In summer, they begin to mature, and in fall, they turn a golden color.

 

The colours of autumn will be depicted in its glorious combination of golds and reds for the exhibit.

Forest of Resonating Lamps – One Stroke, Autumn Mountain | teamLab, 2016, Interactive Installation, Murano Glass, LED, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

When a person stands still close to a lamp at Forest of Resonating Lamps – One Stroke, Autumn Mountain, it shines brightly and emits a colour that resonates out. The light becomes the starting point, and it spreads to the two nearest lamps. The light from the two nearest lamps transmits the same colour to other lamps, spreading out continuously. The light transmitted always resonates out as a bright light once, passing to close lamps, until all lamps have shone brightly once, and then returns to the first lamp.

 

For October, this exhibit will turn into Forest of Resonating Lamps – One Stroke, Autumn Mountain.

Flowers Bloom in an Infinite Universe inside a Teacup | teamLab, 2016, Interactive Digital Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

Make tea, and flowers bloom inside the teacup. If you pick up the teacup, the flowers scatter and spread outside of the cup. Flowers bloom infinitely as long as there is tea. The tea in the teacup becomes an infinite world in which the flowers continue to bloom. Drink in the infinitely expanding world.

 

The exhibition hall’s tea house “EN TEA HOUSE” will see a variety of autumnal flowers used including safflower, dianthus, and Chinese aster for September and cosmos, osmanthus, and chrysanthemum for October.

Steak house NoMad Grill Lounge has opened its beer garden atop its rooftop terrace which offers an unbroken view of Tokyo’s nighttime scenery.

 

The terrace spans 330m² across and is equipped with a roof in case of rain. There, customers can enjoy a delicious meal with a great drink, making it a perfect spot for dates, dinners, or simple get-togethers. The modern and stylish food is made using ingredients from Japan, such as their exquisite wagyu steak which is fried New York style and can be paired with a delicious glass of wine specially selected by the restaurant’s sommeliers.

¥8000 Meal Plan

¥15,000 Meal Plan

NoMad Grill Lounge’s beer garden plans are popular every year. All plans come as a set with the restaurant’s super popular mini burgers. There are four plans to choose from, each with varying prices.

¥5,500 Lunch Beer Garden Plan

The lunchtime-exclusive beer garden plan is a new introduction to the restaurant.

 

Enjoy a great meal and drink while gazing out across Tokyo’s nighttime view.

Doraemon Future Department Store is the world’s first official Doraemon shop, and it’s set to open tomorrow on December 1, 2019. Before its grand opening, however, the store has given customers a sneak peek into what to expect.

 

The shop’s concept is from the perspective of Doraemon, who says, “I’ll help make your future a good one.” It’s split into three areas: the Secret Gadget Lab, the Customise Zone, and the Shop Zone, each of which offers a unique Doraemon experience you won’t find anywhere else.

 

Secret Gadget Lab

 

The Anywhere Door

Just like in the manga and anime series, the Dokodemo Door, or Anywhere Door, lets you travel anywhere.

 

Discover secret gadgets, like the air gun!

Have a go at trying to shoot and hit the 10 targets within the time limit.

*Requires one Doraemon Future Department Store coin to play

 

Dorayaki Baybayin Game

Touch the dorayaki to increase your score. Touch too many, and something crazy might just happen…

*Requires one Doraemon Future Department Store coin to play

 

Fly as far as you can with the Bamboo Copter

Reach the goal with the Take-copter, or Bamboo Copter.

*Requires one Doraemon Future Department Store coin to play

 

Customise Zone

 

Embroidered items

Embroider Doraemon characters and the logo onto towels, bags, clothes and more.

 

Characters (18 Designs): ¥700 Each (Before Tax)

Text  (45 Designs): ¥400 Each (Before Tax)

*The place where a design is embroidered is chosen for you

*There may be a waiting time during busy hours

 

Carved Seal Items

Have character designs, text and more carved onto various items like key rings.

 

Plate Key Ring (10 Designs) – ¥1,000 Each (Before Tax)

Room Key Holder (6 Designs) – ¥1,200 Each (Before Tax)

¥500 per carving (Before Tax)

*There may be a waiting time during busy hours

 

Shop Zone (Exclusive Merchandise)

These cute mugs have illustrations of Doraemon’s secret gadgets on one side, and the first letter of those gadgets written in Katakana on the other side. It makes you want to collect them all!

 

Product Name (Pictured): Doraemon Dora-moji Mug Cup A

Price: ¥1,200 (Before Tax)

 

This cute figure of Doraemon is actually a piggy bank, a perfect gift to yourself or someone else!

 

Product Name: Doraemon Piggy Bank

Product: ¥4,000 (Before Tax)

 

Book Corner

There’s even a book shop where you can pick up the latest issues of the Doraemon comic.

 

Bonus Items

To celebrate its grand opening, the store will give out the following items to customers.

Those who purchase any piece of merchandise will receive a free postcard with an original design with every transaction.

For every ¥4,000 (tax included) spent on a transaction on merch, you’ll get an original handkerchief.

And for every book bought, you’ll get a holographic postcard featuring a design of volume 0 of the manga.

 

*Bonus items available while supplies last

Christmas is about to fall upon VenusFort in Odaiba, Tokyo, with a snow-pile of Christmas content set to take place at the mall from November 30 onward. This will include the exhibiting of teamLab’s hugely popular “The Trees of Resonating Colors of Life” installation.

teamLab, The Tree of Resonating Colors of Life, 2018, Interactive Installation, Endless, H: 8000 mm W: 6000 mm D: 6000 mm Sound: Hideaki Takahashi© teamLab

Located in the Olive Plaza, this interactive art piece is a three-dimensional tree made up of many light spheres which change colour as people touch them.

The popular annual “SNOW WISH” event will also take place again this year, where delicate snow falls gracefully from the ceiling. This year the event is collaborating with “VenusFort Illumination 2019-2020 -Grateful Harmony-” to create a heart-warming and enchanting Christmas display that’s sure to put you in the Christmas mood.

There will also be a Christmas raffle where you can win prizes, a special VenusFort Christmas party menu, as well as a Black Friday Market where you can grab some serious bargains.

 

Be sure to add Odaiba on your list of places to visit if you’re celebrating Christmas and the holiday season in Tokyo this year.