Make Believe Bonus: Taylor Swift At Tokyo Dome

Champagne Problems

For one week, Tokyo has felt like the center of the entertainment world.

That’s largely thanks to Zay Flowers’ inability to keep his cool and / or hold onto the football in the AFC Championship game, coupled with a stout showing from the Kansas City Chiefs’ defense. KC held the Baltimore Ravens at bay, earning a trip to this Sunday’s Super Bowl in Las Vegas. This should have no impact on life in Japan’s capital…except it means the world expects Taylor Swift in attendance at Allegiant Stadium to cheer for boyfriend Travis Kelce. And right before the game…Swift would find herself performing four sold-out nights at Tokyo Dome.

Cue a whirlwind of content trying to figure out if Swift could make it to the West Coast of the U.S. from Japan after her February 10 finale in the city. Ignoring the no-fun realities of this all — one loses a day while traveling towards the U.S. from here, and it’s not like Taylor Swift has to wait for a JAL flight to depart, she would be fine albeit tired — it added an extra intensity to what were already her first dates on her massive The Eras Tour in several months.

Then the Grammys happened, with Swift winning Album Of The Year and announcing a new album. She’s always sorta central to the news — even when she’s not doing anything — but the confluence of all this placed her right into the spotlight of all not-really-that-serious discussion over the past week, with her run at Tokyo Dome somehow becoming a critical piece of the story.

Oh, and Lionel Messi was here, pissing off China? Man what.

Long before Grammy nominations were even announced and when the Jacksonville Jaguars somehow held on to the top seed in the AFC, I had already checked out on even trying to cover any of Swift’s Tokyo Dome shows. Sure, they’d be huge — the only East Asia dates of her tour, bound to transform Tokyo Dome City into a global village of sorts — but like why would her team ever grant any publication access to these shows, let alone The Japan Times? Much lesser international acts have rejected requests over the years…this is arguably the most famous person in the world, they don’t need press present.

I figured if I wrote about Swift’s return to Tokyo, it would be from a place well outside the Dome itself. Then, things changed.