Make Believe Bonus: The Church

I Broke A Glass Here Accidentally So I'll Probably Never Go Back...But You Should!

Imagine if you will a chart on which tourist destinations in Japan can be plotted. Or don’t even use your own noggin to think it up…here’s what it would look like.

For me, modern tourism in Japan is defined by the tension between “wacky Japan” and “mundane Japan,” along with the conflict between “authentic Japan” and “inauthentic Japan.” I think the prior extremes explain themselves pretty clearly — Terrace House versus YouTube compilations of zany Japanese game shows — and images of Robot Restaurant come quickly to mind for “wacky,” while something like a temple tends to be much more on the ho-hum side of things.

Yet the latter is trickier to peg. I’m not talking about the cynical non-Japanese resident snapping “oh, the real Japan…go to Gusto” but the more complicated idea of an experience reflecting a “real” Japan. There’s multiple temples in my neighborhood alone, making them daily occurrences and thus “authentic.” Bikini-clad women piloting mechas against one another while people eat overpirced bento? Yeah, that’s as fake a Japan as you can get. In the middle, providing perfect equilibrium, is Nakano Broadway, a fascinating center for sub-culture and biggie-sized soft serve options that somehow also manages to be 70 percent watch stores and surprisingly boring when you start looking at every store.

I’ve hastly made this graph becuase…I don’t know where The Church in Shibuya falls on it, but I want it to land somewhere that conveys “yeah, it’s a little odd…but pretty darn cool.”