During our last visit to Tokyo, Mrs. Selfish and I spent a fair amount of time checking out the weird bits of Japan. We drank at the bizarro-Japanese DisneySea. We chased after lolita girls in Harijuku. We wandered around super nerdy Akihabara, and ultra trendy Shibuya. We even found Godzilla.

Amidst all of our nerdy wanderings, however, we somehow neglected robots. It was time to set things right.

18 Meters of Robot: Checking out the Gundam in Odaiba

Our first stop on our Tokyo robot tour took us to the Diver City shopping center in Odaiba, Tokyo. Odaiba is slightly off the beaten path and is basically the equivalent of Pleasure Island for shopping adults. From Shinjuku it’s roughly a 40 minute metro ride, but man is it worth it.

Walk around the back side of the Diver City shopping mall and you’re immediately confronted with an 18 meter high Gundam statue. The Gundam series is a popular anime show that’s been around in one incarnation or another since the late 70’s. It’s basically a space opera cartoon where men and women get into 60 foot high robot suits and hit the crap out of each other. Kind of awesome.

This being Japan, there is also a Gundam themed cafe directly behind the Gundam statue, where one can buy all sorts of Gundam merchandise.

And there’s also a pop up building selling Gundam models, which looked super intricate and more than a little expensive.

If you’re not into Gundams, Diver City is a short walk away from Tokyo’s Rainbow Bridge, which was built in the early 90’s. It’s a pretty cool sight.

For whatever reason they also have a mini Statue of Liberty.

Too Crazy for words: The Shinjuku Robot Restaurant

From there we headed back to Shinjuku, to check out what just might be the world’s only Robot Show. The show was recommended by a friend, and can only be described as “utterly Japanese.” It’s nuts, incoherent, and totally fun.

It’s also half price (normally 5000 yen per person) with a buy 1-get-1-free coupon (UPDATE: only 20% off as of May 2015) that you can find at most Tokyo hotels. To get there just head to the trashier section of Shinjuku and look for a bunch of random mannequins.

Pay dirt! Insanity awaits.

The Robot show has several performances throughout the night, but as we had a previous engagement we opted to check out the 10:30pm show. Showing up at 10:25, we waited in the lobby with a crowd of tourists (who had apparently heard about it on the Anthony Bourdain show). For whatever reason, the word doesn’t seem to be out amongst the Japanese themselves, who were severely under represented.

Little did we know what they had in store for us…

The Robot show is technically the “Robot Restaurant,” but believe me when I say that the food is barely edible. It’s quite horrible, indeed. They do sell beer, however, if you wish to get your drink on.

The show takes place on a large stage, with seats in three tiers on either side.

After only a few minutes of waiting, two announcers came out. I have no idea what they said, as I was too perplexed by the giant model airplane that the one guy almost bashed into the other, but they appeared to tell jokes for a few minutes.

And with that, the show was off! At first it started off with drumming, clans of girls dressed like strippers. Keep in mind, no one takes off her clothes, but they are certainly dressed for the role.

Then, OUT OF NO WHERE, it progressed to a full on dance show performed to Mariah Carie’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

But wait! What does this have to do with Robots? Don’t worry, it gets even weirder…

It turns out there’s a whole plot to this robot show. Something about robots from the future coming to destroy the creatures of the forest. So the forest went to war, using all sorts of characters ripped straight from pop culture (and copywritten to bejesus and back!).

Kung Fu Panda!

Marvel… Girl? She had Thor’s Hammer, and Captain America’s Shield.

Zounds! Dinosaurs!

Even Jaws and the spider queen got in on the action!

And then…somehow… everyone was friends – and it concluded with a massive dance number, complete with girls dangling from robot girls.

 

At this point (or possibly earlier, I was a bit inebriated), someone passed out glow sticks and everybody was swinging ‘em!

And then, there was the epic conclusion with tanks and planes and all that jazz, because… why not?

There was also an opportunity at the end for photo ops, so naturally Mrs. Selfish and I jumped in there!

If you’re ever in Tokyo and are wanting to check out something that’s crazy and Japanese, I highly recommend the Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku. Just make sure to get a buy-1-get-1-free coupon, and eat dinner ahead of time – because man is the food awful.