Now that I no longer live near Shinjuku, I rarely find myself in Harajuku: I quite like Harajuku, but I simply have no reason to go there. I used to go to Yoyogi Park all the time (I’d ride my bike there and enjoy the big open space and the feeling of a well-used urban park that people really enjoy going to), but I haven’t been lately.

I know there is probably something in every tourist guidebook for Tokyo that says something along the lines of: “you should go to the bridge in Harajuku, near the entrance to Yoyogi Park,  and take photos of people in CosPlay outifts”, but I was not quite prepared for what I saw this afternoon when I happened to pass by that particular spot.

I think it’s safe to officially declare that the Harajuku CosPlay weekend pose-on-the-bridge scene is DEAD. What I saw was TWO people in costume and about FIFTY tourists pointing cameras at them and shooting, shooting, shooting….there were a few other costumed people here and there, but it really was nothing like it used to be. (And, since I never found it to be very interesting in the first place, I am not necessarily mourning anything here). I also happen to now live on the other side of Tokyo where there is a burgeoning weekend CosPlay outdoor scene nearby, at a place where almost zero tourists would ever end up by chance: it seems the serious CosPlay devotees have chosen to take their fun somewhere a bit more secluded.

Part of the issue is that Tokyo is a somewhat difficult city for tourists: it’s massive, it’s pretty hard to penetrate if you don’t know a local or you don’t speak or read any Japanese, and there aren’t really any of the typical tourist attractions you might hope to find in a big city. This is precisely what I love about Tokyo: it’s really not in any way set up for tourists. Nobody here (except the Yokoso, Japan! people) cares a fig about tourists, and this makes it difficult to navigate: you have to know exactly what you want to see and do or you will end up on the usual circuit of the top three (call it The Lonely Planet tour or The Fodor’s Tour or whatever you like): Tsukiji at 5:30 am (which I will save for a separate blog post), Harajuku on the weekend to see the CosPlay, and a trip to Asakusa’s Sensō-ji. These are not necessarily bad things to do, but you quickly realize the limitations of relying on a guide book when you see more non-Japanese people at a fish market at 5:00 am than you will see at any other time during your entire trip here.

The focus in Japan in terms of tourist travel is DOMESTIC tourists; and Japanese tourists travel domestically for several reasons: to visit temples and shrines, for regional food (think: Hokkaido crab), to go to a festival (like this or this), to experience a hotel or resort area, for “nature” (blossoms, mountains, etc.), to go to an onsen, to pursue a hobby/interest (skiing, hiking, plays, music, etc.), to go shopping, or to see something historic. One of the biggest reasons for travel is probably to visit family members (particularly at certain times of the year). I never get the sense that Japanese people travel en masse just to wander around and absorb the atmosphere of a place. People take shorter holidays and there always seems to be a special purpose. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization, but my point is that the way and the reasons for travel are quite different and, even if a foreign tourist is interested in the same things, there will be a language barrier (because everything is geared towards domestic visitors).  I’d be curious to read Graburn’s To Pray, Play, and Pay: The Cultural Structure of Japanese Domestic Tourism, but have not done so yet; however, based on the premise, it definitely seems to validate my shrine observation (and he takes it one step further by claiming that pilgrmages are a big driver of domestic travel).