Robot Restaurant currently is Tokyo’s no. 1 tourist attraction (in the Theater section), so we decided to check it out. Here is my review of Robot Restaurant Tokyo.
The Robot Restaurant is NOT a restaurant!
Yes, you can buy a bento-box with some simple food and you can purchase cinema-style snacks and drinks before and during the show. But that’s about it.
My advice is to have your dinner elsewhere before or after the show and skip the bento-box.
So what IS the Robot Restaurant?
It is more a performance than an eatery. It’s an hour-long show filled with music, noise, light and kitsch.
Waiting area before the show. Being dazzled by the most kitschy, over-the-top decor I ever saw. And being entertained by a coverband, dressed in silver, ‘metal’ outfits.
Reading about the show you come across descriptions like: “tripping on acid”, “a steroid-enhanced fairground attraction”, “a campy dinner-show minus the dinner”, Liberace’s Palace meets Ed Hardy”, “corny”, “here houses the God of Tacky”. All accurate words for what it is.
Inside the reception area of Tokyo’s Robot Restaurant.
It’s a crazy, over-the-top, super-kitsch show with robots and bikini-clad go-go-dancers.
It costed $100 million USD to build this theater and show.
5 million lightbulbs are used in the decor. Contributing to a total sensory overload.
How, what, where, when and how much?
Reading up about the Robot Restaurant Tokyo, I noticed that the show and its details change continuously.
The price has gone up and up and up since the beginning and is now around 50 euros per person.
The ingredients of the show change all the time, so when googling, things you read about the show and pictures or videos that you see may no longer be applicable in the current shows.
There are several shows each day.
Because of all the changes, it is crucial to check out the website prior to your visit. Or ask the concierge at your hotel for the latest, correct info about the Robot Restaurant.
What to expect?
We had to be there early to pick up our tickets at the counter. We made reservations through the concierge of our hotel.
Then you head over to the theater, way in advance, because that’s what you are told to do.
Once inside, you are lead into a big lounge room, which serves as a waiting room, while the show is finishing in the actual theater. That same theater then needs to be cleared and prepped for the next show. Our show.
I have to admit that that space is deliciously crazy tacky wild. Las Vegas and Liberace look bland compared to this decor!
There is a house-band playing covers and to blend in in the environment, they are dressed in silver, ‘metal’, robot-style costumes.
The coverband entertaining the audience before the show starts. See her ‘pants’?;-)
The girl is not a bad singer, although her Amy Winehouse cover was not very good.
Robot musicians?;-)
While waiting, you can buy (expensive, of course) drinks and snacks at the bar.
It’s quite a wait, but the decor and band kept us entertained.
Then everyone heads down to the theater, via an elevator and then endless stairs. Fortunately those stairs are as psychedelic as the rest of the space. Never a dull moment!
Heading down to the actual theater.
Lizards and tigers anyone?
Inside the theater, you find your designated seats in what looks like a tribune made out of (too small) school benches.
We found our seats!
Everything is cramped.
In order to be able to give enough space to the enormous props (robots, dinosaurs, moving tableaux), every inch has to be used to the max.
See how tight and cramped the theater is?
This means that staff walks in front of the tribunes with instructional boards, explaining the audience how to sit (and how NOT to), so not to have your head chopped of by the machines, or your feet run over.
Mobile stages are rolled in and out of the small theater.
The show starts and moving stages are rolled in and out. With drumming go-go-girls, …..
The drummer girls march in with their rainbow wigs.
The whole cast is 100% dedicated during the whole show. I have to give them that!
…..dancing girls……
Robots come and go. Galactic battles are fought.
Since the staff doesn’t speak English, what better way to inform the audience than by writing the story on the walls?!
Visualizing the storyline on the wall through videos.
Steam. Lightning. Music. A giant panda riding an even bigger cow.
Kung Fu Panda riding a giant cow. Don’t ask why;-).
In my next post I will show you more pictures and also a few videoclips from this quirky, bizar show. Stay tuned for more!
What do you think so far?
That is wild! Absolutely weird. I also love it. I look forward to part 2. I wonder if you think it was worth the ticket price. I guess I’ll find out…
Yes, it’s completely crazy, Melanie!
Part 2 is already on the blog;-).
Hmmm strange… an experience for sure… but somehow I don’t think this is for me. What do you think?
Greetje
No, definitely not for you, Greetje.
This seems like a very strange experience. I guess it would be fun to go once. The decor almost gave me a headache! LOL
bisous
Suzanne
It sure was a sensory overload and strange too, Suzanne. Good triggers for a headache indeed.