Tokyo Disney Sea

Before we start: check out the recently added 'This Stuff Writes Itself.'  A website created by Ria Farrell.  Apparently the title was chosen ironically, as she is struggling to come up with day to day inspiration.  Perfect company!

So I've got a few HELLISHLY blurred photographs from Tokyo Disney Sea (it's a separate entity to Tokyo Disney Land).  They're blurred because I can't hold those tiny pocket cameras, it was dark, the ground was shaking from all the rides.  Essentially, every element outside of my control conspired to produce terrible quality photographs.

Before I upload them, there are none of me.

It's important to point out that I took around half of these photos (the blurry half) and the person I went with took the other half (the cutesy half).

As such, there is much inconsistency between photographs.

Nothing says Disney like Mickey Mouse flavoured windows.  This reminded me of the tree Grandad cultivated in his garden, in this very image.

And here is the mouse himself.

My least favourite part of the day was watching the shows, not because I'm inherently against fun, but because they were identical to what you might expect to see in america.  Therefore, giant burgers and chips were dancing around the stage half the time, with mostly nude faeries the other.  Way to show cultural understanding through adaptation, america.

I had to cringe, or find something else to entertain me for most of these.  Luckily we only saw a few in passing.  (Five minutes of this is enough to melt the hardiest brain.)

On the flip side (you'll see why that's a pun in half a sentence) the choreography and effects were magnificent. They were doing somersaults (there's the pun) and high diving tricks all over the place.  I can always respect someone who can perform physical feats that I'm unable to.

Here is a picture of the poor girl who offered to take me around the park.  I'll probably never see her again; my childish screams of excitement are not very attractive - I couldn't help myself.

I also selected those glasses, turned to present them to her and swiftly poked her in the eye.  Sorry about that...

So here begins the blurred section of proceedings.  All the lights are floating around on barges, and all the effects are carried around by boat.  The whole display was fantastic, not for the storytelling (I could give a rats-ass about a mouse) but for the technical prowess on display.  There were probably 50k's worth of fireworks, at least a million pounds worth of floating implement, and another million in extra effects (like the giant LCD island below).

This island was really well conceived, but for one slight flaw.  They were obviously still only running XP, because the animations kept sticking and desyncing.  The top half would display something different to the bottom, and the display would pause for a moment.

It would well have been intentional, but I doubt it.

These balls were inflated halfway through the display, and have a projector embedded inside.  They showed all manner of characters and funkadelic displays.  The display was based on fantasia, and was itself called fantasmic (I guess it's easier to say for Japanese speakers?).

I don't know how to edit the properties of this, or the next photo, so you'll just have to turn your head.

The mirror from so many fables, was a projector screen surrounded by light.  This gave everything a holographic feel that worked rather well.  It was also about 40 feet high.  They don't mess around, Disney.

That mountain in the background spits flames periodically.

Now, photographs aren't always the best form of conveying scales or measurements, but that mountain is 400 metres away (at the highest point) if it's a yard.  When that thing belched flame, you could feel the heat.  Let me emphasise that again.  That fake-ass looking mountain with a tiny bubble of flame emerging, produced enough heat that you could feel it from virtually anywhere in the park.  In fact, the first I knew of that mountain burping fire, was the heat I felt during a display earlier in the day.  I thought it odd that in direct sunlight, I should be feeling warmer on my left side.  I looked up just as the noise reached us, and it was periodically dispensing a million gallons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

A special invention!

This is a close-up of one of the floating orbs.  This gives you a sense of scale, as those people are clearly indicative of the size Disney operates at.  Then again, they might all be Japanese, which would mean the Western sense of proportion doesn't quite work here.

And that's it.  Hardly a bumper edition of photographs, but they're more interesting than a post with no pictures, right?