Yesterday I went to the 幕張メッセ (Makuhari Messe Convention Hall) in 千葉県 (Chiba Prefecture) for the Star Wars Celebration Japan.
Star Wars Celebration Japan poster.
This event was to mark the 30th anniversary of the premiere of the first Star Wars movie in Japan in 1978.
Last week, I wrote a post about this convention.
You can read that post here.
I didn’t have tickets for the “Star Wars Celebration Japan“…but I wanted to take some photos outside the venue for my friend who is a big Star Wars fan, but was unable to attend this event.
But, there wasn’t much outside the venue to photograph (inside the venue was a different story, I’m sure).
Anyways, here are the photos I took of the 2008 Star Wars Celebration Japan:
 Darth Vader |
 Stormtrooper and a fan. |
 Stormtrooper with more fans |
 Another shot of him |
And I took four videos and uploaded them to my YouTube Page.
Like I mentioned though, there wasn’t alot for me to film since I wasn’t able to go inside the venue.
That said, here are my videos of the Star Wars Celebration Japan:
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After I left there, I met up with my wife and daughters and we went to watch the movie 「ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 (千年呪い歌)」 (Ge-Ge-Ge-No-Kitarou (1000 Year Cursed Song)).
「ゲゲゲの鬼太郎」 movie poster
It was a pretty good movie. I liked the first 「ゲゲゲの鬼太郎」 (Ge-Ge-Ge-No-Kitarou ) movie better though…but this sequel was still good.
One main difference between 映画館 (movie theaters) in Japan and those in America is that it’s perfectly acceptable to bring your own food and drinks into the theaters in Japan (rather than being forced to buy something at their snack counter).
(Another difference is the things that are sold at the counters in the theaters….in movie theaters in Japan, the snack counters sell programs and souvenirs for the movie, as well as sandwiches and beer (in addition to popcorn and cola)).
Anyways, we bought our food at a supermarket near the theater and carried it in.
We had 寿司 (sushi) and beer (the kids didn’t drink beer, of course! They had お茶 (Japanese green tea)).
寿司 (Sushi) in a supermarket
Tokyo Five 
If Star Wars was made into Japanese style art it would look like this.
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Those are clever. And, actually, I have seen other Star Wars inspired ukiyoe art by a different artist before.
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Before and during the “Star Wars Celebration Japan” event, Family Mart convenience stores sold tickets to the event.
To help promote it, one Family Mart had a person dressed as Darth Vader in the store as an acting manager.
Here’s a picture of him (his sash says 「ダース・ベイダー店長」(“Darth Vader – store manager”):
Click here.
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rzapanta…
Thanks for visiting my site and commenting.
I saw some of the Star Wars event on TV (they showed a bit on the news)…it looked like it would’ve been fun. And I’m not a Star Wars “fanatic” either…though I was crazy about it when the first three came out (I was about 8).
And I’m gonna add a link to your blog on mine.
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My son and I attended also this event also on Sunday.
I guess my expectations were not as high as lillille (also read her blog post about the event – I could only read English, nice post) and since it was my first Star Wars convention (I am a fan, but not a fanatic ;-), I thought it was fun, my son didn’t think so but he is at that age. Though I agree that there isn’t enough content to attend all 3 days – we got there around 11:30 am and left at around 5 pm so we missed the Mark Hamill interview.
I took a lot of pictures, I especially like the pictures I took with some of the Star Wars characters – my favorite is with the Japanese Princess Leia. Some of the exhibits (ie. snow speeder) line-ups were very long so I didn’t bother, but this is Tokyo so we are used to line-ups.
My pictures are in my Facebook and my blog is at http://rzapanta.wordpress.com
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lilille…
Thanks for commenting on my site.
It’s a nice blog you have and the post you wrote about the Star Wars convention is interesting!
By the way, I read on the “Star Wars Celebration Japan” site that Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) told the audience in Japan that his father was in the U.S. Navy and was stationed in 横須賀 (Yokosuka, Japan) an hour or so south of Tokyo.
And he said that he was a teenager at the time and he attended the American high school on the 米海軍基地 (American Navy base) in Yokosuka.
Did you hear him say that?
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Joe…
>Maybe it was all confined inside the convention?
I guess so.
>Maybe you can go for me and record it???
Buy a ticket and go back? Sorry. Anyways, it ended today.
The person who commented after you on this post has a nice (tri-lingual!!) blog with a post in English about the convention.
She had a ticket so she has a better post than mine about the Star Wars Celebration.
Her post about it is here:
http://lille.jetsets.jp/?p=135
>The pictures were not loading at first but did load eventually…
Thanks.
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sfrunner…
>Will check later.
Thanks.
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hi! i went to the convention, but i was a little disappointed. it was a little plain and i don’t understand what people with a three day ticket do, there is not much to see…
(i wrote about it, it is in german though but you can see some pictures: http://lille.jetsets.jp)
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Hey Bob… I expected more… Something elaborate? Maybe it was all confined inside the convention? Now I really feel like I missed out… Maybe you can go for me and record it??? The second best thing to being there;) The pictures were not loading at first but did load eventually…
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Hi tokyo5. There appears to be a problem posting photos as of 3:35am 7-20 your time. I just got done trying three time to download something and it has the small box with a red x in it.
I’m sure it’s a server problem. Will check later.
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Can you see the photos on this post? I’m not sure they’re showing up properly.OK. I reloaded them and I think I got them all to show up now. Can you see all of them?
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