A Bizarre Night at Tokyo’s Robot Restaurant

Prior to visiting Tokyo’s Robot Restaurant, I only had a slight idea of what to expect. I had watched videos on YouTube and heard various accounts of what the restaurant was like, but none of them could fully prepare me for what I was about to experience.

When I arrived to the infamous red light district of Kabukicho in Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood, I was immediately greeted with the huge signs for the famous Robot Restaurant. After picking up my ticket from the restaurant’s ticket counter, I made my way past hundreds of bright neon to the waiting room inside of the building, which is where ticket holders are seated until the show begins.

As I stepped into the waiting room, my jaw dropped in awe. The room was covered in gold from floor to ceiling, there were massive screens displaying robots and dancing Japanese girls on either side of the room, there were colorful crystal-like lights, and there were massive chairs gold-plated chairs in the shape of seashells.

As I was settling in to the waiting area, a band outfitted in shiny metallic suits made their way on to a small stage and started playing classic and recent American songs while the crowd looked on in amazement.

After approximately forty-five minutes, the performance ended and all of the guests were ushered downstairs to the lower level of the building for the actual show.

After being seated in our assigned seats and picking up pre-ordered meals, the show began.

The beginning of the show featured traditional Japanese outfits and dances paired with girls with large rainbow-colored wigs pounding on large drums.

The rest of the night consisted of things that you might only imagine in your dreams: a girl dressed up in a spider costume, robots boxing each other and humans, large snakes with glowing blue eyes slithering past you, glow in the dark men dancing to Michael Jackson, and girls on robots.

It really is difficult to put the experience into words, but here is a glimpse of what the night was like in pictures and video:

Practical Information

Address: 1–7–1 Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo

Hours: Shows daily at 4 pm, 5:55 pm, 7:50 pm, and 9:45 pm (see website for details)

Ticket Cost: ¥7,000 (¥500 discount for online payments), meal ¥1,000

FTC Disclosure: I was a guest of the Robot Restaurant during my trip to Tokyo. As always, all opinions in this article are my own.

Originally published at www.culturalxplorer.com on May 8, 2015.