Lines, lines, lines

Apparently there's a Disney Shanghai in the works, to be opened in 2015. I had toyed with the idea of holding off on my "year of Disney" so that Disney Shanghai's opening can be my last Disney park, but one thing stopped me. Lines. 

I don't have a particular aversion to lines. When I go with Heather we have a 20-minute limit our lines, guided by a variety of phone apps (which usually don't entirely agree with each other). We've got our strategy down to a science: rope drop, Fastpasses, pin trading during the busy hours. Lots and lots of walking. Last summer when we were there we averaged 12 miles a day. When I'm on my own or with friends I don't mind lines up to an hour, especially since the waiting areas are so well themed and so interesting to look at.

What shocked me was that in Japan, people were willing to wait for six hours in line for a single ride. Yep, you read that right. Six hours. 2012, opening of Toy Story Mania in Tokyo. Oh. My. God. 

Seriously - check out that standby time.

Now, if you've not been on it, Toy Story Mania is an amazing ride. You sit in little carts and snake through a 3-D midway of carnival games with your shooter that throws out rings, paint balls, darts, and everything else. There are Easter eggs in the ride for guests in the know, where you can wrack up record-breaking points if you know exactly what to shoot at, and when.

It's awesome. It's always the first ride we run to after rope drop, and the last ride we go on before heading home.

Is it 6 hours waiting worth of awesome? I'm not sure. But I sure as heck wasn't braving these crowds in Tokyo to check out the Japanese version of the ride.

Only three hours from this point!

The Japanese are great with lines and with crowds. They don't seem to mind it the way we do. Kids entertain themselves, people chat with each other. It's genteel. It's orderly. There's a slight buzz in the air. The point is to see it when everyone else sees it. Or, preferably, before everyone else sees it.

Apparently this massive crowd gathering happened when Tokyo Sky Tree, the tallest structure in Japan, opened. The entire population of Tokyo tried to get to it when it opened, leading to three-month wait times just to get in the tower. A friend of mine visiting relatives in Tokyo was put on a bus, driven around the Sky Tree (but not allowed in) and then driven to the Tokyo Tower consolation prize, where he could go up and look at the Sky Tree from the previous highest point in Tokyo.

Yep, Japanese people are tolerant of lines, and tolerant of crowds.

So how does this get back to Shanghai? Well, I'm Chinese, and while I've grown up here in the states there are a few things about my folks I've noticed. We've got all the need to see it first that the Japanese do, and we love an opening. But we don't really have a strong belief in lines. Or social order. Or waiting. It's like a massive, ONE BILLION PERSON free-for-all in China. In other words, I would be afraid for my life on Disney Shanghai opening day. 

I'm sure Disney's park planners are on top of this, and there are logistics in place to handle that massive crush of humanity. If there's one thing they're good at, it's crowd planning. The opening day of Disneyland Park was a disaster of extra people getting in with fake tickets, unruly crowds, and an unprepared park and cast. They've come a long way since those days. If you've never seen how quickly they can dissipate a thousand-person crowd, pay attention sometime when you get out of one of their shows. It's like magic. As nervous as I am about what that will be like in China, I'm really curious to see how far they've evolved in their crowd management, when it comes to managing the toughest crowd in the world.

This Is Japan

It's often said on Disney forums that Disney Tokyo is the best Disney park, because its attention to detail far surpasses any other Disney park. I tend to agree. But I'm starting to realize that a big part of what makes it better are actually the guests who visit Tokyo Disney - often enthusiastic, happy Tokyoites who throw themselves into the entire fantasy world created by an American man half a century ago, half a world away.

If you have any doubts about this, just visit Disney Tokyo at Halloween. It's completely INSANE. The combination of fervent Disney fans with fervent cosplay culture creates, for two weeks a year, a park like you've never seen. If you're thinking "what's the point of seeing an American theme park if I'm in Japan" - well, it's because you will NEVER see anything like this in America. While Americans treat Halloween as a time to dress up to express themselves, Japanese people in Disney collectively dress up to create the fantasy world of Disney inside the park.

Yes. That is real fur trim on the dress.

Disney Tokyo is the only Disney park worldwide that only allows Disney character costumes at Halloween, which means that the illusion of their fantasy world is reinforced by the dedication of the fans who dress up. So not only are you standing in front of Cinderella Castle, you're standing in front of Cinderella Castle surrounded by a hundred princesses, fairy godmothers, evil witches, and princes, many of whom are women who've dressed as men in order to create sets of characters with their friends.

And like the Disney Shibuya store, this isn't an event for children, but for young adults. So all the characters come in two varieties: regular and sexy.

As I suspected, there were no other unique varieties such as the Super Tigger I found in the Anaheim park. That kind of quirk of individualistic expression at Halloween is reserved for us crazy Americans.

People were glad to pose for photos, and would often even thank you for asking. Maybe it's just that Japanese people are super polite, or maybe I had just paid a compliment to their cosplay activities. My biggest challenge to getting good photos was more the lack of a good low-light camera than a lack of cooperation from the wonderfully dressed guests.

I also discovered that if I stopped any group of matching costumes for a photo, other Japanese people would crowd around for their own photos. It's almost like they wanted to ask, but were too polite to interrupt, and the rude American (uh, that's me) made it okay for them to take a photo too. Thus we had scenes like this one, where the group of evil witches from Snow White were trapped for about 10 minutes as a horde of Snow Whites took turns getting their photos taken with the group after I interrupted them to take a snapshot.

Note the Snow White standing off to the right. There are more Snow Whites next to her, all watching and waiting for their turn.

Ditto this group of aliens from Toy Story.

The favorite themes at Halloween were princesses (Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, Snow White with an occasional Rapunzel), Alice (wildly popular) often accompanied by a Queen of Hearts, and Toy Story characters Woody, Jessie, and Buzz.

I wonder how long he practiced his haughty Buzz Lightyear expression.

Villains didn't figure as prominently in Disney Halloween, as I expected. Out of the hundreds of elaborate dressed-up figures, there was one group of villains hanging out by the castle. I guess Japanese people prefer to be the good guys.

What these photos of individual costumes don't show, and what was the most wonderful part of the experience, is the sense of amazement I had seeing these very elaborate costumes everywhere in the park. Every time I turned around I saw someone who had put in more effort, worked up more detail, acting more in character, than I saw before. It was a breathtaking experience.

Yep. That's me in the Tigger outfit. 

If anyone is going to be in Tokyo on Halloween, and they want to know what Japan is about, a trip to Disney Tokyo is a must. While all the characters were created at the Mouse House in the US, there is something undeniably and uniquely Japanese about this experience. This is no pale reproduction of the real thing. This is the real Japan, taking something they like, embracing it, and executing on it like it's never been done before.