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Any manga fan seeking an introduction to Japan (and to some of Japan's most famous manga and anime artists and studios) simply must check out Pop Japan Tours (popjapantravel.com). Operated by manga publishers Digital Manga, Inc., and travel agency IACE Travel, PJT has been offering US travelers guided tours of Japan's most well-known—and best-hidden—manga and anime hotspots (including meetings with famous creators) since 2003. Shojo Beat asked Pop Japan tour guide Ben Applegate—a cosplayer, shojo manga fan, and overall otaku—to describe a day of his recent Vampire Hunter D-themed Cold Steel Tour of Tokyo.
January 30, First Day of the Cold Steel Tour
4:30 a.m. Wake up without an alarm because of jet lag
5:00 Step off the subway at Tsukiji Fish Market, and watch Japanese auctioneer hop up and down surrounded by piles of enormous tuna
5:45 Wander through the market: spot live fugu, fish ovaries, octopi and squid galore, and stare into eyes of little dried fish before crunching them down
6:30 Sit down for the freshest sushi you've ever eaten. Swap stories with the chef, who turns out to be a huge Mark Twain fan who tried to fish on the Mississippi (and failed)
8:00 Head to Asakusa to see Senso Temple, Tokyo's most popular. Pay your respects, then buy a mikuji (fortune). Don't worry if it's kyo (bad luck), you just need to tie it in a bow and leave it behind to dispel its power
9:00 Walk down Nakamise-dori near the temple. Some warm amazake (sweet sake) steels you against the cold. Take pictures of little pudding cups shaped like breasts. (I'm not making this up.)
10:10 Hop on the Himiko, a futuristic cruise ship designed by anime legend Leiji Matsumoto. His characters from Galaxy Express 999 are your guides on a ride down the Sumida River to...
11:00 Odaiba, an artificial island in Tokyo Bay. The group splits up, with some people heading to the Sega Joypolis arcade to play Initial D from the driver's seat of actual cars, and others taking a dip in an onsen hot spring
2:30 p.m. Meet in front of Odaiba's "Goddess of Freedom" (a smaller-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty) and board the Yurikamome monorail for a trip across Rainbow Bridge to Ginza, Tokyo's center of old fashion
3:00 Stop at Hakuhinkan, Ginza's most famous toy store
3:30 Take in a modern tea ceremony, followed by a trip to the Sony Building to see a dancing MP3 player and a stop for traditional Japanese sweets with fresh strawberries inside
5:00 Meet with Hideyuki Kikuchi, the creator of Vampire Hunter D, and Saiko Takaki, the artist of the Vampire Hunter D manga. Don't forget to ask them to autograph your free copies of their books!
6:00 Say hi to the editors of Animedia and Megami magazines, grab a couple free copies, then head to dinner and explore Shinjuku later. Hit the pillow, exhausted—but ready for another
packed day tomorrow!
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Shojo Beat: Would you describe your career briefly and explain how you got involved in leading tours for Pop Japan Travel?
Ben Applegate: My last year of high school, I wound up very much by chance taking a two-week sister-city trip to Japan. I fell in love, and ended up studying Japanese and living in Kyoto during college. I traveled all over Japan, and also became an enormous anime nerd! After I graduated I went to Seoul, Korea, where I worked for two years as a reporter and editor at the JoongAng Daily, the local edition of the International Herald Tribune. While I was there I appointed myself film/animation/Japan correspondent, and ended up meeting some of my anime heroes, like Makoto Shinkai and Isao Takahata. When I left Korea and came back to Los Angeles last June (just in time for Anime Expo), in between looking for a "real" job I saw that Digital Manga was hiring, and the more I heard about Pop Japan Travel the more I realized what an opportunity it was. Now I plan, sell and run our tours (when I'm not doing translation work or dressing in drag at Yaoi Con).
SB: What was the inspiration for starting Pop Japan Travel?
BA: Well, from what I hear, my boss Hikaru Sasahara used to take friends and business associates around to see anime studios and meet famous people in Tokyo, just for fun. Hikaru and Isaac Lew, a.k.a. Aka-san, who worked at Digital Manga back then, decided it might be interesting to offer that kind of experience to the regular anime fan, and that's how Pop Japan Travel came to be.
SB: How do you come up with ideas for tours?
BA: Some tours start with a theme, like the gothic-lolita and yaoi tours, that we build activities around. Other tours start with a specific event idea. For instance, I thought it would be great to offer American manga artists the chance to see their work translated into Japanese and on sale in Japan at one of the famous dojinshi markets, and that was the genesis for our Mind Over Manga tour this August.
SB: What's your most popular tour?
BA: Well, a lot of them sell out, so it's hard to name a most popular one. But our tours of the Tokyo Game Show and the Tokyo Anime Fair are always big hits.
SB:What's your favorite tour and/or your favorite place to visit in Japan?
BA: I've actually just started, so I only have one tour under my belt. So I guess that's my favorite! In terms of favorite places, I may have mentioned I love Kansai, and not just because the accent gives dub directors nightmares. Tokyo is a huge thrill, but life goes by at a more manageable rate in Osaka, and I could walk around in Kyoto my whole life and never get bored. I also love Nagasaki for its beautiful harbor and European flavor, and Okinawa deserves special mention just because when the weather's miserable in Tokyo you can bet it'll be balmy down there. I'm also very fond of Takayama in Gifu Prefecture. I hope we'll be able to get tours going to all those places eventually!
SB: What's the best thing about your job?
BA: By far the best part is being able to introduce Japan for the first time to people who've never been there. My first trip truly changed my life forever, and now I've been given an amazing chance to pass that on to others. I'm not a blind Japanophile—Japan has a lot of problems, past and present—but even its negatives never cease to amaze and fascinate me, and I hope my guests end up feeling the same way.
SB: Do you have a favorite piece of trivia about Japan or its culture that you like to tell all your tourists?
BA: Wow, that's a broad question. I suppose when in Tokyo, I like to impress on people how recent this all is—that the city was flattened during World War II, especially during the firebombing on March 10, 1945, and that if they'd taken this tour just 60 years ago they would've seen a city of poverty, disease and rubble. It's amazing how quickly history moves. Of course I also spend a lot of time talking about Totoros too, so it all balances out.
SB: What tour or tours would you recommend for a shojo manga fan?
BA: Most of our tours aren't aimed specifically at different genres. I actually consider myself a shojo manga fan: I have a serious Nana obsession, and lately I'm reading Lovely Complex. I also love Flower of Life by Fumi Yoshinaga, and DVD by a Korean artist called Kye Young Chon. So no matter what tour you take you'll be in good company! The two exceptions are our yaoi and gothic-lolita tours, which are going to run this April. I know those fans overlap with shojo manga fans a lot.
SB: What's it take to become a PJT guide?
BA: Learn Japanese, soak up esoteric knowledge, travel a whole lot, and don't be afraid to introduce yourself to people you want to meet, no matter who they are. Maybe the best preparation was planning trips for me and my friends, and then making sure we didn't miss the boat/train/whatever. It got so my friends started calling me "Mama Duck" and walking in a line behind me quacking. ^^;
SB: How do you acquire and share "insider" knowledge in order to arrange for special visits to companies, art studios and schools?
BA: Most of them come through the business connections of the head of Digital Manga, Hikaru Sasahara. He hooks us up with anime studios and he got us together with Hideyuki Kikuchi (the creator of Vampire Hunter D) on our last tour. But I hope I can also start adding to the tours using my own connections. While I was in Seoul, I was constantly going back-and-forth to Tokyo and hitting up film festivals and animation events in Korea. On our last tour, I was able to set up a meeting with Nizo Yamamoto, art director on many of Hayao Miyazaki's films such as Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke, after I met him initially in Korea last year. So we're going to try to keep adding more interesting people, and make the tours even better!
SB: Do you have any last words?
BA: I hope that gives you a good impression of what Pop Japan Travel does. Thanks for the chance to talk about the tours! We're all big fans of Shojo Beat, and it's always bouncing around the office, so keep up the good work!
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