Some women danced on their feet, some women sat in chairs tied to the ceiling
There were women on bikes
Buggies
Tank
Oh, and a neon giant plane
Whilst some were paraded through the air like some sort of futuristic dystopian female cult
Which...I quite want to join
Robot Restaurant opened in mid-2012 in Shinjuku, Tokyo
after someone spent 125 million dollars
building the venue, constructing the robots
and hiring the female population of a small city
to come perform everyday, 3 times!
After reading about how unusual this place was, and being something of a robotic fanatic myself
a friend and I decided to check it out on our recent trip to Tokyo
and....well...it was pretty interesting
The thing kicked off fairly normally, well to some degree, with the female cult as I said, parading around their tattooed leader
Shouting loudly and advocating...Soy Milk?
Or...just Soya in general..something to do with Soya
And after a change of clothes we had a fairly normal performance which my friend particularly enjoyed
Alright, so did I
And then it all started to turn rather weird
A giant robot called King Robota
was wheeled out to the Dance Floor
Brought to life by the son of Father Christmas
Before it started stumbling around and shouting inaudible words
we were disappointed or in my case relieved to know
to that there is actually someone in the robot
There is someone in the 8 foot costume
Although half the costume is technically a robot, with the hands and face that do their own thing
I'm genuinely scared, what is that??
It was a rather terrifying insight into a future of giant dancing robots singing
to remixes of We Will Rock You and of course dancing to Gangnam Style
I wasn't the only one uncomfortable being in the presence of this giant robot
There were quite a lot of other "robots" dancing in Power Rangers-style costumes
As well as members of the Albert Einstein fan club
and they all seemed hesitant to share the dance floor
with the eight-foot tall
half man, half robot, half fucking nightmare
robot swinging arms thing
Or perhaps they were afraid of the crazy man sitting on our left
who was on a high dosage of fizzy soft drinks and women
and he must have been the only person in that room to have succeeded in touching every women
In massive contrast to the overly excited guy on our left
on our right we had Tokyo's most thoroughly unenthusiastic man
I couldn't for the life of me establish whether he was genuinely unimpressed
or just overwhelmingly sexually frustrated
Things then died down
Except they didn't
Because then a fleet of women on giant animatronic robots
made their way into the room
and started to surround us
before poking the giant robot thing
in the face which she didn't seem to like very much because she starting doing this
My friend even got to sit on one
pull a stupid pose on it
before driving it backwards and forwards across the room with a cheeky smile
And it was at that moment that things started to die down
Except they didn't
Because just then, a motorbike burst into the room
The room turned into a giant merry-go-round
with women hanging from the ceiling
Then what happened...? Oh yeah!
There was a woman riding around on an ostrich
A woman being assaulted, cuddled, fondled
by a giant rabbit
And then... some sort of buggy with half a dozen women just burst into the room
And my friend got overwhelmed by it all
But then things got really mental
because right then in a scene reminiscent from the world's greatest weapon demonstration
A giant plane flew into the room
and...and a neon Tank drenched with women drove through the room
crashing into the plane twice
I almost spilled my sanity all over the floor
What the fucking hell is going on??
It's during this part of the performance
that you'll start to wonder why tanks aren't build in neon and covered in bikini wearing women
No self-respected enemy soldier would open fire on them
They'd be too busy filming it let's face it
It was then that the plane and the tank turned around, disappearing off stage
with a wave and the cries of goodbyes
the performance ended
and we emerged from the place wondering what the hell had just happened
Even though...whatever I saw...was bloody brilliant
They say the best things in life are free
They're not, they cost 4000 yens and they come with a bento box dinner
Not that you'll be thinking about the food
And after all you'll probably have to only do it once
although let it be said there are definitely some who make it a weekly pilgrimage
The show may not have had all the robots I'd hope for
But one things for sure
you'll certainly have a hard time finding
a cabaret performance as interesting, dramatic, ridiculous as the one at Robot Restaurant