Harajuku Girls - Theatre production

"I don’t know a girl who hasn’t been groped on a train. There’s always someone trying to cop a feel. Might as well get paid for it."

Harajuku Girls tells the story of three young Japanese women desperate to pursue their dreams, despite the obstacles that society and tradition put in their way. A play about friendship, fantasy, fashion and what it means to be free. Opens at the Finborough Theatre (Earl's Court Area) for a four week limited season on Tuesday, 24 February 2015.

On Jingu Bridge in Tokyo, teenage girls dress in cosplay outfits for fun, fashion, and the fantasy of being someone else, but now their schooldays are over. Mari wants to be an actor but her father has other plans, Keiko's found a harmless moneymaker - a "compensated relationship" with an older man and Yumi hopes she can get married one day and escape the dreary world of work . As the three young women grow up and apart, they tread the fine line between empowerment and victimhood in a desperate search for independence and the freedom to pursue their dreams.

Jude Christian directs the world premier of this provocative and powerful new play by award-winning playwright Francis Turnly which takes us down the neon-lit streets and forbidden passageways of Tokyo where fantasy and reality can often become blurred. Irish-Japanese playwright Francis Turnly's previous plays include Hiding (Watford Palace Theatre), Descent (Jackson’s Lane) and Bogland (Irish tour). He has written several plays for Radio 4, recent work includes Brought to Light, Homestead and Point of Departure as well as the original detective drama, Hinterland. Francis has been a member of the Royal Court’s studio, Unheard Voices and ‘the 50’ writers’ groups.

Director Jude Christian was the 2013 winner of the National Theatre Studio Bursary for Emerging Directors. Direction includes How Do You Eat An Elephant? (National Youth Theatre of Wales), I'd Rather Goya Robbed Me Of My Sleep Than Some Other Arsehole (Gate Theatre London, Boom Arts Portland), Happy and The Mushroom (Pentabus Young Writers Festival) to just name a few.

Buy Tickets Here.

~Aisha Anime~

Already the press has been booming on the show : “A sinewy, masculine text, given a remarkable production” Four Stars, Maddy Costa, The Guardian.

“The strange inner world...is strikingly drawn out by Christian’s production, which has created a captivating visual and aural landscape...this arresting production makes its searching, impotent fury feel uncannily resonant.” Catherine Love, Exeunt Magazine.

“The uncertainty as to whether this trip is about to happen, has happened, or exists only in the man’s whirling imagination is increased in Jude Christian’s inventively bizarre staging” Sarah Hemming, The Financial Times.

Blog to Japan: my 12 reasons for going

It's InsideJapan Tours' 12th birthday, so to celebrate all things great and good about the number 12,  InsideJapan Tours and Virgin Atlantic have teamed up to invite you to "blog to Japan"!

Here are my 12 good reasons as to why I should be sent to Japan to blog:

1. I would love to attend a real tea ceremony and learn how to put on a kimono and do the whole tradition properly. Also showing a tutorial of how to wear a Kimono would be very helpful to the readers, as there are reasons behind it not just beauty and etiquette.

2. I'm a big  gamer and mythology fan and my love for rural mysterious villages as seen in Project Zero and Okami have fueled my interest to see the town of Takachiho. A town in northern Miyazaki Prefecture that is shrouded in Japanese mythology. It is there at the Amano Iwato Shrine supposedly the site of where the legend of Amaterasu is set. The Shinto Sun Goddess, disturbed by her brother's cruel pranks, hid herself in a cave, prompting the other gods and goddesses to try and lure her out.

3. Dress up Harajuku style and take photos of all the different tribes around the area and talk to them about their styles and why it's important to them. Japan is where most of the Western trends are adapted from!

4. To see Himeji Castle, it was never destroyed in wars, earthquakes or fires and survives in its original form. It is both a national treasure and a UNESCO world heritage site. Now this I have to see, makes me reminiscent of the strong fighting casting in Robo-Geisha!

5. Take a trip to the Pokemon center to challenge the Poke masters of Japan, will I be a match for their high level Trubbishes? Who knows, a great video opportunity and chance t see exclusive merchandise not available in the UK.



 6. To hear some live Japanese music, whether it be Suga Shikao or some traditional instrumental music - Koto especially since I hear so much in anime/game background, a mix of traditional vs contemporary would be an electric blast much needed for my ears, which fancy a change from pop music.

 7. I love anime but the best by far is produced by Ghibli and would be an amazing chance to go to Hayao Miyazaki's Ghibli Museum. I've been a fan since Spirited Away and have gone watched every Ghibli movie to date. Since I have a soft spot for cats I wonder I wonder if they will let me sit in the cat bus ? :o

8. Ever since the mention of 'chisa' in Azumanga Daioh anime, I've been curious about the wildcats of Japan and found out it's one of the world's rarest wildcats. They inhabit Iriomote, one of Japan's most far-flung islands. Almost indistinguishable from a house cat, the Iriomote wildcat is believed to be related to a leopard cat found on the Asian continent, to which this island was once linked.

9. A trip to Osaka: to Sumiyoshi-taisha Shrine, built prior to the influx of Buddhist architecture, this shrine - one of the oldest in Japan - exemplifies a purely Japanese style design, then relax in an authentic hot spring hopefully I'll recharge my HP like in Monster hunter :D

10. Ever since the article in the Metro about the monkey butlers, I've wanted to see them! The Kayabukiya tavern, a sake house just north of Tokyo, employs the two macaques to help out their more traditional human waiters. The macaques, called Yat-chan and Fuku-chan, are tipped by the customers with boiled soya beans.The funny thing is they do it of their own free will!

11. Shibuya Station, you may be suprised but outside here resides the Hachiko Statue. You may remember the American movie adaptation 'Hatchi', based on the life of Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture at the University of Tokyo and his dog, a golden brown Akita, named Hachikō.  as a During Ueno's life, Hachikō greeted him at the end of each day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine for a year, when Professor Ueno did not return. The professor died, never returning to the train station where Hachikō was waiting, and he waited every day for the next nine years at Shibuya station.

12. Now no trip to Japan would be complete without visiting Kyoto's most famous Geisha district in Gion. This district is filled with shops, restaurants and ochaya (teahouses), where Geiko (Kyoto dialect for geisha) and Maiko (geiko apprentices) entertain. The houses around here tend to be traditional wooden machiya merchant houses.

It was hard only picking 12 great thing to do and see in Japan as there is so much to see. Hopefully all of this will give a great mix of culture, fun and colour to represent Japan at it's finest.