It's A Small World After All: Tokyo DisneySea

First opened to the public in September of 2001, Tokyo DisneySea is one of the newest Disney theme parks and also one of the most popular. The nautical-themed park is located in Chiba, just outside of Tokyo and adjacent to Tokyo Disneyland, (which was, until recently, the most popular amusement park in the world). Both parks are owned and operated by Japanese entertainment conglomerate the Oriental Land Company and are the only Disney theme parks in the world that are not owned by Disney (The Oriental Land Company simply licenses the relevant characters and likenesses from Disney).

Personally, I hadn’t been to a Disney amusement park since I was a young child and my memory doesn’t stretch back that far, save the occasional traumatizing event. So when Matt (who counts visiting every Disney park in the world among his lifetime goals) invited me to tag along, I agreed, figuring that I could see two things I had essentially never seen before at the same time: Disneyland and a real Japanese theme park. Could Tokyo DisneySea really be both of these things simultaneously?

As previously discussed, Disney’s flair for creating immersive fantasy worlds has proven quite profitable in the Japanese market, where elaborate simulacra are among the more popular leisure destinations. DisneySea was designed to appeal more to adult tastes, with its focus on thrill rides and shows aimed at an older audience. Still, the park is pure Disney through and through and is divided into seven self-contained worlds (“Ports of Call”), in the style of other Disney parks (this fact should not be surprising as the park is based on blueprints for a proposed water-themed Disney park in Long Beach, California that was never built).

It is often said that both Disney parks in Japan are overwhelmingly American, representing nothing more than carbon copies of the original Disney parks on which they are based. Such a view can be easily absorbed into the dominant historical narrative: that of a hegemonic American culture and its domination of a feminized Japanese “other”. I would argue, however, as anthropologist Mary Yoko Brannen has in her essay “Bwana Mickey: Constructing Cultural Consumption at Tokyo Disneyland,” (collected in Tobin’s Re-Made in Japan) that the issue at hand is a bit more complex than that. Brannen argues that Tokyo Disneyland is recontextualized in two ways, “making the exotic familiar and keeping the exotic exotic”:

But in the case of Tokyo Disneyland, the owners have insisted upon constructing an exact copy of the original, thereby keeping the exotic exotic to the point of effectively denying that they have familiarized it. My explanation for this apparent paradox is that it represents a specifically Japanese form of cultural imperialism. The process of assimilation of the West, the recontextualization of Western simulacra, demonstrates not that the Japanese are being dominated by Western ideologies but that they differentiate their identity from the West in a way that reinforces their sense of their own cultural uniqueness and superiority, or what we might call Japanese hegemony.

So what then of making the exotic familiar? After visiting DisneySea, I can confirm that this opposite principle is indeed prevalent throughout the park as well, albeit in a far more subtle manner. Keep your eyes peeled to see how an American cultural institution is adapted to suit Japanese tastes.

Upon entering the park, the first “Port of Call,” to greet the visitor’s eye is the “Mediterranean Harbor,” which is decorated in the style of an Italian port city. Despite the fact that I knew it was all just an elaborate construction, I couldn’t help but feel a bit taken aback upon entering the park and surveying the scene, replete with “Mount Prometheus” (which sporadically “erupts” throughout the day). It really is quite an entryway.

Of course, the parks borders tend to bleed from time to time, as demonstrated by this out of place steam boat steadily cruising towards the Mediterranean Harbor. Old Steamboat Willie must have taken a wrong turn after picking up that cargo or something.

Two exhausted mousketeers having what are most likely Disney branded dreams. It is said that visitors to the Tokyo Disney resorts spend more money on souvenirs on average than visitors to any of Disney’s other parks and I certainly believe it.

Matt enjoys a walk along the outer promenade of the Aladdin-themed “Arabian Coast”. Wait, on second thought, it looks like he isn’t enjoying himself at all.

The Jules Verne-themed “Mysterious Island” houses rides like “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”.

Guess what Disney animated feature inspired the “Mermaid Lagoon”? If you guessed The Lion King, you are an idiot.

A large structure in the “Lost River Delta,” just outside of the awesome “Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Skull” thrill ride. I was told that this ride is pretty similar to the Indiana Jones ride at one of the American Disney parks. Notice that the water is on fire. How is that even possible?

In some random part of the park we found one of Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machines. Matt tried his hardest to use the machine to crack the infamous “Da Vinci Code” but ended up getting frustrated with the third-grade prose and predictable plot devices.

Home sweet home! Here we see the “New York Harbor” section of the “American Waterfront”, which represents the Eastern seaboard circa early 20^th century.

Of course, Matt felt right at home! Not because he’s from New York, mind you but because he is 106 years old.

Care to wet your whistle at Tokyo DisneySea? Lord knows I could use a drink after all of this walking around.

Well, you’re in luck! As beer is sold 24 hours a day in Japan, in convenience stores, vending machines and fast food restaurants, it wouldn’t make much sense if Disneyland didn’t sell beer, now would it? Note that Leo is as refreshed as an actor in an American beer commercial (as opposed to the Japanese counterpart who generally appears to be in some sort of pain after taking a sip of cold brew).

Matt was so moved by the authenticity of the “New York Deli” that he shed a single tear, which was quickly bottled by a park official and promptly resold for ￥5000 as an “authentic New York-style tear” in one of the park’s numerous gift shops.

Given the setting of olde New Yorke harbor and Leo’s strikingly newsie-like cap, I decided to seize the photo opportunity and told Leo to “act like a newsboy”. This is what he did. Way to ruin a good picture, Leo.

This menu, for one of the American Waterfront’s authentically American restaurants, really made me nostalgic for good old, home-style Chirashi-zushi.

Indeed, Tokyo DisneySea was so enjoyable that even my boring intellectualizing of the park couldn’t spoil the fun!