Every rightful anime fan, or at least school-life anime fan should know what Bunkasai is. That's Culture Festival in Japanese. It's when students come up with attraction ideas to be shown to the public, such as restaurants, haunted houses, hostess clubs, animal doll cafes, a cute walking penguin advertisement, "decultured" stage plays, cosplay cafes, fortune-telling booths, a concert starring a bunny girl singer and a witch guitarist... ok the last seven were anime references, but I'm sure you get the picture.
The cool part is that they're really into it, staying back till night for around a week prior to decorate their classrooms and stalls for the two-day event. Kinda like Malaysia's canteen day, but more semangat (high-spirited).
It's young independent spirit at its best. As a Japan culture lover, I wouldn't miss it for the world.
Researching on which school was opened for the weekend was difficult though. I thought all schools would have its culture festival on Culture Day (Bunka no Hi). I mean, isn't it obvious? Culture Festival on Culture Day?! But noooo, every school just HAD to hold their culture fest on different days of the YEAR.
But hey, thank god for the Internet huh?
Out of 4 Tokyo schools available, I chose Wako High School. Why? Simply because they put up a nice cover for their pamphlets and even have a blog to showcase the event. Memang semangat. I went there with my two lovely cousins, Dzaid and Daim.
(Special thanks to Daim for providing some of the pics)
Yup that's the name of the school. They have the whole range, Wako Junior School, Wako Middle School, Wako University and this place, Wako High School.
Why pandas, I don't have a clue. The colourful panda fits in with the whole theme though.
Whole long rows of bicycles = A common sight in Tokyo
The students made these cute handmade ads for their attractions near the entrance. Really really cool, but from far they look like transparent body bags on stretchers :S Ki no sei dake yo.
Ain't that cute? A pink bus selling agepan! Didn't have time to try the bread though :( We were thinking of dropping by later, but it was closed by then _orz
And same goes for this yakitori stall too =_= The chickens with their front view look really funny lol
Argh, should've gone out earlier. Didn't get to taste this pizza either!
Looks real huh? It's just cardboard with a face sticker asking us to throw rubbish here. Could be the homeroom teacher or principal.
Out of all the stalls outside the school, we managed to try only this one. Churros, baked flour thingie sprinkled with powder of the flavour of your choice. I chose chocolate, coz choc rocks!
It was quite a popular stall. Had to take a number and wait for, like, 15 minutes. But it was quite fun looking at the students passing the churros to each other, sprinkling the powder and finally calling out the number, with all the usual polite shopkeeper speech. Truly like a food stall in Tokyo.
While waiting, we also managed to catch a rap performance by seemingly popular male students. Seemed so coz there were a bunch of girls crying out for them right at the edge of the stage!
Oh no, the school bell just rang! Better get to class!
Thanks to anime, I'm very very familiar with this tap. Turn it up to drink, and rotate it down to wash your hands. It even comes with the trademark soap in the net!
Here, students created art pieces using collages of coloured paper. Really creative. Somehow, I miss The One TT_TT
Wow they even made music boxes like these, with the deco, punched holes and everything :O These things sell well in Malaysian and Singaporean souvenir shops! See, this is why the Japanese are a creative lot; they start young!
I really wished I studied in a Japanese school. Apart from the bullying issues, Japan schools are really cool coz they don't only focus on exams exams exams, unlike some *ahem* country I know.
FYI, I still haven't bought Lich King yet :P Wanna do all the Level 70 quests first!
I told you they start young! Seems like this is the Engineering Club room. This guy is using the robot to place cans in a hole, and he finally succeeded after a few attempts. Ganbatta ne!
Eeeek, it's a pedo! Run, kids, RUN!
Whoa, just check out what they have in the Photography Club room! :O Just like the Truman Show poster, the guy took a bunch of lifestyle pictures and created a JanKenPon (Rock Paper Scissors) arrangement. The photographer came up to me and we chatted about his work (in Japanese of coz, heh heh). He said he developed the pics by handwash and created the tones one picture at a time. I was praising him like nuts! *bows to his greatness*
I felt guilty about using the student's stained-glass-effect creation for our own self-indulgence.
This is the advertisement for the ramen stall outside the building. Seems like we have a pervert peeking at the girl below, keke. They made a big mock-up of ramen in a bowl, using strings and coloured paper. Even comes with fake spring onions and dried chillis!
Everyone, do yourself a favour and watch Ponyo. Dzaid and I watched it in a cinema here (our first cinema experience in Japan!) and wow, it's a great show. It's by Miyazaki Hayao after all. This attraction is mainly for kids though, so we didn't enter. Zannen.
They even decorated the staircase. Such passion!
And welcome to the anime/manga club. Feel right at home here :3 Genshiken, anyone?
Just imagine, one day this guy might come up with his own Haruhi doujinshi!
I wanna learn how to draw :( I know you guys have high taste, but for me this is beautiful, especially if you consider the level of schooling and all.
The least I could do is to contribute my body! Wait, that didn't turn out right...
Can you guess why I took this pic? Here's a clue: it starts with N and ends with odame cantabile.
A great shot from Daim! Just the right location to get that whatever-you-call it ring effect.
Not in the picture is a kind girl who serves tea and consoles you when you're in a pinch (this message has been brought to you by Key & Kyoto Animation).
After walking around all the club rooms, it's time to try out some fine dining! First, we tried Fresco. I personally find this idea and the whole deco+outfits+food package the best in the school. Really great job, Class 3-2!
They made it look like a bar, covering the entire classroom with black paper and had a nice little sphere lamp thingy on each table. The students were dressed really nicely too. The classroom could really pass off as a real bar.
And it doesn't end there! Since they can't serve alcohol, the bartender instead puts the spaghetti and the sauce in a cup, covers it with another cup and shakes it like a real bartender mixes drinks! Then we're served spaghetti in the same cup. How cool is that! XD
When we left, the waiter even took the effort to say "Thank you for coming." in English!
And all this for 150 yen? Damn it, 3-2, create a real restaurant already! A+ for all of you!
Next, we visited the classroom of 3-1, with a nice Mexican setting. We had to choose the spiciness level when we ordered the Tacos. I don't really like spicy stuff, so I chose the least spicy one. Turns out that Daim chose the spiciest one, and it wasn't all that spicy!
Malaysia's standard quite high eh? Heh heh.
Ok this was rather embarassing. After chatting with the students, Daim decided to take a picture with this cool cactus that they set up in the corner of the room. Daim leaned on it and it was pushed back a little :S *covers face*
Luckily the students were sporting enough to forgive us... I think.
Western, Mexican... How about we try Japanese instead? We're in Japan after all! For such a low price, the kushikatsu (chicken on a stick) was truly delicious! Congrats to the chefs of Class 3-3! The environment was not half-bad either.
After seeing this pic, Daim swore to never show the peace sign to the camera again.
Sadly, there was not enough time to try out all the attractions. Wanted to try the haunted houses, but I hate cheap scares. Yea sue me for being a chicken.
Wako Culture Festival (Wakosai, as they fondly call it) was truly fun. Tanoshikatta! Can't wait to go to another one in another school sometime in February.
And looks like we have 2 more festivals to go! The longer I delay my posts, the more festival posts get piled up :P Anyways, watch out for them!
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