The Endless Library - Kadokawa Culture Museum in Tokyo

Hey everyone, welcome to Japan Pro. Today we have come to Kadokawa Culture Museum, which officially opened just today. So, as you can see behind us, this brand new building. Super unique, unlike anything else in Tokyo. Yeah, so Kadokawa is one of the leading publishers in Japan, and they built this gigantic facility as a hybrid of library, art gallery, and museum. Yeah, so that's a lot of stuff to cram into one building, but to me it looks more like a Minecraft castle than what you guys think at home. Yeah, so I have no idea what it looks like inside, so let's go check it out. The design of the Kadokawa Museum is the vision of world-renowned architect Kengo Kuma. With its imposing monolithic exterior design, it certainly takes center stage in the otherwise average suburban area of Tokorozawa. The stone facade of the building is an impressive mosaic of 20,000 granite tiles, painstakingly cut into unique triangle shapes, and stacked together like polygons on a 3D model. Here on opening day, big crowds were lined up and ready to discover the mysteries inside. There was even a big band from a local girls school, performing a whole host of popular songs to celebrate the grand opening. There's plenty to check out here, but our first stop was the fourth floor to visit Edit Town. This space is said to be designed to resemble a town that is inhabited by books. Broken up into nine different categories, visitors can take a seat and enjoy reading on a wide range of topics. Midway through Edit Town, you'll find a different section called Wunderkammer, which is a German word meaning closet of curiosities. So this is the museum section of this whole facility. It's kind of mainly focused around natural sciences, I guess. They've got lots of exhibits of like, you know, skulls of old animals, and like fossils, body parts. They've got some cool like lithography kind of blocks here as well. Lots of just random stuff. It's very, very interesting. Even got a NASA logo here. If you look above you, there's an alligator hanging from the ceiling. Continuing further through the hall will lead you to one of the most impressive libraries in existence. So this is the Hondaner Geckijou, which means like bookshelf theater, and it's this massive, massive library room. Shelves go up about 10 meters all the way to the ceiling, and every shelf is lined with books published by Kadokawa. There's over 25,000 books in this room, but that's only a small selection of all the books that the company's ever published. Feels like I'm in like a Harry Potter library or something. It's amazing. As well as thousands of books, the theater part of its name refers to an impressive light show that is projected across the endless shelves. In attendance to watch this inaugural show were accomplished author and historian Seiichi Morimura and the chairman of the Kadokawa Group, Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, who amongst other things has a very impressive IMDb page listed as producer on many beloved movies and even includes the anime classic, The End of Evangelion. Yeah, so we just saw the opening reception, and you saw this gentleman, Mr. Morimura. He's one of the biggest contributors to this museum, and he's also one of the most famous novelists in Japan. And some of his famous titles include like Ningen no Shomei, which means like a proof of humanity. Yeah, and also this Chushingura is one of the most famous, and it's a story of a samurai who takes a revenge on his boss, who's a daimyo, or maybe I should call lord in English. It's quite interesting. Looking up at the shelves that seamlessly cascade down from the ceiling like a waterfall, you'll see that the bookshelf theatre is actually spread across the fourth and fifth floors, and even the staircase that connects the two is littered with books. On the top floor is another section of the museum dedicated to the history of Kadokawa Shoten, with the story of its founder, Genyoshi Kadokawa, as well as the history of the area of Musashino. A lot of you may not know, but Tokyo is actually located on a plain field called Musashino. For example, we've got Tokyo Station here, and here's Shibuya, and it covers all other wide areas in the Kanto region. It's surprising how wide of the area Musashino covers. This map is interactive too. By downloading the Augmented Reality app, you'll be able to see some popular landmarks throughout Tokyo. You'll also see Daidara Bocchi, a Japanese yokai, or monster, of legend. The story goes that these colossal humanoid creatures created Japan's many lakes after scooping up the earth to build mountains, and can be seen off in the distance on the plains of Musashino. Wow. So it says over there, you see people have been living in Musashino for 30,000 years. Yeah, I'm really impressed. And it says now, you know, there are 10 million people living in Musashino. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, Musashino is one of the flattest lands in Japan. So, you know, it's probably one of the easiest to live on. So, it's understandable. Once you've explored the whole museum, you can take a break with a nice coffee and pass some time with a good book. Hey Julien, what are you reading? Yeah, it's this book called Totoro no Umureta Tokoro. And basically, the movie Totoro is set in a place called Tokorozawa, which is this area, basically. Oh yeah, it should be. Yeah, yeah. So the station we actually came to today, which is about 10 minutes from here, is Higashi Tokorozawa. And this book is basically about all the plant life you can find in the area. It's got these cute little illustrations. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. So basically, in this area, you can enjoy coffee while reading books, right? Yeah. And in the general Tokorozawa area, you can pretend you're in my neighbor Totoro. This isn't the only place you can enjoy some reading though. Located back on the first floor is the manga and light novel library, which is quite unique in itself as libraries in Japan typically only display more traditional books and novels. Oh, wow. This is so nostalgic. What's that? This is the manga version of Evangelion. Oh, cool. And did you know that this manga version came almost a year before the anime series? I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. I used to have all these, you know. It was probably one of the most famous anime ever, right? But I wonder how many people have actually read the manga. The manga one was very popular too, but I think it's not very well known outside Japan. So, guys, that was Kadokawa Culture Museum, probably one of the most extravagant libraries I've ever seen in my entire life. Very impressive. I agree. Yeah, at first, I saw so many books and I didn't think all of them were real. You know what I mean? I thought some of them were decorative. Yeah, they can't possibly be real books, but even the ones that were on the very top shelf that are impossible to reach. Exactly. All real, all published by Kadokawa. That was really impressive. And if you get a chance to visit Tokyo next time, I definitely recommend you coming here. Absolutely. So, thanks for watching, guys. Make sure you subscribe to Japan Pro for new videos every single week, and we'll see you again in the next video. See you again.