My Heroes World Tour adventure (sort of)
Oct. 4th, 2007 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustI got back from my trip to Japan recently. I timed the trip so that I could attend the Worldcon in Yokohama, but fortuitously enough it also coincided with the Heroes World Tour event in Tokyo.
I should warn you up front that this report does not contain photos of the cast, interviews with the cast, or indeed any encounters with the cast. You know those fics where the story is told from the POV of some random character witnessing events from the outside? Yeah, kinda like that.
Anyway, I was thrilled when I found out the Tokyo part of the tour was supposed to take place on the 27th and the 28th, because that almost exactly matched my own window of time there. Surely it was destiny. And even though I knew nothing about the event, or whether I would be able to get in, at least I would be in the same city, which is probably the closest I will ever get to the Heroes cast. ('World Tour', yeah right. 'Northern Hemisphere Tour', more like.)
Information about the Tokyo event was extremely hard to find, even as the dates drew closer. Eventually I ran Google searches over Japanese webpages - and hit paydirt. There was going to be a premiere screening of the first two episodes at Toho Cinemas in Roppongi Hills on the 27th. The cast members on the Asian leg of the tour - Ali Larter, Masi Oka, Greg Grunberg, and Sendhil Ramamurthy - were going to attend. Unfortunately, this was a ticketed event, open only to the winners of a competition. And I was not one of them.
Still, undaunted, I navigated my way there on the afternoon of the 27th. Roppongi Hills is a new shopping complex, featuring shiny architecture, landscaped gardens, and expensive department stores.
From the information I had found online about the screening, the doors were meant to open at 6:30 and the curtain would go up at 7:00. Since I was early, I had a wander around the place until 5:30 or so.
Toho Cinemas turned out to be just a normal multiplex. There didn't seem to be anything special set up for the event - no billboard ads, no red carpet, no hordes of fans. In the foyer, there was a poster in a stand, a table staffed by a couple of people, and what looked like Heroes showbags - probably reserved for those lucky competition winners.
Outside, about a dozen people were hanging around waiting. I overheard a few conversations in English, which informed me that at least some of them were Heroes fans hoping, like me, for a glimpse of the cast. I got to talking with two of them, a guy from America and a guy from Malaysia, who were both working in Japan. We expressed our mutual surprise at how low key this event was and how little promotion there seemed to be. However, a few camera crews did show up and eventually went inside. So did we, though we debated whether our chances would be better waiting inside or outside. It turned out a lot more people were hanging around in the foyer, but some ended up going into the theatres showing Transformers and Fantastic Four.
Time passed, and still no sign of the cast. It seemed possible that there might be a back entrance into the Heroes theatre, or that the cast would only appear after the screening. 6:30 came, the doors opened, and the competition winners went inside. After they were gone, however, a bunch of guys in suits showed up. I wondered whether they were network executives, waiting around to greet the cast. Hope glimmered.
But 7:00 came, and the cast did not. Eventually, after querying the cinema staff, we were told that only the competition winners would get to see the Heroes cast. I was not surprised, but I was a little sad. It would have been fantastic to have seen them in person. Still, it was only one item on my long list of cool stuff to do in Japan. I took one last photo, of the glowing walkway where the Heroes cast did not come strolling up.
And then I was ready to move on.
(And I had an awesome time in Japan, and at Worldcon I actually got to meet George Takei and tell him how cool he was and get his autograph. So yeah, pretty happy.)
(But if they do another World Tour, they'd better come to Australia this time. Because the world doesn't end at the equator!)
I should warn you up front that this report does not contain photos of the cast, interviews with the cast, or indeed any encounters with the cast. You know those fics where the story is told from the POV of some random character witnessing events from the outside? Yeah, kinda like that.
Anyway, I was thrilled when I found out the Tokyo part of the tour was supposed to take place on the 27th and the 28th, because that almost exactly matched my own window of time there. Surely it was destiny. And even though I knew nothing about the event, or whether I would be able to get in, at least I would be in the same city, which is probably the closest I will ever get to the Heroes cast. ('World Tour', yeah right. 'Northern Hemisphere Tour', more like.)
Information about the Tokyo event was extremely hard to find, even as the dates drew closer. Eventually I ran Google searches over Japanese webpages - and hit paydirt. There was going to be a premiere screening of the first two episodes at Toho Cinemas in Roppongi Hills on the 27th. The cast members on the Asian leg of the tour - Ali Larter, Masi Oka, Greg Grunberg, and Sendhil Ramamurthy - were going to attend. Unfortunately, this was a ticketed event, open only to the winners of a competition. And I was not one of them.
Still, undaunted, I navigated my way there on the afternoon of the 27th. Roppongi Hills is a new shopping complex, featuring shiny architecture, landscaped gardens, and expensive department stores.
From the information I had found online about the screening, the doors were meant to open at 6:30 and the curtain would go up at 7:00. Since I was early, I had a wander around the place until 5:30 or so.
Toho Cinemas turned out to be just a normal multiplex. There didn't seem to be anything special set up for the event - no billboard ads, no red carpet, no hordes of fans. In the foyer, there was a poster in a stand, a table staffed by a couple of people, and what looked like Heroes showbags - probably reserved for those lucky competition winners.
Outside, about a dozen people were hanging around waiting. I overheard a few conversations in English, which informed me that at least some of them were Heroes fans hoping, like me, for a glimpse of the cast. I got to talking with two of them, a guy from America and a guy from Malaysia, who were both working in Japan. We expressed our mutual surprise at how low key this event was and how little promotion there seemed to be. However, a few camera crews did show up and eventually went inside. So did we, though we debated whether our chances would be better waiting inside or outside. It turned out a lot more people were hanging around in the foyer, but some ended up going into the theatres showing Transformers and Fantastic Four.
Time passed, and still no sign of the cast. It seemed possible that there might be a back entrance into the Heroes theatre, or that the cast would only appear after the screening. 6:30 came, the doors opened, and the competition winners went inside. After they were gone, however, a bunch of guys in suits showed up. I wondered whether they were network executives, waiting around to greet the cast. Hope glimmered.
But 7:00 came, and the cast did not. Eventually, after querying the cinema staff, we were told that only the competition winners would get to see the Heroes cast. I was not surprised, but I was a little sad. It would have been fantastic to have seen them in person. Still, it was only one item on my long list of cool stuff to do in Japan. I took one last photo, of the glowing walkway where the Heroes cast did not come strolling up.
And then I was ready to move on.
(And I had an awesome time in Japan, and at Worldcon I actually got to meet George Takei and tell him how cool he was and get his autograph. So yeah, pretty happy.)
(But if they do another World Tour, they'd better come to Australia this time. Because the world doesn't end at the equator!)
