Madogatari and Otaru's Lantern Festival: The Great Northern Adventure Part IV

The next morning I awoke early to check out the Madogatari exhibition, a touring art exhibition from one of my favorite animation studios Shaft. The tour celebrated their 40th anniversary as a studio, prominently featuring two of their most successful franchises, Puella Magi Madoka Magica and, my personal favorite, the Monogatari series.

The exhibition was held for merely a week in Sapporo's Factory Hall, and my trip's timing had worked perfectly to allow me to see it. Entering the exhibit was an interesting experience. Even though I had bought a ticket, it had a specific time listed on it, from 10:30am-1pm. The ticket is only valid for that time slot, which became somewhat stressful for when I arrived over an hour early to a line wrapping around the whole building. Thankfully I made the cut, entering at 12:40pm. Similar to the Ghibli Exhibit I visited in Nagoya, the Madogatari exhibit mainly featured key frame art for their series (and photos were strictly forbidden, although I snagged a couple unfocused ones for you to better understand the experience). The Monogatari section had key frame sequences for many of the most notable events in the series, with iPads playing the completed clips for comparison. They covered a variety of moments from the series, from touching emotional moments to grand combat scenes. To my amusement, they even included the infamous toothbrush scene!

The Madoka section had a wall dedicated to the main character's transformation sequences, showing the rough concept art side by side with the completed animations. They also had the collages of the enemies, whose designs were integral to the unique art style of the series.

Further in were long hallways with complete key frame artwork sets featuring character running along the same path I walked.  In this section they also featured work from other shows they had produced over the years, and had some promotional material for upcoming series and movies as well.

At the end there was a merchandise shop, which featured unique paraphernalia exclusive to this particular exhibition, tangible rewards for true diehard fans.



Afterwards I went across the street to the Factory Mall. Both the exhibition hall and the mall were once industrial buildings producing beer for the Sapporo beer company. The vintage brick construction gave both the mall and hall a unique appearance, especially for Japan.



Then I met back up with Kristen to grab a late lunch. We went out for a meal unique to Hokkaido, soup curry. As the name suggests soup is prepared using spices and ingredients usually reserved for curry sauces, creating a hot soup in both the literal and figurative sense. It is a perfectly fitting meal to be created in the cold climate of Hokkaido.


After parting ways with Kristen I caught a train which ran adjacent to the ocean to the nearby coastal city of Otaru. This town has had a long history of western influence, and has become notable for music boxes and glasswork.

In a rather bustling intersection in town stood a few large buildings home to multiple floors of music boxes and glassware gifts. More shop than museum, the main building featured tiny music boxes and gifts to high end luxury music boxes. Yes there were music boxes that cost thousands of dollars for sale.  Within the shops though also stood vintage music boxes, which were surprisingly large. Built with a similar aesthetic to grandfather clocks or phonographs, these music boxes played music from large metal discs, similar in function to a record player.

From the intersection ran the main tourist road, lined with glassware shops. These shops featured practical glassware as well as purely ornamental creations. One particularly interesting store was Sora, which featured space style artwork by Mieko Noguchi.  Each piece contained a whole galaxy, trapped in glass.

Also of note, many of the buildings on this street stand as preserved historical landmarks, which old western style architecture is rather distinctive to witness in Japan.

The end of this road conveniently linked up to the Otaru Lantern Festival. Down a channel and through an abandoned railway track the town of Otaru had embedded thousands of lanterns into snowbanks.   The recent snowstorm had somewhat buried these elaborate displays, but many of the candles remained lit, and the overcast sky created a fitting ambiance for the walk. Much of the display was rather tranquil, with snowbanks with hollowed sections home to flickering candles. A favorite section of mine was a small labyrinth built out of snow, with lanterns of frozen ice and leaves propped up on sticks lighting the way.

As I wandered through I passed a local grilling potatoes, which was just the snack I needed to warm myself up. In the same area the crowd had become a bit noisier, since they had constructed a tubing hill in the middle of the railway walk. A particularly lively group of guys were running the hill, enthusiastically throwing the tubes up to the top in a coordinated assembly. I hoped on a tube for a quick ride down myself before moving on through the rest of the festival.

I finished my tour of Otaru and hopped on a quick train back to Sapporo, where I once again found myself in ramen alley to end the night.