I visited my first trance club here in Japan over in the well-known Amemura in Osaka’s Shinsaibashi. Wait,
according to the flyer it was called “super trance” (whatever that means) at a
venue called Club Joule (http://www.club-joule.co.jp/) which takes up the second
and third floors of a building right off of Triangle Park.
A well-known spot and one I pass by whenever I’m shopping or heading off to my
favorite goth club event at a nearby venue called NEO, I felt it was time to
finally take the plunge and step inside.
And what a step it was! Wow, dance clubs in Japan are
strange, prickly creatures full of bright colors and even brighter flashing
lights. Anyone out there ever heard about that Pokemon seizure episode where children watching it started getting
seizures from all the bright flashing lights? – stepping into this club was
sort of like that sans cute anime
characters saying things like “pikachu~~~”, though some of the girls there
looked like they should have been in an anime
with their perfect hair and make-upped eyes trying to look that much larger
than life. And the boys there reminded me a lot of off-duty host boys
considering just how much hairspray they used on their spiky Final
Fantasy-esque hair and dangly earrings and other random accessories. Add in
cheesy glow sticks and glowing bracelets and it was almost like a regular old
rave but without the mind-altering drugs. I guess I could say that it was a
very typical young 20-something crowd – I assume they were 20-something as I
actually got ID checked going in; the first time that such a thing has ever happened to me while in Japan and
legal drinking age here is 20, the age when you officially become an adult.
And, like all places in Japan, this club was no exception
to the cliques. You just can’t get away from those cliques anywhere here! This
can be overcome with copious amounts of alcohol transformed into liquid courage
but don’t expect a lot of the Japanese kids to come up to you; as a foreigner
you’re on your own so any sort of communication can be quite daunting, even if
you know some Japanese. At the best of times it is perhaps possible but with
booming oonts-oonts music and
annoyingly flashing colored lights and you’ll probably find yourself at a loss
and soon you’ll give up even trying to talk to anyone you might have come with,
let alone want to meet.
Anyway, here my friend and I are trying to figure out what
the thing to do is here as far as dancing goes and we eventually gave up on
that as well. Japanese kids just can’t dance. They can’t. I’m sorry, but it’s
true. Up in the front of the dance floor near the DJ were the thrashers and
stompers (usually boys), followed by varying degrees of stomping, swaying and
just sort of… rigidly moving one’s body from side to side in addition to the people on the middle of the dance floor just standing there doing nothing. I shouldn’t laugh
about it but it is a bit funny to watch, actually. Later on in the evening (or
should I say morning as the club didn’t start to fill until 1am) out came the synchronized
para-para dance moves and apparently
all these girls brought in big fuzzy fans to dance with as they clambered onto
side platforms to dance together. It was a bit surreal, actually. Add in the Rurouni Kenshin cosplay guy in Kenshin’s
hakama complete with “X” shaped scar
on his cheek dancing in the corner and I just wasn’t quite sure what to make of
this place!
I guess I should say that it was ok. I had a decent time,
for all that I got there too early (don’t bother showing up to a club in Japan before
midnight – nothing’s going on) and for ¥2000 plus free drink coupon (I actually
got 2 coupons because I got there too early, heading in at 11:30pm), it wasn’t
so bad. I did get a bit bored of the repetitious music and dancing after a
while, amusing as it can be, so I called it quits early and left the club
sometime after 4am. Don’t do this if you need to catch a train home because
trains don’t start running until 5-5:30am so you’ll either be stranded outside
the club or have to catch an expensive cab to wherever. Always take into
account transportation wherever you decide to end up at night so you don’t get
stuck somewhere that you don’t want to be, for all the Japan is quite safe in most areas even at night. And that’s my final bit of advice.
If you’re curious, I definitely say check out the clubs here
in Osaka –
there are so many of them all over Shinsaibashi or further up in Umeda with all
sorts of music styles. Be warned that while the club may look familiar the
people that fill it up will be quite a bit different than what you’re used to at
home drinks aren’t always going to be as strong as you like it, and there might be a smoke haze from too many cigarettes but it
should still be a good time nonetheless.
And that’s all I’ve got. It’s bedtime for me as the sun will
soon rise.
Peace out.
