There are many unique museums in Tokyo, but only one has a miniaturized full scale diorama/model of Tokyo-3, chronicling Shinji's arrival and first day in Tokyo-3, as shown in the first two episodes of Evangelion.
Small Worlds is located in Ariake just east of Odaiba, south-east Tokyo. Subtitled as the Miniature Museum, it has four main massive-scale miniature models, where each single person is about the size of a thumbnail. These four areas are space-themed, fantasy-themed, the Kansai airport, and Tokyo-3. The space and fantasy themed areas are further divided into sub-areas with more focused themes.
Entry is a little pricey at 3200円, but I think the price tag is worth it for a one-time visit. If you enjoy the museum a lot, they have a 3D scanning studio in the middle of the museum. From the 3D scans, they can print and color a 3D model of yourself. The cheapest one is 6600円 for a small figure of 1 person, but the price can come down with multiple people. Additionally, you could pay to have your figure be part of the museum.
I visited on a Friday afternoon, so the museum was pretty empty with only a few visitors. A company or group of people booked the cafe for the full day, so I was unable to visit any exhibits on that floor. Also, occasionally waves of people would rush through the museum.
After paying the entrance fee and taking the elevator to 3F, you enter the main exhibits of the museum, starting with the Space Center.
The area begins with the Apollo Space center. Dozens of American cars line the streets to catch a glimpse of the Apollo rocket being taxied to the launch pad and shot into the space. By searching through all of the cars and crowds, you can find several easter eggs, such as the Men in Black and the Trimaxion Drone from Flight of the Navigator.
Throughout the entire museum, several parts of the models are connected to buttons. When the buttons are pressed, small actions are performed in the model. Fox example, when the MIB button is pressed, the Men in Black uses their memory erasers on a crowd of people. Press the Lowrider button, and a lowrider car starts pumping up with its hydraulics.
Moving along, we've jumped a hundred or two hundred years in the future, with the space station. The space station has a control tower which welcomes spaces shuttles, landing every 30 minutes. Within the space station, the core of galactic transport operates run by the 0123 shipping company. There's also a food court, and an octopus sausage assembly line.
The last of the space areas is dedicated to the overall space race. It's a mini-scale museum for the space station's inhabitants showing the development of space travel (witnessed back in the Apollo Space center) to the current age. Visitors peer at the recreations of the original moon landing, and other triumphs of space travel.
There is a fourth, smaller exhibit dedicated to Diaclone, a Tony toy-line of giant robots from the 80s. It's a bit under-developed compared to the scale and unity of the overall space area. Its just a collection of the old toys with the theme song playing on the screen behind it.
The fantasy themed Global Village has five areas, each seamlessly connected, like the space themed area. The area begins with Snow Mine Peaks City.
The mining village is covered in railways cutting through the mountain into emerald mines. Further up the mountain are snow covered trails with skiers. When hitting buttons, the train cars emerge from the tunnels and come into town.
Moving away from the mountains into flatter areas is the Dragon Village, a bustling town with many stores, restaurants, and entertainment. Further east, is the Dragon forest, where the dragons and their riders live.
Dropping down from the high cliffs of dragons and the highlands is Wall Sanctuary Resort on the sea. The stone city seems carved from the cliffs and mountains adjacent to it. Hundreds of tourists enjoy the seaside food while observing the massive mythical creatures in the water.
It was around this time that I started to notice some answers to a contest. At the opening of Global Village, a scavenger hunt was posted. Find all the Treasure boxes in the Global Village and spell the following word: _ _ _ _ o _. The O was pasted in, so that was probably broken. I could find 4 treasure boxes: here, here, here, and here. You'd think it might be difficult to find such specific things in such a vast detailed world, but the whirring of the gears opening the treasure boxes gave them away. That being said, I could only find 4. I could hear a fifth one near the end. Although, it was always whirring, so maybe it was the broken O. Anyways, I won't give away the answer, but it's pretty obvious.
With the answer to the puzzle, you go back to the Space Center, whisper the word to the attendant at the concierge and get your prize, a piece of candy. I would have rather gotten a sticker or something non-perishable. Oh well.
Leading across the bay from the resort is the Royal Capitol, a city embracing modern steam technology to power air craft, robots, and other machines. Above the city, the railways are elevated and move people to and from the large angular buildings. One of my favorite buildings was the library, where several floors of books are exposed to staircases surrounding the outside of the building.
Finally, past the capitol, is Zhenshimen City, where nightlife is king. Neon signs line the roads and alleyways of the vibrant town enticing any person or robot to come inside and stay for a while.
This was by far the most dynamic, detailed, and dense area of the Global Village. Every angle and vantage point looking into the buildings offered something new to be seen and discovered. Those remaining letters had to be in here somewhere, but I could never find them. Some of the buttons and interactions were broken in this area, too.
Before moving onto the third main area, there was an exhibition room for miniature diorama artists to display and sell their works. Many of these models were far more detailed than the Space and Fantasy areas of the museum.
There were two artists I thought had some amazing models compared to other artists in the gallery. Unfortunately, I forgot to look up the name of this first person.
They made several full-scale rooms of a restaurant, car mechanic, kitchen, and garage. Some were for display only, not for sale. The ones for sale had a price tag of around $10,000, I think? Given the time, detail, and expertise put into the model, that seems... I dunno. Maybe accurate.
Another artist has some beautiful snowy scenes. The scene themselves were mostly flat, built up from the back canvas, but used a lot of lighting and false perspectives to create a scene that has so much depth.
I was smart enough to snap a photo of this guy's information. These scene were created by Miniature artists and YouTuber, BamBi. Shit. At least, I think they are. This person's website has nothing resembling these artworks.
Leaving the Creators Gallery brings us to the Kansai airport area, a massive recreation of the airfield surrounding the airport.
This is the first area to have a day-night cycle. Flights land and take off on a schedule. You can view the schedule from the airport lounge, a real-life recreation of an airport lounge overlooking the model. Every 10 minutes or so, the wall on the far side of the model opens and a plane lands. It then taxies from the runway over to the terminal on the other side of the room.
The terminal is full of passengers waiting in various lines, such as check-in, security, and restaurants.
In addition to that treasure scavenger hunt earlier, there is another scavenger hunt that spans across all three main areas so far. Small Worlds has three mascot bears as signature characters, and these three bears are hidden throughout the areas doing various things. Next to them is a letter plaque. View all the letters and create a 7-letter word. Here are some of them: Airport Terminal, Airport Control Tower, Sanctuary Wall Resort, and the Moon Landing. I missed the very first one at reception, but I could figure out the answer.
When you have the answer, you can bring it to the 3D print studio and run the lottery. I don't remember what the prizes were, but I got the common prize, a 500円 off coupon for a 3D scanned figure of myself. I might consider it if I come back here with friends and they want to make figures of themselves.
Now we start moving on to the main event.
Next to the 3D print studio, there are some huge Evangelion artifacts from some Evangelion events. Moving along, we reach the Evangelion Hanger, where the three children board their evangelions, and Misato commands Nerv to launch them to the surface to fight the incoming Angel. This runs on a timer, so they are rolled and launched up into the ceiling every 7-ish minutes.
The models are to the same scale as the thumbnail sized people, but compared to us, they are about the size of a toddler. It would be neat to see the evangelion models actually move, but it would seem so stiff and robotic compared to how agile they are in the show. I dunno, there are probably some scenes you could replicate where they don't move too much.
Moving past the hanger and up the stairs, we emerge into Tokyo-3, starting with Misato's neighborhood.
The model continues to the hillside, overlooking the downtown area of Tokyo-3. The whole room runs on a day-night cycle. As morning breaks, the song 2EM09_YAMASHITA plays from Evangelion 2.0. In the film, this plays as everyone in Tokyo-3 wakes up and starts their day. Next, the Misato Theme plays.
Moving over from Misato's neighborhood, we reach the suburbs of Tokyo-3 surrounding Shinji's school.
Further east from the school, is a rural mountainous area. I spotted Kaji in front of the station with the suitcase holding Adam.
While it is sunset and night in the above photos, in daytime, the next song that plays is Decisive Battle as an Angel attacks Tokyo-3. The Skyscrapers of Tokyo-3 are lowered into the ground as Eva Unit 1 is deployed to face and defeat the Angel.
Wrapping around the mountain leads to the scenic overlook where Misato brings Shinji to show him what he saved by destroying the angel. The song Tokyo-3 plays as the sun sets, and the city emerges from the ground, recreating the scene from the anime.
Later, during the darkness of night, EM19_Premix plays as all the lights from the skyscrapers are extinguished.
The day starts again as pink lights give rise to the sun, and "Yamashita" plays again.
The Tokyo-3 model is an amazing recreation of those pleasant days in the beginning of Evangelion before humanity and mentality are tore apart.
Leaving Tokyo-3 brings you back to the 3D studio, and more large scale Evangelion models. Continuing on is the workshop. If you arrive early enough in the day, you could join a workshop to build your own model. Going through the workshop, brings you back to the Space Center.
Again, a group booked out the entire 2F cafe, which apparently hold more exhibits, so I didn't get to see any of those, or try any food. But, the Evangelion exhibits were excellent.
Overall, I spent two hours in Small Worlds. Looking through all of these photos, I feel like there were still plenty of easter eggs that I missed and want to go searching for. But, I am satisfied for now. :)
