TOKYO TOWER

is a tower in Shiba Park, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan (). It is 332.6 m (1091 ft) tall^[1], making it the world's highest self-supporting steel tower¹ and the tallest man-made structure in Japan.
The design of the tower is based on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France¹. Despite being 8.6 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower (32.6 if the tower's TV antenna is included), Tokyo Tower only weighs about 4000 tons, whereas the Eiffel Tower weighs about 7300 tons.
It is painted in white and international orange according to air safety regulations. From dusk to midnight, the tower is brilliantly illuminated in orange (warm color) during the winter and spring and in silver/white (cool color) during the summer and fall. The lighting is occasionally changed for special events; for the Japan premiere of the movie ''The Matrix Reloaded,'' for instance, the Tower was lit in neon green.^[2]
As it is mainly surrounded by low-rise buildings, Tokyo Tower can be seen from many points in the central wards of Tokyo, such as Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Bay, the east gardens of the Imperial Palace, and the southern promenade of Shinjuku Station.
Tokyo Tower is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers.

Contents

History

Facilities

In fiction

See also

References

External links

History

In the postwar boom of the 1950s, Japan was looking for a monument to symbolize its ascendancy as a global economic powerhouse. Looking to the Western world for inspiration, the Tokyo Government decided to erect its own Eiffel Tower. One of the tower's key early proponents was politician and ''Sankei Shimbun'' co-founder Hisakichi Maeda. The tower was completed by the Takenaka Corporation in 1958 (69 years after the Eiffel Tower) at a total cost of ¥2.8 billion.
Maeda's son, Fukusaburo Maeda, later became president of Nihon Denpato, the tower's operating company. In 1988, at the height of the Japanese asset price bubble, he established a subsidiary (Tokyo Tower Development) to set up a golf course project in Chiba Prefecture. Although the golf course opened in 1995, it failed to make a return on its profits due to an economic recession in Japan, and the company ended up deeply in debt and losing money. As a result Tokyo Tower was mortgaged for 10 billion yen in 2000.
The planned opening of the taller Sumida Tower in 2011 is expected to further depress Tokyo Tower's profits as broadcasters move to the new tower.^[3]

Facilities

In addition to functioning as a radio and television broadcasting antenna support structure, the Tower is also a tourist destination.
The first floor houses an aquarium, home to 50,000 fish, the third floor is a wax museum, a Believe-it-or-Not Gallery and an attraction called the Mysterious Walking Zone, and the fourth floor is a Trick Art Gallery. There are also two observatory floors, the main observatory (at 150 m) and the so-called "special observatory" (at 250 m); both offer a 360-degree view of Tokyo and, on clear days, Mount Fuji. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, neither observation deck at Tokyo tower is located near the top of the structure.
On weekends and holidays, visitors can walk up the outside stairwell (of approximately 600 steps) to the main observatory instead of using the elevators.

In fiction

Just as the Eiffel Tower is used in cinema to immediately locate a scene in Paris (perhaps even to the point of cliché), Tokyo Tower is often used in anime and manga. A common cliché is the Tower being used as a setting for climactic events or battles.

★ In ''Tenchi Muyo! in Love'', the Tokyo Tower was the setting for one of the final battles against KAIN.

★ In ''Magic Knight Rayearth'', the Tokyo Tower is the place from where the heroines of the anime are first magically transported to Cephiro.

★ In ''Sailor Moon'', the Tokyo Tower is seen in most episodes. and parts of it are blown up in Episode 101.

★ In ''Love Hina'', The Tower can be scene in some parts of the opening credit.

★ In ''Kamen Rider X'', the Tokyo Tower is where the final battle of the series takes place.

★ In ''Please Save My Earth'', the Tokyo Tower is important to the plot.

★ In ''Eyeshield 21'', recruits for an American football team in Japan attempt to carry sugar-laced ice to the observatory area in the Tower.

★ In the ''Pokémon'' episode, "Caterpie's Big Dilemma", there was a radio tower which resembled the Tokyo Tower destroyed by a giant caterpie in a reference to Mothra.

★ In many of Clamp's works, the tower is the setting for battles or magical power sources. And the drama ''Over Time'' uses the Tower heavily as a device. Many anime series have portrayed the Tower being destroyed.

★ In "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo", Homer Simpson was struck by lightning on the tower. It can be seen here.

★ In many ''Case Closed'' movies and episodes, the Tower is a bombing target.

★ The tower can be seen in the 1967 James Bond movie ''You Only Live Twice'' when James Bond and the Japanese agent Aki in a Toyota are chased by villains in a sedan shooting at them, and the Japanese SIS assist Bond and Aki by sending a helicopter with a giant magnet to lift the car high up over Tokyo and dumping it into Tokyo bay, flying near the tower in the process.

★ In the opening sequence of ''Air Gear'', the Tokyo Tower is shown.

★ In the kaiju films '' and '', the tower is destroyed in the climactic battles.

★ In the movie, ''Always Sanchōme no Yūhi'' (''Always Sunset on Third Street'') set in 1958 Tokyo, the Tower under construction is a constant background feature.

★ Tokyo Tower is also in the anime and manga versions of Gantz, when new people enter the room, they often state that the tower can be seen nearby.

★ Also, in the video game ''Destroy All Humans! 2'' in Takoshima (a parody of Takashima), The Takoshima Tower looks almost exactly like Tokyo Tower.

★ The tower had a major presence appeared in ''You're Under Arrest'' series in episodes 34-35 when Chief Daizaburo Tokumaru of Bokuto Police Precinct was trapped outside the top observation deck with a young boy, after he rescued a purse-snatcher, and in the movie when he came to meet up with the renegade police officer Detective Tadashi Emoto, especially when some scenes in the TV series portray him waiting in the tower's observation area. In episode 35, Tokumaru explains how the Tokyo Tower was built from recycled American tanks from the Korean War.

★ In ''Gate Keepers'', Tokyo Tower is the site of the first climactic battle with Reiji Kageyama.

★ In Someday's Dreamers, the character Angela Brooks twisted it using her mage powers when she got frustrated when she revealed her love for a fellow mage, disrupting TV and radio signals to the rest of Tokyo. Trouble is, she cannot restore it when things got calmer, so her master reversed it.

★ In the finale of SD Gundam Musha Banchō Fūunroku, the tower is used as a transmitter in an attempt to gather Japanese children who have been brainwashed by powerful robotic armour gifted to them.

★ In the Spider-Man (tokusatsu) opening and ending, the Tokyo Tower can be seen.You have to pay attention to see it in the ending.

★ In the anime Digimon Adventure, the Tokyo Tower is a showplace of a Digimonbattle in the Real World.

★ In the manga Tokyo Mew Mew, the Mews go to the Tokyo Tower and Mew Mint finds the first Mew Aqua.

★ In the show Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the elf Dondon shrinks Tokyo Tower into a magic jar in the episode "Go Shrunk."

★ In the anime show: Saru Get Chu ~On Air~ 2nd, the Tokyo Tower can be seen in Episode 14.

★ In Death Note The Last Name(2006), the movie ends with the Shinigami flying around the tower.

★ Tokyo Tower has been shown many times in Cardcaptor Sakura series by Clamp.

See also

★ List of towers

References

1. Tokyo Tower - SkyscraperPage.com
2. 東京タワーの秘密 -　特別ライトアップ
3. "Capital's symbol mortgaged for billions," ''Asahi Shimbun'', June 19, 2006.

External links

★ realtime TOKYO - Live robotic webcam from Tokyo. One of the views shows the Tokyo Tower.

★ Tokyo Tower official site (English)

★

★ Tokyo Tower Gallery

★ Watch Tokyo Tower in 3-Dimensional view by using Google Earth. Modelled by frenchrogue