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The gig we'd planned for the third night was sold out by the time we got round to buying tickets so here's something else instead.
We went over to Harajuku to see the Cosplay kids strutting their stuff on Sunday but as it was raining (and also apparently because there was a Cosplay convention in another part of Tokyo that day) there weren't many Cosplay kids around. However there were large numbers of people heading off across the bridge to something so we followed them to see what it was.
They were on their way to a stadium nearby to buy tickets for a concert by Exile and they were filling the car park, queuing for tickets, making banners etc. Apparently Exile are a popular boy band in Japan. Normally boy bands are artificially constructed things, with five young lads carefully selected to appeal to different female demographics rather than for their musical ability. Judging by the pictures on the side of the tour van Exile have taken this marketing concept to it's logical conclusion and there are fourteen singers in Exile (it's practically a choir ferchrissakes). Presumably this means that they can include somebody to cater for every conceivable female demographic - rather than just the stock five boy band character types (the cute one, the sensitive one, the bit of rough etc.) they can fill in the gaps and include some of the less popular ones to make sure they don't miss any market segment (the slightly creepy one, the middle-aged one, the one who really wanted to be an accountant, perhaps).
A quick google suggests that their strategy has been successful - Exile had three of the top ten selling albums in Japan last year and also we saw many Exile T-shirt wearing ladies around Tokyo, from schoolgirls to grandmothers.
Also included in the photos above are some of the few cosplay kids about that day and some general snaps of Tokyo street fashion in Harajuku.
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