Alrighty! Exhibition write-up!
Had to make three attempts to pre-buy tickets for the thing. First I tried to make an account, but I’d get an error whenever I tried to log in to it. So I tried the no-account purchase method, except it turned out I had to pick up the tickets from any Lawson within three days of ordering, so I had to let that one lapse and then order again just before I departed for Japan. Fortunately, tickets were still available. Went to a Lawson on my first full day in Japan, and had no trouble collecting them. Save that I then had to keep them safe for my whole time in Japan, because I wouldn’t be going until the second-last day.
The exhibition location was described as “Tokyo Solamachi, 5F, Space 634” (Solamachi being the shopping centre under the Skytree), and I was stressing a bit thinking “ugh, how am I gonna find a random room number in that place?”… until I remembered that 634 is the height of the Skytree in metres, so it’s not a room number, it’s the name of the exhibition space. More fun came when I checked the website during my stay in Japan and discovered a new notice had appeared saying “in case of high crowds, we’ve instituted all of these control measures”, which made me all sorts of concerned about whether I’d even be able to get in on my one available day.
So, I arrived at Shinagawa by Shinkansen from Kyoto, and went straight to the Skytree on the Keikyu/Asakusa Line. Found the place easily enough, because it’s on all the floor guide signage in the building. Also found the long line of numbered queueing spots on the floor for crowd control… fortunately all empty. I was able to head straight in.
The first display was a long timeline of the series, with a “no photos” sign on it - only a handful of things in the exhibition had them, and this was one of them. Fortunately, it’s also in the “Official Pamphlet” (more like a small magazine) that I bought in the gift shop on the way out. Then there was a screen playing a little introductory video (accompanied by one of the pieces from the anime’s soundtrack… playing on constant repeat… and audible thoughout the exhibition, which got a little old).
Then it was onto the exhibition itself. First section had textless manga and blu-ray cover artworks, plus a few production and character design images. Second section had displays relating to each of the different trips that characters went on, including some blown-up manga pages, but also some dioramas with real-world versions of various props that appeared. The centrepiece of the room was a huge 3D topographic model of Yamanashi Prefecture and surrounds, showing every single location visited in the manga (some of them with buttons you could press to light up a marker dot).
And also a tableau you could sit in to get your photos taken with the characters - the chairs provided were two ground chairs that have appeared in the series: Aoi’s ground chair on the left (the brand of which I do not recall, if I ever looked it up) and drama!Rin’s Helinox on the right. Since I own the Helinox myself (albeit in black-and-blue rather than white-… uh, grey-and-gold), I gave the other one a try instead, and it was most comfortable.
Frequently appearing at places in the exhibition was a drawing of a smallish husky (or similar) wearing sunglasses and a blue jacket - it took me forever to work out that it’s Afro’s author avatar.
Anyway, third part of the exhibition was the gift shop. I bought a t-shirts, the “Official Pamphlet”, and a pair of fridge magnets. Somewhat overpriced, but hey, I do kinda want Afro to keep writing the series.
Overall, it was pretty interesting. Mostly pictures on the wall, but still fun. One person was literally photographing every single one. I was, without a doubt, the only foreigner in the room (or the only caucasian, at the very least), but noone seemed to be giving me “what are you doing here?” looks. I brought my brand-new volume eighteen with me in the vague hopes that there might be a chance of an autograph (do they ever sign books in Japan, or just those fancy autograph cards?) but no.
Photo time! Let’s see how many of them Discourse rejects for being too large…
In other news, people liked my previous post about reading volume eighteen, but noone posted to express interest. Or suggest a start date. Shall we kick off immediately? Or… soon?
Someone please post, or I can’t reply again after this one. 
