Yesterday’s Japan Times featured a lengthy profile of former restaurant manager Einosuke Sumitani, who opened Tokyo’s Kidzania (a franchise of the original in Monterrey, Mexico) in October of last year. If you’re not familiar with this “career theme park” — and I admit I wasn’t — it’s worth checking out at KidZania.jp [English text version].
The gist? Remember when you wanted to be a fireman? Or an astronaut? Or a trapeze artist with Barnum-san & Bailey-san? Well, here’s a whole Westworld-inspired scene where the currency is in Kidzos, everything but the giftshop prices is scaled to two-thirds actual size, and children of all ages actually pay their parents’ hard-earned Yen to suit up in their favorite grownup roles.
There are 50 company-sponsored pavilions, and over 70 different roles to, um, play. Notably, parents aren’t allowed inside, they have to watch from the perimeter windows. At first blush it sounded a bit like Carly Fiorina had come out of retirement to run the Wonka Factory, or more accurately a low-cal version of Kid Nation (but thankfully not the island of Battle Royale). It actually looks like it could be fun and educational, as they say. I’ll of course let you be the judge:
Service Station Attendants
Beauticians
Coca-Cola Bottlers
Pizza Tossers
Burgermeisters
Way-Off-Broadway Dancers
Posted by: Colin Mangham