Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Tower by day

Tokyo Tower by night

Tokyo Tower (東京タワー, Tōkyō tawā) is a tower in Shiba Park, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan (35°39′31″N 139°44′44″E). It is 332.6 m (1091 ft) tall[1], making it one of the world's highest self-supporting steel towers and the tallest man-made structure in Japan.

The design of the tower is based on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Despite being 8.6 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower (32.6 if the latter's TV antenna is not 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. The lighting is occasionally changed for special events; for the Japan premiere of the movie The Matrix, for instance, the Tower was lit in neon green.

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.

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.

Facilities

Elevators take passengers up to either of the observation decks.

Although it chiefly functions as a radio and television broadcasting antenna support structure, the Tower is best known as a tourist destination, though it is decried by some as overpriced and inconveniently located, and as having poor amenities.

The first floor houses an aquarium, home to 50,000 fish, the third floor is a wax museum and an attraction called the Mysterious Walking Zone, and the fourth floor 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 afford a spectacular 360 degree view of Tokyo and, if the weather is clear, Mount Fuji.

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 Magic Knight Rayearth, the Tokyo Tower is the place where the heroines of the anime are first magically transported to Cephiro. In Sailor Moon, the Tokyo Tower is seen in most episodes. 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 said tower. 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 baddies' 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 Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, the tower is destroyed in the climactic battles. In the movie, Always Sanchome no Yuhi (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 of You're Under Arrest, 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.

See also

• List of towers

External links

• realtime TOKYO - Live robotic webcam from Tokyo. One of the views shows the Tokyo Tower.
• Tokyo Tower official site (English)
• Technical information at Structurae
• Tokyo Tower Gallery

Template:Supertall observation and communication towers 35°39′31″N 139°44′44″E