Mr. Sato takes our team to Shibuya’s Halloween bash, but not before setting us up with coordinated kawaii costumes.

The massive Halloween street party in Tokyo’s Shibuya neighborhood have been given a black eye this year, with the lively celebration degrading into vandalism and mayhem on the weekend before October 31. And yet, on Halloween itself, we decided to head to Shibuya anyway.

We’re big fans of the holiday, and any party can only be as bad as the people in it. So we figured it was our civic duty to set an example by enjoying Halloween in Shibuya to the fullest, while still staying within the bounds of the law and common courtesy.

Of course, if we were going to Japan’s biggest Halloween bash, we’d need to dress up. So we gathered our staff at SoraNews24 headquarters, turning our conference room into a changing room.

Following the lead of ace reporter Mr. Sato, our staff slipped on their form-fitting white bodysuits, then put on their denim overalls (some with separate pant legs, others with skirts). Then they applied a coat of similarly snowy hued face paint.

Then all they needed for the finishing touch was their hair ribbons…

…and the SoraNews24 Hello Kitty Halloween Costume Team was ready to roll!

▼ P.K. Sanjun and Ahiru Neko guide the squad down into the subway.

At first, we were worried that the inspiration for our costumes might not be as readily apparent as with our Where’s Waldo? getups from last Halloween. But as we walked through Shinjuku Sanchome Station, we heard several shouts of “Kitty-chan!” from passersby.

▼ Actually, each of our reporters is two Kitties in one, since Hello Kitty’s face is also part of the hat.

After a short subway ride on the Fukutoshin Line, we got off the train at Shibuya Station and made our way up to the surface, ready to cross the Scramble Intersection and head into Center-gai, the shopping street that serves as Shibuya Halloween party central

But the Scramble is world-famous for being crazy-crowded on any given day, and with so many people descending on Center-gai on Halloween night, the entrance to the street was so packed that it was impossible to move through it.

So instead we took a roundabout route, heading up the wider main street to the famous Shibuya 109 boutique tower. Along the way, our coordinated Kitty outfits earned us plenty of attention and cheers.

Finally, we came to a side street that wasn’t completely crammed with human bodies, and we worked our way onto Center-gai.

Once we got there, our forward progress pretty much stopped, but that was OK. The mass of humanity was so dense that even without taking a single step, we were surrounded by new friends to make, and many of them asked to take pictures with our Sanrio-stylish reporters.

And best of all? While we were out and about, we didn’t witness an of the vandalism or other crimes that marred the Shibuya parties last weekend. Granted, we arrived around 7 p.m. and left while the trains were still running, which allowed us to avoid the overnight, most thoroughly liquored-up crowds. Still, our experience gives us hope that Shibuya’s Halloween problems haven’t gone past the point of no return, and have us looking forward to the fun again next year.

Photos ©SoraNews24
[ Read in Japanese ]