ANA’s R2-D2 jet at Narita International Airport in Chiba, Japan, May 2019.
The memory systems of this R2 unit contain 55 Star-Wars-related articles and posts that I wrote while working as an independent contractor for the Death Star /Film and other sites. The links below cover an eight-year period, from December 2016, when Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hit theaters, to May 2024, when The Phantom Menace celebrated its 25th anniversary.
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On Saturday, June 30, 2018, I sat down to watch Solo: A Star Wars Story on its opening weekend in Japan. It was a late-show screening at my local Toho Cinemas. By Monday morning, I would be a married man.
Like other international couples we know, we didn’t have a wedding ceremony. We just went down to city hall. The first part of our honeymoon comes next month.
This is obviously huge personal news, but it’s not often I let my personal life encroach on this blog. So what does me tying the knot have to do with the new Star Wars movie, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you …
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[Update: This post has had better quality pictures and video of the dancers and musicians from the 2023 Koenji Awa Odori Festival added to it.]
It’s summer movie season now, but in Japan, it’s also summer festival season. One of the biggest summer festivals in Tokyo is the Koenji Awa Odori Festival. On the last weekend of August, over a million people descend on the Koenji neighborhood to watch dance troupes take to the streets in a three-hour parade. In Japanese, the troupes are called ren — no relation to Kylo Ren, though there is a Star Wars tie-in with this post.
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There’s only one week left until Star Wars: The Last Jedi hits theaters in Japan and around the world. The global press tour for this movie has already been making the rounds in places like Mexico City, and on the night of Wednesday, December 6, 2017, writer-director Rian Johnson, producer Kathleen Kennedy, and stars Mark Hamill and Adam Driver came to Tokyo to promote the new film. One by one, their cars pulled up to Roppongi Hills Arena, where they took part in a red carpet event and stage greeting, followed by a Q&A and a special screening of 13 minutes from The Last Jedi at Toho Cinemas Roppongi.
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Clockwise, from left: Star Wars kazariyama float on display in a shopping arcade; men racing a smaller kakiyama float; and the main branch of the ramen chain Ichiran in Fukuoka.
Hakata is a ward of Fukuoka City that is famous for its ramen. Back in June, The Gaijin Ghost reported for TDR Explorer on a 42-foot Star Wars float that was coming to the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival. Upon returning from a two-day trip to the festival last month, yours truly also posted a breaking news item to /Film about the float’s appearance at the festival.
Some of the pictures in that article, however, appear to have lost resolution. Here you can see better quality versions, along with some additional pics/video that were not included in the article.
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The March of the First Order at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida. Photo by Marcus Meyer.
In this post, The Gaijin Ghost takes a step back, photo-wise, and joins the reader in living vicariously through the experiences of TDR Explorer contributor John Himpe, fellow travel blogger and Star Wars fan Tokyo Fox, and Walt Disney World Annual Pass holder Marcus Meyer.
Read MoreThe 40th anniversary of Star Wars is almost upon us. May 25, 1977 was the date of the original movie's theatrical release. In honor of this 40-year milestone, The Gaijin Ghost would like to share a special lyric video from the Sea Flats, a mock-rock act whose singer went on to become "big in Japan," as they say. After the jump, you can also read the original 500-word treatment for the unfilmed music video of the band's song "If I Could Live in the Movie Star Wars."
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Stormtrooper helmet art at the Mo Hitotsu no Star Wars Ten exhibition in Shiodome, Tokyo, on Christmas Day 2016.
It’s no secret that when George Lucas first began devising the Star Wars mythology, he drew heavily from Japanese influences.
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Kylo Ren addresses a group of younglings (most likely before slaughtering them with his crossguard lightsaber) during the 2017 Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan.
In 2017, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, the 69th annual Sapporo Snow Festival unveiled a massive, Mount-Rushmore-like snow sculpture of the characters Kylo Ren, BB-8, C-3PO, and R2-D2.
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There is some content on this site that is related to Star Wars in Japan, but that is scattered throughout photo galleries on the home page. This post serves as a menu for that content.
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