Watching a show in the Konica Minolta Planetarium of Tokyo? Here's what you'll need to know.
Hi! Thank you for dropping by!Previously, I've combined my post on my experiences in Tokyo, but this time, I wanted to write each experience in their own respective posts.
Today, I'll be writing about Konica Minolta Planetarium!
The reasons why I've decided to write are as follow:
- People get turned-off when they see all sorts of Japanese information required when making a purchase of ticket.
- Many aren't sure what it is like in the Konica Minolta Planetarium
So in this post, I'll explain about what it is about while sharing my experience!
What you can expect from this post:
What you can expect from this post:
- Which outlet to go
- How to get tickets
- Which show to watch
- Step-by-step guide to online reservation
- How to go to the planetarium
- What to expect before, during and after the show.
- My personal experience with Konica Minolta Planetarium Manten
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#1: Picking an outlet
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The first thing that you'll need to do is to know which outlet is more convenient to your itinerary!
Konica Minolta Planetarium has two outlets in Tokyo, Japan! One is Manten in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City, and the other one is Tenku in Sumida (near Tokyo Skytree).
❗❗❗ Important notice from Konica Minolta Planetarium Tenku:
1. From 2017/4/12 (Wed), all shows from 15:00 will be stopped airing.
2. From 2017/5/11 (Thurs), Konica Minolta Planetarium Tenku will be closed (Off day).
3. From 2017/5/15 (Mon) to 5/19(Fri), Konica Minolta Planetarium Tenku will be closed for the change of shows.
❗❗❗ Important notice from Konica Minolta Planetarium Manten:
1. Due to the change of online reservation system, the current reservation page will only allow reservations up to 17th of April 2017. For reservations on 4/18, please make reservations after the new online reservation system is up (estimated to be up at 10:00AM). The new online system will also allow reservations of tickets of up to 14 days ahead of the current date (15 days ahead if including the current day).
2. From 2017/4/29 (Sat) to 5/7 (Sun), shows at 1000 and 2100 will be added.
3. It'll be an off day for Manten on 2017/5/9 (Tue).
To help you decide which planetarium you might want to visit, before you arrive Japan, you could visit their website here »
Upon arrival to their website, you'll see this:
On your left, it will be Manten, and on the right, it'll be Tenku.
The next thing you want to do would be: Deciding which show to watch!
However, if you think your itinerary could have either one fit into it, you can choose either one of the locations and see which show you would like!
If you are troubled on which show to watch, the following is a simple guideline to teach you on how to pick your show!
Refer the image above:
After deciding which show you'd like to watch, you could proceed to purchasing a ticket! For purchasing a physical ticket, and if you couldn't understand Japanese, you could write down the show's name or saving a screenshot, also writing down the details of the time and date of the show that you wanted to purchase. It'll ease the ticket-purchase process! If you need an English audio help, you could ask them if there's one. There are some shows that provides an English guide.
All you need to do upon purchasing your ticket is to show up on time! All shows start right on every hour, so please make sure to be in the waiting room for about 10 minutes earlier and you'll do fine without panicking about being denied of accessing. Well, don't go in more than an hour earlier than your show too, because others would be queuing for the show that they are going to watch.
That's with the physical ticket! Now, we are going to talk about the online ticket purchasing. First of all, you'll need to make sure that you have a Visa or Master Card that is acceptable in Japan. If it isn't accepted, call your bank and tell them that you are travelling to Japan and they should know what to do.
For reserving the online tickets, you'll need to understand a few things, which I'll explain it below:
Upon reading and confirming the above, it's time to check the seats! Just scroll down below to check the seats availability, and here are the following things that you'll need to know:
Konica Minolta Planetarium has two outlets in Tokyo, Japan! One is Manten in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City, and the other one is Tenku in Sumida (near Tokyo Skytree).
❗❗❗ Important notice from Konica Minolta Planetarium Tenku:
1. From 2017/4/12 (Wed), all shows from 15:00 will be stopped airing.
2. From 2017/5/11 (Thurs), Konica Minolta Planetarium Tenku will be closed (Off day).
3. From 2017/5/15 (Mon) to 5/19(Fri), Konica Minolta Planetarium Tenku will be closed for the change of shows.
❗❗❗ Important notice from Konica Minolta Planetarium Manten:
1. Due to the change of online reservation system, the current reservation page will only allow reservations up to 17th of April 2017. For reservations on 4/18, please make reservations after the new online reservation system is up (estimated to be up at 10:00AM). The new online system will also allow reservations of tickets of up to 14 days ahead of the current date (15 days ahead if including the current day).
2. From 2017/4/29 (Sat) to 5/7 (Sun), shows at 1000 and 2100 will be added.
3. It'll be an off day for Manten on 2017/5/9 (Tue).
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#2: Getting Tickets
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You can buy tickets on the spot, or reserve it online (currently, only Manten supports an online reservation system).✨ ☆彡✨ ☆彡✨ ☆彡✨☆彡✨
To help you decide which planetarium you might want to visit, before you arrive Japan, you could visit their website here »
Upon arrival to their website, you'll see this:
On your left, it will be Manten, and on the right, it'll be Tenku.
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#3: Picking a Show
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The next thing you want to do would be: Deciding which show to watch!
However, if you think your itinerary could have either one fit into it, you can choose either one of the locations and see which show you would like!
If you are troubled on which show to watch, the following is a simple guideline to teach you on how to pick your show!
Refer the image above:
- Airing date: From YYYY/MM/DD to YYYY/MM/DD
- Specialty of the show:
- a. Science
- b. Healing
- c. Starry sky/ Zodiac
- d. Powerful images
- e. Fantasy
- The fees. If it's saying プラネタリウム作品, you pay the normal rates. Else if it's saying ヒーリングプラネタリウム作品, you'll have to pay a little more (ticket prices here).
- If it also writes an additional line of "プログラムの性質上、小学生未満のお子様の入場はお断りしています。", please do not bring children that are not at the age where they have admitted to a primary school (7 years of age).
- Check the airing schedule here
- Check the fares here.
- Reserve your tickets here (Manten only)
After deciding which show you'd like to watch, you could proceed to purchasing a ticket! For purchasing a physical ticket, and if you couldn't understand Japanese, you could write down the show's name or saving a screenshot, also writing down the details of the time and date of the show that you wanted to purchase. It'll ease the ticket-purchase process! If you need an English audio help, you could ask them if there's one. There are some shows that provides an English guide.
All you need to do upon purchasing your ticket is to show up on time! All shows start right on every hour, so please make sure to be in the waiting room for about 10 minutes earlier and you'll do fine without panicking about being denied of accessing. Well, don't go in more than an hour earlier than your show too, because others would be queuing for the show that they are going to watch.
That's with the physical ticket! Now, we are going to talk about the online ticket purchasing. First of all, you'll need to make sure that you have a Visa or Master Card that is acceptable in Japan. If it isn't accepted, call your bank and tell them that you are travelling to Japan and they should know what to do.
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#4: Reserving an Online Ticket
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For reserving the online tickets, you'll need to understand a few things, which I'll explain it below:
- Show's information
- Show's name - Here, you check if the show is the show you wanted to watch.
- Show's venue - Here, you check if the show is showing at the venue you want to watch. 天空 is Tenku, and 満天 is Manten.
- Period of show - The airing period of the show.
- Summary
- Announcement of the change of online reservation system.
- Attention to guests that are purchasing online tickets:
- There is NO CHANGES ALLOWED UPON PAYMENT. No cancellation, no refunds.
- For safety measurements, no entries are granted on every 00 minutes. e.g.: 8:00PM.
- Please also consider the travelling time during weekends or public holidays, since the days will be very congested. (So don't be late!)
Upon reading and confirming the above, it's time to check the seats! Just scroll down below to check the seats availability, and here are the following things that you'll need to know:
- Double circle: Many available seats
- Single circle: Little available seats
- Triangle: Very limited seats (most good seats are taken)
- The current page's month: YYYY/ M
- Click here if you want to purchase a ticket for the following month
- Scroll down until the date of the show that you wish to watch
- Check the row for the time of the show that you wish to watch
- From left to rights, Lawn seats, Cloud seats, and Normal seats (refer image below)
- Additional note: if it's a X, no more seats are available.
After knowing which show you'd like to watch, you can click on the linked symbols and proceed to the following page.
In order to purchase a ticket, you'll need to register an account. However, if you have already registered an account, you can just login.
To register, click the orange button under the Registration. You'll be brought to the following page. Registration will be an online account registration and it's free of charge.
To proceed, you'll click on the orange button.
You'll be brought to a form-filling section. But don't worry! I'll try my best to assist you to go through the form.
- Form-filling
- Information confirmation
- Registration confirmation
- Cancel registration
- Proceed
- Membership information: Online member, fees: Free
- Member ID (compulsory)
- Password (compulsory) - Enter half-width mixture of alphabet and numbers
- Repeat password (compulsory) - Type it same as 8
- Your name (compulsory)
- Your name in katakana (no hiragana, no kanji, no alphabets) (compulsory)
- Gender: Male / Female (compulsory)
- Birthday: Year / Month / Day (compulsory)
- Prefecture: Select the place you live in Japan. e.g.: Tokyo (compulsory)
- Phone number: Your Japanese phone number/ Phone number of hotel/ homestay (compulsory)
- e-mail address (and repeat it) (compulsory)
- Mobile e-mail address (not compulsory)
- Receive subscription e-mail (compulsory): yes/ no
- Click the button to read terms and regulations (ain't anyone got the time for that lol) and check the checkbox to agree with it.
After filling things up, it's time to proceed and check your information in this page to make sure you didn't type anything wrong.
If something's wrong, click the leftmost button to edit. If you wanted to cancel the application, click the middle button. If everything's OK, click the orange button to proceed.
You'll be brought to the next page:
Click on the orange button to login, and you'll be brought back to the selection of seats:
Select your seats, and you'll be brought to either this page,
Where the reservations are not allowed anymore (possibly tickets out of stock), OR...
You are allowed to reserve tickets! Refer image and description below:
- Check the type of seat you've selected (normal seat selected in this image). The bracket part says it's for above primary school ages.
- The fee: 1700 yen
- Select amount of tickets
- A notice that you can only book up to 20 tickets at once if your payment is by credit card.
- Select your seat by yourself
- Let the system to pick the best seat for you.
- Return to previous page
- Proceed to next page
Upon confirmation, click the orange button (8). You'll be brought to the following page:
This page informs you a few things:
- Show's name
- Venue
- Date and time of your selection
- Your type of seat and ticket
- Seat number
- Fee
Please make sure to finish your payment within 10 minutes. Click the orange button to proceed.
In this page, you'll select your payment method by credit card. You'll receive your entrance ticket via a QR code sent to your e-mail address.
Select the credit card option and click on the orange button to proceed. The details of the payment page are as follow:
After finishing your payment, press the next button to confirm your details. Then, press the orange button again and you'll finish paying.
Upon finishing your payment, you'll receive an e-mail in Japanese. In the e-mail, there will be a four-digit code and a link. Please make sure to keep the e-mail properly until you have finished watching the show. (I'll explain why you need to keep them in #6).
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#5: Getting there
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Now that you have booked your ticket, you can now prepare for your visit!
To go to Ikebukuro's Konica Minolta Manten, you can go there by walking about 15 minutes, not including waiting time in the lift of the Sunshine City building (it's on the top floor!) from JR Ikebukuro Station's east exit.
From the Yurakucho Line, you can stop at Higashi-Ikebukuro station and walk for about 10 minutes to Sunshine City.
To get to Sumida;s Konica Minolta Tenku, you can also walk from Oshiage Station for about 5 minutes. If you are going by bus, the nearest bus stop will also be in Oshiage, also approximately 5 minutes of walk. Another station that is also close to Tenku would be the Tokyo Skytree Station.
Please make your own arrangements of transport to decide on which line to take, and take a little more time plan for the transfer of lines, as well as the walking around the buildings.
Before anything happens, here are a few personal reminders:
Along the corridors, they also have a row of signature boards from the narrators/ voice actors/ singers on the shows they narrated/performed for Konica Minolta.
The seats in the waiting room is really comfy, and they also have a giant screen where you can just stand in front of it and wave your hands to see yourself shooting stars from your palms. (That's why I said it's so magical!). There are also stars surrounding you as you move in front of the screen lololol it was so fun prancing around (since I arrived really early), or seeing children jumping and getting excited over it, until another 60 people came in 😂
About the show, the graphics are so clear and the resolution allows you to see so much of details on the stars and scenery (also the dolphins, you can see the details on their skins ahhhh), which is a plus point.
Another plus point is that the show I watched has a story that links to mythology on how there's actually a constellation for dolphins. Hosoya-san explained about how Delphinus came. It was a story about a Greek poet, Arion, who was saved by a dolphin. He was on a quest to travel and has earned a great fortune, which later on, when he was on his way home, his wealth caused the crew of his ship to conspire against him. Threatened with death, Arion asked to be granted a last wish: to sing a dirge.
The crew agreed, and the God of the sea, Poseidon, charmed by his music and thought that it was so beautiful yet sad, that he sent a dolphin to rescue Arion. which the crew granted. The dolphin then carried Arion back to his homeland's coast and left.
They also showed other types of constellations throughout the show (approximately a little less than 50 minutes), and you can feel that you are moving along the galaxy! The third plus point is the background music, it's really soothing. Thank you Serph! (It also kinda explains why the ticket is more expensive than the other shows because it's healing!).
The final plus point (maybe not for you) is that the narrator is someone that I have a strong bias on for years. (Yes, his name is Hosoya Yoshimasa.) He's actually also the reason why I am willing to throw my money to the planetarium for two straight days :'D
Is the money worth it? Yes to me.But of course, I actually fell asleep in one of the shows, that's the reason why I bought another ticket to be honest. So yes, you don't have to buy two tickets, Just one for yourself for that particular show to feel the magic Unless you wanted to watch like.. All shows in the planetarium lol.
That concludes my super-lengthy post! I'm not sure to which extent it'd help, but I hope it helps at some point!
Until next time!
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Now that you have booked your ticket, you can now prepare for your visit!
To go to Ikebukuro's Konica Minolta Manten, you can go there by walking about 15 minutes, not including waiting time in the lift of the Sunshine City building (it's on the top floor!) from JR Ikebukuro Station's east exit.
From the Yurakucho Line, you can stop at Higashi-Ikebukuro station and walk for about 10 minutes to Sunshine City.
To get to Sumida;s Konica Minolta Tenku, you can also walk from Oshiage Station for about 5 minutes. If you are going by bus, the nearest bus stop will also be in Oshiage, also approximately 5 minutes of walk. Another station that is also close to Tenku would be the Tokyo Skytree Station.
Please make your own arrangements of transport to decide on which line to take, and take a little more time plan for the transfer of lines, as well as the walking around the buildings.
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#6: Expectations for the Show
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Before anything happens, here are a few personal reminders:
- Please remember that it's advised not to bring many things into the theater. No food, no drinks.
- This is because there are not much space for you to put your personal belongings, especially if you picked a normal seat. Leave your large items in rented lockers or hotel (keep your belongings with you) and carry just a handbag with your necessities would do.
- During weekends or public holidays, it's going to be very, very crowded and with many people. So try your best to put your items under your seat so that others can pass through.
- Please do not make noise or do any inappropriate actions that will cause trouble during the show, unless it's really an emergency.
- If you are visiting during a season that is cold, please make sure to wear a removable coat. It is not cold within the building itself.
- This is not an exact planetarium that you get to hold into telescopes for star-viewing. It is a series of images and videos that are being projected onto a curved screen on the ceiling (and they are very beautiful.)
- Please remember that not all shows are designed for being informative. Especially for the shows in Manten, they are designed for a more healing experience. Please understand the ratings of the show before purchasing your ticket to avoid disappointment.
- Show up early! This is so important that I need to mention it a few times throughout the post. If you are late, you won't be granted entry!
- Before you enter the theater, make sure to open the link in your e-mail (make sure you could access the internet) from the planetarium. Remember the 4-digit code in your e-mail? Use the code in your link and you'll get a QR code. With the QR code, you can show it to the staff at the entrance (not ticketing-booth) and your QR code will be scanned. The staff will tell you if you could enter the waiting room.
- In the waiting room, there will be seats and also a washroom. Visit the loo before the show! You wouldn't want to get out from the middle of the show. (It's also very distracting to others if you actually do so, so please don't do that)
- The waiting room is magical itself, so take your time to walk through the corridors and enjoy yourself!
- Last but not least, enjoy the show!
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#7: My Experience with Konica Minolta Planetarium Manten
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I bought two tickets for the show Iruka no Hoshi (no longer on air, but you can buy a CD of the tracks online). Both shows were only in Manten of Ikebukuro (I also lived there, so it was pretty convenient!). It's a healing series of the planetarium narrated by Hosoya Yoshimasa, and the tracks are composed by Serph.
The show, to sum up, has 10 parts:
Because I arrived the waiting room about 25 minutes before the show starts, I went exploring the corridor and they have this super magical floor that has little bits of glowing stuff like you are going to enter some Final Fantasy game \o/✨ ☆彡✨ ☆彡✨ ☆彡✨☆彡✨ ☆彡✨ ☆彡✨ ☆彡✨☆彡✨
I bought two tickets for the show Iruka no Hoshi (no longer on air, but you can buy a CD of the tracks online). Both shows were only in Manten of Ikebukuro (I also lived there, so it was pretty convenient!). It's a healing series of the planetarium narrated by Hosoya Yoshimasa, and the tracks are composed by Serph.
The show, to sum up, has 10 parts:
- Opening
- To the Night
- Dolphins in the Night Sky
- The Sea of Stars
- The Swimming Dolphins
- The Story of Delphinus
- Let's Swim
- Let's Dive Deeper
- To the Space
- Ending
Very well-choreographed show, and also very relaxing! Even the narrator said it's completely OK to fall asleep! lol
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| "It's okay to fall asleep..." - Hosoya Yoshimasa |
Along the corridors, they also have a row of signature boards from the narrators/ voice actors/ singers on the shows they narrated/performed for Konica Minolta.
The seats in the waiting room is really comfy, and they also have a giant screen where you can just stand in front of it and wave your hands to see yourself shooting stars from your palms. (That's why I said it's so magical!). There are also stars surrounding you as you move in front of the screen lololol it was so fun prancing around (since I arrived really early), or seeing children jumping and getting excited over it, until another 60 people came in 😂
About the show, the graphics are so clear and the resolution allows you to see so much of details on the stars and scenery (also the dolphins, you can see the details on their skins ahhhh), which is a plus point.
Another plus point is that the show I watched has a story that links to mythology on how there's actually a constellation for dolphins. Hosoya-san explained about how Delphinus came. It was a story about a Greek poet, Arion, who was saved by a dolphin. He was on a quest to travel and has earned a great fortune, which later on, when he was on his way home, his wealth caused the crew of his ship to conspire against him. Threatened with death, Arion asked to be granted a last wish: to sing a dirge.
The crew agreed, and the God of the sea, Poseidon, charmed by his music and thought that it was so beautiful yet sad, that he sent a dolphin to rescue Arion. which the crew granted. The dolphin then carried Arion back to his homeland's coast and left.
They also showed other types of constellations throughout the show (approximately a little less than 50 minutes), and you can feel that you are moving along the galaxy! The third plus point is the background music, it's really soothing. Thank you Serph! (It also kinda explains why the ticket is more expensive than the other shows because it's healing!).
The final plus point (maybe not for you) is that the narrator is someone that I have a strong bias on for years. (Yes, his name is Hosoya Yoshimasa.) He's actually also the reason why I am willing to throw my money to the planetarium for two straight days :'D
Is the money worth it? Yes to me.
That concludes my super-lengthy post! I'm not sure to which extent it'd help, but I hope it helps at some point!
Until next time!