ABSTRACT
The opening of Tokyo Disneyland was, in retrospect, the greatest cultural event in Japan during the 80’s.
(Notoji Masako, The Holy Land Called Disneyland)
This chapter discusses local Japanese responses to play and the ideology of contemporary leisure (reja¯ ). My case study is Tokyo Disneyland (TDL), an extremely successful transplant of the original theme park from the US which was re-made in Japan. TDL is a unique amusement park, a ‘total environment’ of imagineered attractions.1 In this chapter I focus on the ‘off-stage’ reception of TDL rather than on its modified layout (onstage) or backstage.2 For this selective ‘audience research’ I focus here on one particular group of respondents-cum-anthropologists. These are IPA Japan members (IPA stands for International Play Association). The chapter will hence consist of a reflexive re-interpretation of TDL as a controlled play environment, seen through the eyes of local ‘play ideologues’ (IPA Japan members) and compared to other local play environments.3
