Thursday, 9:30 PM. Fellow translator Ike and I are in a smoky Roppongi basement bar, loaded to the gills on Sapporo drafts and Bloody Marys. I'm holding a MINIMI Mk. II light machinegun, recommended by the barkeep as "the same one the US Army uses." Inexplicably, Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth" comes on the bar's sound system. Reflexively, as if trying to ward off the bad vibes from the song, I squeeze the trigger and spray 200 rounds of hot BB into the wall of bottles across the room. The hail of plastic beads ricochets off every surface, including my crazed, grinning face and safety goggles. Ike ducks for cover as he captures the moment on his camera-equipped cellphone for posterity. A video camera pointed downrange lets other customers watch the drama unfold.
Theme bars are a dime a dozen in Tokyo, but to my knowledge Hollow Point is the only one that manages to successfully combine the twin Japanese passions for alcoholism and toy weaponry into one convenient location. Pay your cover charge, order your drinks, and tell the guy behind the bar your preference in guns. Moments later he'll come out with your booze and bang-bangs. 100 yen gets you a Walther PPK or Glock. 300 yen and you can squeeze off a magazine from a Desert Eagle or Robocop's "Auto 9." Splurge 2,000 and sweep the shooting range with Rambo's M-60 or my pal the MINIMI Mk. II. And for those who just can't get enough, 3,000 yen buys you some quality time with a revolver-style grenade launcher that throws 160 BBs with every trigger pull. In other words, it's just like America -- only the guns are airsoft replicas and the guys doing the shooting are salarymen rather than the Vice President.
Another only-in-Japan moment: accodrding to their website, Hollow Point actually has some kind of cross-promotional thing going on with the hotel down the street, offering discounts to couples who want to let off some steam -- or build some up -- on the shooting range before locking themselves into their room for the night. (And they wonder why the birth rate is in such precipitous decline over here...)
It is astonishing to me how HUGE the whole airsoft thing has become, a mature market with very standardized parts while maverick customizers turn out insane arms...
And it all came from the model gun craze of the '70s, when your choice was either plastic non-firing kits from IMAI and L/S (and others), or the 'replica gun' in die cast metal (I believe zinc), which in Japan I understand were marvelous cap firing things while in the US they were de-fanged, solid brass fake bullets instead of the multi-part cap holding shells.
Yeah, been collecting that crap since '76 :)
Later, in the '90s we saw more complex model guns, these maintained their cap firing shells for real blow-back action, but boy, a bitch to put together...ABS can be brittle. Evolved from that, the airsoft. Yeah, the IMAI Macross and Orguss pellet guns probably fit in there somewhere...
Nowadays..insane arms. Perfect for the otaku who doesn't want to mess with various classed of firearms licenses.
But nobody seems to have designed a 6mm pellet shooting (electric with 'hop up' boosting) Cosmogun from Space Battleship Yamato. guys who do that will RULE THE WORLD!
Posted by: Steve Harrison | February 25, 2006 at 02:53 PM
Stop fantasizing about being japanese and ripping off Lost In Translation scenes.
Posted by: Fred Sanford | October 26, 2009 at 05:09 AM