ZUKAN MUSEUM GINZA: A Living Museum! The Ultimate New Sensory Academic Entertainment | Visit Report
Hello! I’m Iguchi from the Social Good Promotion Office in the President’s Office, in my second year since joining the company.
Today, I arrived at the office without realizing I had a caterpillar on my shoulder…!
It’s the season when you can feel the vibrant energy of summer creatures 🌞 The rainy season has ended and summer vacation is just around the corner in July. What plans are you considering?
For example…
・A place where you can enjoy yourself safely while avoiding crowds
・A cool, comfortable indoor facility that’s perfect for photos
・The latest hotspot that everyone from children to adults can enjoy—wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Actually, a new sensory experiential facility that covers all three of these wonderful points, ‘ZUKAN MUSEUM GINZA powered by Shogakukan’s Illustrated Encyclopedia NEO,’ opened on Friday, July 16, 2021! We went to visit the site right away!
You can read the blog article we previously introduced here.
Step Inside an Encyclopedia!? Introducing the New Sensory Experiential Digital Museum “ZUKAN MUSEUM GINZA” Opening This Summer
‘ZUKAN MUSEUM GINZA powered by Shogakukan’s Illustrated Encyclopedia NEO’ at Tokyu Plaza Ginza!
Directly connected from the station, we were able to enter smoothly without getting wet in the rain or sunburned! After exiting the elevator on the 6th floor, we saw a truly futuristic entrance!!
It feels like visiting teamLab or NAKED—a high-sense digital museum that keeps the excitement going…!
Got a Mysterious Amazing Stone!
After perfectly clearing the infection prevention measures with temperature checks and alcohol disinfection, the staff handed us a mysterious glowing stone! This is apparently a navigator item called the “Record Stone”!! It’s an amazing stone that you actually carry with you as you adventure through this facility’s world!
It can detect creatures that appear in the facility and record them, and at the final destination, you can see “an ending where the creatures you recorded come to life.”
Alright! I’m going to record lots of creatures! Exploring this digital art adventure world. So exciting!
This Voice in the Guidance Narration Is…!
A new sensory experiential facility where you can immerse yourself in a world where you navigate through a space that fuses digital and real, encounter creatures that could only be seen in encyclopedias, feel their breath, and continue your journey to meet other creatures.
When we opened the first door, there was a grand-scale space! The voice explaining the facility sounds familiar…
Actually, Sumi Shimamoto, who has voiced renowned characters such as Nausicaä in ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,’ Mother in ‘My Neighbor Totoro,’ Sara in ‘A Little Princess Sara,’ Kyoko Otonashi in ‘Maison Ikkoku,’ Shokupanman in ‘Soreike! Anpanman,’ and Yuki Kudo in ‘Detective Conan,’ is in charge of the guidance narration!
It was a wonderful surprise right from the start!
The Five Zones Are Amazing, Amazing, Amazing!
This facility, “a living museum where ‘Earth’s nature’ is condensed,” provides a new encyclopedia experience in this era overflowing with information and constantly updating technologies. Rather than turning the pages of a book, you can experience “Earth’s nature” with all five senses by “navigating” through the space and time of a world where various creatures coexist.
The first thing we encountered was a rare creature that was also in the encyclopedia!
Its name is Golden Lion Tamarin!! So cute.
You can’t easily record it unless you match the stone according to the animal’s habits, so you learn the core ecology like what’s in an encyclopedia while recording. How innovative!
The facility is designed to express environmental changes on the real Earth, such as the passage of 24 hours and weather fluctuations…!
It’s a new sensory experiential facility that aims to experience real “Earth’s nature” with the passage of space and time, and to “create real experiences” that are equally important as “reading and knowing” in learning. It’s truly new “academic entertainment” that stimulates intellectual curiosity with continuous discoveries and changes your values and mindset toward “Earth’s nature” before and after the experience.
We discovered other animals too!!
Let’s get closer.
Slowly, slowly.
Got it!! (The members who accompanied me also had expressions like they’d returned to childhood!)
All five zones are full of rare creatures that you can’t easily encounter even at zoos!! I definitely want you to experience it yourself, so what we found will be a surprise!
Suddenly it started raining, and you can feel the four seasons—it was such a fun space that you could stay there without getting bored.
Please enjoy some off-shots of our members having fun and forgetting themselves for a while.
Record Stone, Results Announcement!
Ta-da!
6 creatures!! So few!!!
We were apparently still beginners, but there were still so many more!! I’m frustrated, so I want to come back during summer vacation and try again!
If you haven’t decided on your summer outing plans yet, this is the place. For details, check out the official website and social media ✨
■ ‘ZUKAN MUSEUM GINZA powered by Shogakukan’s Illustrated Encyclopedia NEO’ Overview
Business Hours: 11:00~20:00 (*scheduled)
Location: Tokyu Plaza Ginza 6F, 5-2-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Closed: According to Tokyu Plaza Ginza’s closure days (*January 1 and one irregular closure per year)
Official Website: https://zukan-museum.com/
Official Social Media: [Twitter] @zukan_museum/ [Instagram] @zukan_museum
Ticket Purchase: Official Website (https://zukan-museum.com/tickets/)
Lawson Ticket (https://l-tike.com/zukanmuseum)
About the Author
President’s Office, Social Good Promotion Office
SDGs MAGAZINE Editorial Department
Arisa Iguchi
After graduating from Aoyama Gakuin University’s College of Community and Human Services, she joined SUNNY SIDE UP as a new graduate and is currently in her second year. As a media promoter, she loves social media so much that she also joined the in-house media editorial department. While curating articles, she became deeply absorbed in SDGs and eventually infiltrated the President’s Office. Her favorite color is green. Her favorite phrase is “yori-dori midori” (various greens). Her favorite artist is Ryokuoushoku Shakai.
※Affiliation is as of the time of article writing
