The Japanese built a rough copy of the Eiffel Tower in Tokyo in the 1950s as a tourist attraction and for TV and radio broadcasting. It's clearly visible from most of town, and is a frequent destination for
class trips from local schools. (It is also sometimes referred to as "Touto Tower".)
Apparently, they built the thing out of
Imported Alien Phlebotinum, because it's also a major weirdness magnet in anime and manga series. If the
Big Bad or
The Dragon are going to attack, they'll attack
Tokyo Tower at the precise moment that the protagonists are visiting it. If the
Ordinary High School Student and her friends are going to be
sucked into another dimension, it'll happen while they're visiting Tokyo Tower. In fact,
Livin' and Lovin' In The Anime Universe: A Basic Guide
warns, "Try to stay away from Tokyo Tower. It appears to mark an inter-universal nexus."
With all the suffering and destruction that happens there, it's a wonder that anyone is permitted near it...
It appears that the reason for its ubiquity is a combination of two powerful story compulsions: the need that spy characters (like
James Bond) have
to fight on the Eiffel Tower every time they visit Paris, and the fact that
Tokyo Is The Center Of The Universe.
A new tower, called "New Tokyo Tower" or "Sumida Tower", is in the planning stages. Set for completion around 2011, the new tower will be nearly twice as tall as Tokyo Tower. It remains to be seen whether the new tower will replace Tokyo Tower as an icon in anime.
Examples
- The tower is heavily damaged in a fight between Sailor Moon and friends and one of the members of the third season's Quirky Miniboss Squad.
- CLAMP often features Tokyo Tower as the site of an important event.
- Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu are sucked away to Cephiro from Tokyo Tower at the start of Magic Knight Rayearth.
- The various versions of X/1999 are fond of having the climactic battle there. (In The Movie, even more Anviliciously, the magical shield Kamui generates there is a glowing golden sphere which visually evokes Japan's identity as the land of the Rising Sun.)
- Card Captor Sakura Midway through the anime, Sakura faces Yue during the Final Judgement. Also the manga's finale occurs there.
- An early chapter of Tokyo Babylon had Subaru attempting to placate a spirit which had become bound to Tokyo Tower after committing suicide nearby. Tokyo Tower was the one place in Tokyo she liked, so that'ś where she went after death.
- In Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, the main group visits a post apocalyptic world where Tokyo Tower is one of only two remaining human settlements.
- The tower is the site of yet another deadly battle in the first Tenchi Muyo movie.
- Then again, the only reason the tower is used is that it's ... a big transmitting tower that happens to be in the middle of mystic sites, but is itself not mystic or Jurai or anything other than a big metal thing. The heroes just use it as part of their scheme to turn Big Bad Kain into Sealed Evil In A Can.
- The tower is the key to accessing deadly doomsday weapons on the moon base in Please Save My Earth.
- In Eyeshield 21, the Deimon Devil Bats rent out the tower for the afternoon as part of Hiruma's "Tower of Hell" test, where potential recruits for the team must carry ice up the stairs to the upper observatory on a hot day.
- in the anime Mahou Tsukai Ni Taisetsu Na Koto, the Tokyo Tower is 'bent' by a girl's magical powers. This was in a desperate attempt to impress someone, so she couldn't muster the power to fix it. Fortunatly, her tutor apparently can, as the tower appears intact in subsequent episodes.
- The web comic Okashina Okashi ("Strange Candy") does a major Lampshade Hanging of this in its opening episodes by doing an Everyone Meets Everyone where six different groups from six different alternate universes all get sucked into an interdimensional vortex from their own universe's version of Tokyo Tower.
- Very mundane film sighting: The tower can be seen in the background of a scene in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice (which is set in Japan), when a helicopter uses a huge electromagnet to pick up a car full of Evil Minions that is chasing Bond.
- Tokyo's city hall is a distinctive building with two tall square-ish towers, each of which has an observation deck on top. In a pinch, it can function as a substitute Tokyo Tower.
- For that matter, nearly any tall observation tower in Japan will do, if Tokyo Tower is booked up for another emergency.
- Tokyo Tower is the site of a bombing attempt in one episode of Detective Conan, and the scene of the climax of the 13th Non Serial Movie Raven Chaser.
- In the 1961 daikaiju movie Mothra, the title monster knocks over the Tower◊ and then builds her cocoon in its ruins.
- In the 1995 Heisei Gamera , the Gyaos deftly evades killer missles, lets *them* take out Tokyo Tower, and proceeds to build its nest in the ruins, almost mocking its human prey.
- Madan Senki Ryukendo has Akebono Tower (which is obviously Tokyo Tower) transformed into a Monster Of The Week. Then exploded by the titular hero and reformed in the wrong location, where it will take a week to move it back to where it originally was.
- The first Mew Aqua battle in Tokyo Mew Mew takes place on Tokyo Tower.
- The titular character of the anime Samurai Deeper Kyo manages to actually impale the main villain on a collapsing Tokyo Tower. Doubly impressive since the series takes place in 1603.
- Arcana Heart uses the Tokyo Tower as the backdrop for Lilica's stage.
- During a series of real-world battles in Digimon Adventure, one of the evil Digimon follows Sora and Mimi into Tokyo Tower. He manages to bend the top half of the tower before being defeated.
- In Gao Gai Gar, big bad Pasder set up shop underneath it shortly after crashing on Earth. He later used it to assimilate every computer in Tokyo (apparently) into his battle form.
- In Detroit Metal City, DMC's fans overanalyze something Krauser says at the end of a concert, thinking it means to gather at the Tokyo Tower and chant his name. Negichi, as Krauser, goes to the Tower to make them stop. However, it ends with him raping the Tower. Naturally, the fans love it.
- At some point during the Britannian invasion in Code Geass, the top half of the Tower got blown off. The bottom half becomes a mueseum.
- Western example: in the Pixar Short Tokyo Mater, Mater from Cars is in a drift race to the top of Tokyo Tower.
- The Tokyo Tower is seen in both the anime and live action film versions of Death Note.
- Kamen Rider Kabuto, Tokyo Tower is located near where many of the big events happen and is even used on occasion. For example, "a one-of-a-kind tulip". In the AU movie, it's even bent down from the explosion in Shibuya.
- Kamen Rider Decade reuses it. In Kabuto World, the Hikari Studios is placed right near the tower. Natsumi calls it "trendy". The tower is also used for the final battle. There is surprisingly little property damage.
- Kamen Rider Double, set in Fuuto, the Windy Cuty, has its own Fuuto Tower, which is really a gigantic windmill.
- Lampshaded in Keroro Gunsou - the Nishizawa Radio Tower may look nothing like the Tokyo Tower, but does all the things the Tokyo tower would in other anime, etc. One time Giroro gets warped into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where he finds a derelict Nishizawa radio tower in ruins. Turns out the tower was merely obsoleted and abandoned along with the surrounding land, and there's three other towers not far away that have also undergone this.
- If This Troper recalls correctly, this is where Ultimo first fights Vice after waking up in the current era.
- In Transformers Robots In Disguise, X-Brawn drives to the top of the tower to chuck a bomb into space.
- It also makes an appearance in the Transformers: Robot Masters web cartoon: Optimus Primal climbs to the top and fights off Smokesniper and Gigant Bomb in a clear homage to King Kong.
