Tokyo Tower

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"^note Which makes for a Department of Redundancy Department, as the name Touto is made up of tou for "Tokyo" and another tou for "tower", so it'd become "Tokyo Tower Tower".)

Apparently, they built the thing out of Imported Alien Phlebotinum, because it's also a major Weirdness Magnet — at least in fiction, where it's often subject to Monumental Damage. If the Big Bad or The Dragon are going to attack, they'll attack the 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. Kaiju and Robeasts seem to knock it over or blow it up on a regular basis, and even if they don't, they usually come to visit the location on their way through. The government might secretly turn it into a superweapon. 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...

Alternately, if the tower isn't the scene of the disaster, it will be just about the only thing left standing, instead.

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.

Since Tokyo Tower is not high enough to broadcast digital television signals over the same area thanks to tall buildings getting in the way, a new tower has been constructed to supplement it: the "Tokyo Skytree", which opened its doors in May 2012. At 634 meters it is nearly twice as tall as its illustrious predecessor, and even though it has not been around for nearly as long, it seems set to gradually join Tokyo Tower's place as an icon in anime.

The top was bent by a powerful earthquake on Friday, March 11th, 2011.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In the very first episode of Agent Aika, the tower's tip is the only visible part remaining after most of Japan sank under the sea.
• Tokyo Tower is the site of a bombing attempt in one episode of Case Closed, and the scene of the climax of the 13th Non-Serial Movie Raven Chaser.
  • Heck, it very nearly qualifies as a Weaponized Landmark when Conan takes out the Black Organization's helicopter by turning Tokyo Tower into a giant slingshot.
  • Speaking of Gosho Aoyama, the Big Bad of Yaiba blew up Tokyo tower as evidence of his power.
• 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. Their schools were holding student trips there on exactly the same day. Once the first part brings a Downer Ending, the girls are brought back there to square one. At the beginning of part 2 (at least in the anime), the three go to the Tower on their own to speak about their experiences... and are brought back to Cephiro to help deal with the choosing of a new Pillar.
    • In Rayearth OVA, Tokyo Tower is the first thing that is "overwritten" as Cephiro starts replacing Earth, with Emeraude's Castle replacing it. At the end of the story, when Tokyo has been devastated by the Humongous Mecha battles and Cephiro goes away, Tokyo Tower comes back as the only thing remaining standing for miles.
  • 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.)
  • Cardcaptor Sakura Midway through the anime, Sakura faces Yue during the Final Judgement. Also the manga's finale occurs there.
    • Card Captor Sakura Abridged has, as one of the first lines of the first episode, "Tokyo Tower, as seen in all generic anime."
  • 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's 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 (partially destroyed during the war) became a museum in Code Geass.
• The Cowboy Bebop movie has the final battle with Vincent take place on top of what appears to be similar to the Tokyo Tower, although the movie is set on Mars.
• The tower is seen in both the anime and live action film versions of Death Note.
• 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.
• 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.
• The early climax between Our Hero and the Big Bad (and literal dragon) Oynx in Dragon Crisis! occurs in a rebuilt/remodeled Tokyo Tower, just before reopening. Let's just say that the work will not meet the expected deadline....
• 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. The ones who pass are those who get to the top of the tower no matter what, even if the ice in their bags melts since Hiruma values hard work and determination over everything.
• In Gantz, the tower can be seen from the apartment where Gantz gathers its latest "recruits".
• Another GaoGaiGar example: 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.
• The tower is also featured in the Hana no Ko Lunlun Japan OAV. Togenishia and Yabooki are seen hanging out there alongside some high school kids.
• In Lycoris Recoil, the remnants of Tokyo Tower serves as a key location, the Big Bad having destroyed most of it a few years before the story began.
• The Tokyo Tower was seen in Mobile Fighter G Gundam being destroyed by Domon Kasshu to root out the Devil Gundam's minions, or rather the mind-controlled Shuffle Alliance members.
• One episode of Otogi Zoshi revolves around events at Tokyo Tower and the nearby graveyard. One character claims that spirits from the graveyard can climb up the tower and interrupt TV broadcasts, showing the faces of the dead on TV. Hey, being on the Japanese equivalent of an Indian Burial Ground could explain a lot about Tokyo Tower.
• in Paranoia Agent, Maniwa perches on the tower while delivering an emergency message to Ikari in the final episode.
• Rather plot-important in Penguindrum. It didn't look the way it does in real life... but it was a 30-meters tall David sculpture. It got retconned into the Tower we know and love when Momoka rewrites reality to free her friend Yuri from her abusive father.
• The tower is the key to accessing deadly doomsday weapons on the moon base in Please Save My Earth.
• 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. In the first season's arcade game, one of the bosses flies to it in between phases.
• 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.
• Lampshaded in Sgt. Frog - 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.
• In the anime Someday's Dreamers, 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. Fortunately, her tutor apparently can, as the tower appears intact in subsequent episodes.
• It gets knocked into orbit along with a monster in Super Dreadnought Girl 4946, and manages to impale the monster when they hit the moon.
• 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.
• It also makes several appearances and makes a serious plot point as a fictional Expy called "Angel Tower" in Tokyo Godfathers.
• After an earthquake in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 the Tokyo Tower falls a few episodes in. It is also the reason Yuuki dies. He got hit on the head with a piece of the tower and this caused internal bleeding. He dies two episodes later, a little over a day in-series.
• The first Mew Aqua battle in Tokyo Mew Mew takes place on Tokyo Tower.
• In Transformers: Robots in Disguise, X-Brawn drives to the top of the tower to chuck a bomb into space.
• A two-parter episode of You're Under Arrest! takes place in the tower, with the Chief trapped up there during a very windy day with a little boy, and the officers trying to rescue them.

Comic Books

• In Astonishing X-Men #36-37, a giant mind controlled dragon called Fin Fang Foom is sent to attack Tokyo as part of a distraction. One of the X-Men, called Armor, restrains Foom with the mangled metal of the Tokyo Tower.
• On the cover of the Blake and Mortimer album Professor Satō's Three Formulae - volume 1, Tokyo Tower is very prominently displayed (as seen here). Funnily enough, apart from one panel where it's seen broadcasting a TV signal, and one panel where it's a vague outline in the background, it doesn't appear anywhere in the story itself. The series is a repeat offender about displaying prominent landmarks on the cover which then don't appear in the story itself. In the story S.O.S. Meteors, for example, the Eiffel Tower is prominently seen on the cover, but not once in the story itself.

Films — Animation

• In the Pixar Short Tokyo Mater, Mater from Cars is in a drift race to the top of Tokyo Tower.

Films — Live-Action

• Very mundane film sighting: The tower can be seen in the background of a scene in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice set in Japan, when a helicopter uses a huge electromagnet to pick up a car full of Evil Minions that are chasing Bond.
• K-20: Legend of the Mask is set an alternate 1949, yet the shots of the Japanese capital city of Teito include a rusting Tokyo Tower. Presumably the Tower was built earlier since Japan never participated in World War II.
• In the 1961 Kaiju movie Mothra, the title monster knocks over the Tower and then builds her cocoon in the ruins.
  • In the 1995 Heisei Gamera, the Gyaos deftly evades killer missiles, lets them blow off the upper portion of Tokyo Tower, and proceeds to build its nest on top of what's left, almost mocking its human prey. A year later in Gamera 2: Advent of Legion, the nest's remains are still up there and the tower has yet to be repaired.
  • King Kong Escapes has Kong and Mechani-Kong climb Tokyo Tower during the film's climax. Once Madam Piranha deactivates Mechani-Kong, he falls off the tower, taking a part of its antenna with him, and is destroyed on contact with the ground.
  • The tower is destroyed once again in Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. when Mothra dodges a blast of Godzilla's atomic breath, only for the beam to hit the Tokyo Tower behind her.
  • Amusingly enough, Tokyo Tower isn't destroyed in Godzilla: Final Wars when Monster X's asteroid explodes, though it is severely damaged. The same cannot be said for much of the surrounding area.
  • It's most mundane appearance in the Kaiju genre is when it appears in an establishing shot in the first episode of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, marking the setting as Tokyo and nodding to it's genre history.
• The final battle in Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl happens on Tokyo Tower.

Live-Action TV

• Ultra Series
  • Ultra Q sees Tokyo Tower employed as a Weaponised Landmark in episode 19, firing X-channel light rays at Kemur Man to defeat him.
  • In Return of Ultraman, the stag beetle kaiju Nokogirin destroys the Tokyo Tower during its fight with Ultraman Jack as an inadvertent result of Jack leaping out of the way of the Death Ray fired from the creature's horns.
  • In Ultraman Taro, the giant cicada kaiju King Zemira begins perching on Tokyo Tower and disrupting television and radio signals with its buzzing after being driven away from its hatch site by the people living in the housing developments over it.
  • Features prominently in the finale of Ultraman Orb when Juggler reveals Maga-Orochi is survived its first battle with Orb and is metamorphosing into Magata-no-Orochi underneath the Tokyo Tower, in order to dupe VTL into launching a missile at the tower that would feed the monster the energy it needed to finish its transformation.
• Kamen Rider
  • 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.
    • Decade even lampshades the tower's prominence in Kabuto: each of the AU worlds is represented in the photo studio by a backdrop that shows important elements from their source series. Kabuto's backdrop is Tokyo Tower with Tendou's skyward-pointing finger next to it.
  • The movie Cho Kamen Rider Den-O: Onigashima battleship has our heroes successfully fool the villains with a fake Tricked Out Time sequence, creating a fake skyline outside the DenLiner with Momotaros manning the fake Tokyo Tower (which he calls "MomoTower".)
  • Kamen Rider Double, set in Futo, the Windy City, has its own Futo Tower, which is really a gigantic windmill.
• 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.
• In an episode of SWAT some of the characters travel to Tokyo. The tower is referenced by a character who stays home, and it is later seen in the episode.

Tabletop Games

• In the Monsterpocalypse set Big In Japan, there's the "Tokyo Triumph," which looks identical to the Tokyo Tower. Its combination of abilities make it both a very attractive target for alien invaders and the like to take over, and also serve as a big bullseye saying "Monster Goes Here" for when you question what exactly to body slam your enemy into.

Video Games

• Arcana Heart uses the Tokyo Tower as the backdrop for Lilica's stage.
• Destroy All Humans! 2 does NOT have the Tokyo Tower. Just the Takoshima Tower. Guess what it resembles....
• Devil Survivor 2 establishes Tokyo Tower, along with five others (Hakata Port Tower, the Tsuutenkaku, Beppu Tower, Sapporo TV Tower, and the Nagoya TV Tower), is part of a supernatural defense system designed to protect Japan against attack. Strife ensues as the Septentriones start showing interest in demolishing the towers...
• Drakengard infamous last ending ends with the player seeing the remains of Caim and Angelus skewered on the Tokyo Tower.
• The setting of The Final Fantasy Legend consists of four "worlds" connected by a huge tower, one of which (the "World of Ruins") resembles a devastated Tokyo cityscape, with the tower represented on the world map by a likeness of the Tokyo Tower. (So, the Tokyo Tower actually does "mark an inter-universal nexus" in this game.)
• Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon uses Tokyo Tower as the motivating reason for the male protagonist to leave the safety of his home and venture out to find other possible survivors in a seemingly Ghost Planet. The Final Boss even takes place on the observation deck of the tower.
• Ghostwire: Tokyo: The final confrontation with the villain takes place at the tower. The tower avoids damage, because the boss battle takes place in a parallel dimension, accessed via the main deck.
• King of the Monsters has it as a noticeable piece of stage dressing in the Tokyo map. Of course, most players, including the AI, immediately throw opponents into it for damage or rip it out of the ground to throw it at opponents to equal effect.
• Metal Max Xeno takes place in a desertified post-apocalyptic Tokyo, and the player finds a key item at the top of a collapsed and rusting Tokyo Tower.
• Persona 5 Strikers has the servers for EMMA be located at the base of the tower. When she reaches godhood by stealing desires en masse, the Metaverse bleeds over into the real world around the tower. Alien Kudzu threads through the Tower to turn it into the Tree of Knowledge, while EMMA herself sits at the top as the Demiurge.
• Shin Megami Tensei I has the top of Tokyo Tower as a dungeon. In an inversion of the usual rule, though, the Tower is one of the only remaining structures after God brings the Flood.
• The first Splatoon takes place in Inkopolis Plaza, which is very clearly inspired by Shibuya, Tokyo. As such, the area's major landmark is Inkopolis Tower, a neon-green Expy of the Tokyo Tower. Considering that the series takes place After the End, there is a chance that Inkopolis could actually be Tokyo.
• Super Robot Wars T: Since the installment includes Magic Knight Rayearth, the T3 ended up visiting Tokyo Tower, which is now located in Nouvelle Tokyo (but the tower name remained the same without putting 'Nouvelle' on it). Unfortunately, the sightseeing factor by the time of visit got ruined because they just prevented a Colony Drop and some of its remains got thrown near the tower. And as a result of the Rayearth plot, the T3 got transported to Cephiro too because they were fighting the Company near the tower.

Web Animation

• A fan-made "if the UNIT era of Doctor Who had been an anime" video inevitably had the Third Doctor and the Master having a sword fight on the top of Tokyo Tower.
• The tower makes an appearance in the Transformers: Robot Masters web cartoon: Optimus Primal does a "King Kong" Climb to the top and fights off Smokesniper and Gigant Bomb.

Webcomics

• 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.
  • Heck, one of the characters wanted to go there because all the crazy stuff happens there.

Western Animation

• Molly of Denali: In "Puppy Sitting," Tooey goes to Japan and sends Molly pictures he took. One of the pictures is of him and his brothers eating ice cream in front of the Tokyo Tower.
• In Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs to You, Dr. Doofenshmirtz drags his daughter Vanessa to Tokyo for one of his evil schemes, and she ends up falling from the Tokyo Tower and caught by Phineas and Ferb's plane.

Examples other than the Tokyo Tower itself

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building / City Hall

• Tokyo's city hall, formally referred to as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, is a distinctive complex 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.
  • This happens in Angel Sanctuary.
  • ...and Kodocha.
  • In Bubble Gum Crisis, It is torn down and replaced by the Genom Tower at the very start of the series.
  • It was the center of operations in Blue Seed.
  • As well as for the Hypnos Men in Black organization in Digimon Tamers.
  • CLAMP's fond of using it in this way, as they do in both X1999 (the Dragons of Earth are headquartered beneath it) and Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- (it serves as a foil to Tokyo Tower in a world where there are only two intact structures left).
  • Its ruins play a small role in Silent Möbius as the resting place of Grospoliner, Katsumi's sword.
  • It was nearly attacked by EI-02, the first Zonder Robo in GaoGaiGar.
    • For that matter, nearly any tall observation tower in Japan will do, if Tokyo Tower is booked up for another emergency.
  • It was seen in a ruined state in Code Geass.
  • Late in Shin Megami Tensei I, the hero must fight either Vishnu, Ravana, or both at the top, depending on the route. Vishnu and Ravana reside on opposite towers. It's one of the few buildings that can be entered after the Flood.
  • In Mobile Fighter G Gundam, it's the last building in Tokyo to still have power after the Death Army attacked the city. It becomes a refugee camp and Domon uses it as a base for a few episodes.
  • Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah featured the first major appearance of the complex. Naturally, it serves as the setting for the movie's climax. Godzilla takes out a good chunk of one of the towers with his atomic breath, and Mecha-King Ghidorah rams him into the building's midsection.

Tokyo Skytree

• In 7th Dragon III: code VFD, 7th Encount is a virtual reality dungeon crawler that takes place in 2021 in the Tokyo Skytree after it's been overrun by dragons and monsters (for context, the game is set in 2100).
• In Shin Megami Tensei IV, Tokyo Tower is little more than overworld decoration. However, the Skytree is so much taller, that it can actually connect the ground level of Sealed Tokyo with the inner surface of the Firmament. In fact, as the deepest levels of Naraku (the demon-infested cavern that runs through the Firmament, connecting both surfaces) stop looking like underground caverns and start looking like scaffolding and observation decks, the player realizes that the Middle Ages-inspired fantasy setting is about to take a sudden turn.
• In Tokyo Xanadu, Skytree exists as a plot-important landmark. However it was called "Across Tower" in game and subject to Alternate Landmark History.
• Symphogear has battles at Tokyo Skytree in its first two seasons.
• In Code:Breaker anime, the Skytree is set as the Final Battle stage between Rei Ogami and Yukihina.
• In Episode 7 of The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, Sorata, Mashiro, Nanami, and Yuuko visit the Skytree, though they don't go inside.
• In the "ruins of civilization" sequence in Dr. STONE, the top of the Skytree is seen falling off an unspecified number of years after the petrification event. By the time Senku is revived, no signs of 21st-century Tokyo are visible.
• The Tokyo Skytree features as a place the Player Character can visit, and is visited during a few Confidant conversations, in Persona 5.

Tokyo Big Sight

One of the newest additions to the Tokyo skyline, it is a massive convention center that consists of four inverted, flat-tipped pyramids arranged in a square formation, sitting on top of pillars that the "tops" of the pyramids rest upon. It was originally designed to be one of the facilities that the 2020 Olympics events would take place in, but funding cuts nixed this idea; instead, it was to serve as the main broadcasting and press center for the 2020 Olympics...until said 2020 Olympics were cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Amongst fans of anime and manga, it's best known for being the site of Comic Market, or "Comiket" for short, a major biannual festival for Doujinshi creators to sell their works. As such it is always seen in any otaku-related series, or in single episodes of other series centered about Comiket.

• It makes a brief appearance in Metal Max Xeno as one of the areas Talis searches for survivors; before the SoNs attacked it, it was the location of a town called "The Atrium," but the onslaught of NOA's murderous creations razed it to the ground.
• Naturally in Genshiken which is about a college club of anime, manga and video game fans, this is where the Comikets are held which the members visit every summer and winter.

National Diet Building

If you see that squarish government building with a pyramid on the top in anime or tokusatsu, it symbolically means the Japanese government itself; the National Diet Building is where Japan's Parliament meet. In this way, it is the equivalent for example, the United States' Capitol or the British palace of Westminister. It was constructed from 1920 to 1936, and has seen many revisions in its design.

• In many Godzilla films, the Diet building was a choice target practice for our eponymous monster more than once.

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