01:46 pm
Please Visit Hakodate Soon, As Giant Squids are about to Obliterate Us
Okay, this has to be the oddest tourism promotion video ever:
According to Pink Tentacle (h/t), residents of Hakodate eat a lot of squid, so the local Chamber of Commerce/Tourism Promotion Board/Surrealist Film Collective thought it might be fun to use that fact to promote their fair city:
The invaders here are alien cephalopods from the planet Ikaaru, who seek revenge on the people of Hakodate for eating too much squid. The aliens hijack an enlarged version of Hakodate’s tourism mascot — a mechanical squid named “Ikabo,” which was built by Future University-Hakodate (FUN) in 2007 — and send it on a rampage through the city. . . .
A pair of giant robots are called into action to protect Hakodate’s precious historical buildings from destruction. Hakodate’s Goryōkaku Tower transforms into a deadly fighting machine, while an enormous Chūkū Dogū (a treasured 3,200-year-old hollow clay figurine unearthed in Hokkaidō in 1975) awakens from a deep slumber. . .
The city’s star-shaped Goryōkaku fortress also joins the fight. After coming under attack, the fortress rises up from the flames and takes off like a giant spaceship.
I guess the idea you should visit Hakodate before a race of evil alien squid and giant building robots destroy it in order to save the city from destruction is an interesting approach to tourism, but it does beg the question: why would I want to visit somewhere if its landmarks have been destroyed during an invasion of evil super-intelligent alien squid? And if they haven’t yet been destroyed, why would I want to visit it if, as a subsequent video hints, a new fleet of evil super-intelligent alien squid ships are on their way to try again?
Nothing like getting caught in the crossfire between evil super-intelligent alien squid and giant building transformer robots to ruin a vacation. Maybe the Hakodate tourism surrealistic collective should have looked somewhere else for help:
Pink Tentacle has parts two and three of the Hakodate saga here
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