Yesterday, the CScout team took a little trip across town to check out the Toshiba HD DVD planetarium featuring Takayuki Ohira’s famed Megastar II planetarium, billed as the most advanced planetarium in the world. We talked about it before here, but you really have to see it to realize how amazing it really is. This is definitely not the planetarium we used to go to when we were kids. First off, the structure is totally temporary and runs only until June, but the dome is very well made and has the most comfortable reclining theater seats we’ve ever been in. Of course, the highlight is the Megastar II, which (combined with multiple video projectors) creates an incrediblly immersive experience. At one point, it makes a “snow” effect by dropping each star one-by-one from its place in the sky, revealing how many stars there were up there to begin with as they flutter down towards the audience. Beautiful stuff, but disappointingly short at about 25 minutes.
Outside of the theater was a great cross-promotion with conveniece store chain Lawson, which had set up a temporary “Happy Lawson” store. The atmosphere inside was very much unlike a typical convenience store, with subtle lighting and even a children’s play area. You could also buy the Homestar Planetarium, including the limited edition models that are tied in to the Megastar II show.
Despite it being short, we definitely recommend the show to anyone coming to Tokyo. The Megastar II is incredible technology, and if you have a Homestar Planetarium yourself you can really see the connection between the two, both in design and even in the projection itself.
Check out the show here
Buy the Homestar Pro here here
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