If you’re traveling to Tokyo, chances are you’ll have heard of the now-defunct Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku. Its successor, Samurai Restaurant Time, promises the same level of fun, kitschy excess. Here’s our in-depth review to getting tickets, plus some tips to help you get the most out of your visit.
Samurai Restaurant Time © Florentyna Leow
Until 2020, the Robot Restaurant in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, was an unmissable experience for many first-time visitors to Tokyo. You couldn’t possibly leave without watching this hyper-tacky cabaret show in the city’s red-light district. COVID-19 killed the Robot Restaurant, but a new and equally extravagant show emerged in late 2023 to take its place — Samurai Restaurant Time. You can buy tickets for Samurai Restaurant Time online.
The interior is still eye-watering, kaleidoscopic chaos © Florentyna Leow
Samurai Restaurant Time is located in the same premises as its predecessor. Due to its branding (down to the same font used in the name and English subtitles), you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s run by the same people behind the Robot Restaurant. In fact, this show is operated by Gira Gira Girls, a “girl’s bar” in the same building. This is likely the main reason the new show is rated 18+, as the show itself does not contain any adult content. But the visuals and general M.O. don’t stray far from the Robot Restaurant style. They even kept the ridiculous bathrooms. Why mess with a winning formula?
Bring out the glitzy floats and let the festivities begin! © Florentyna Leow
This new cabaret show features a whole panoply of Japanese cultural cliches and then some: historically-inaccurate samurai, dancers in revealing samurai armour-inspired outfits, shrine maidens, ninja, enka singing, long-haired rainbow-coloured wigs, Nebuta-style floats, implausible sword battles, melodramatic dialogue, fans with LED lights, tacky kimono, and even tackier headdresses. Everything is in English. It’s absurd and entirely unself-conscious about catering to the Western tourist gaze. That in itself is rather admirable.
(One has to wonder how many cease-and-desist letters the Robot Restaurant received, since its successor has none of the liberal copyright infringement that characterised the predecessor. We found ourselves inexplicably missing the sudden appearances of characters like Kungfu Panda and Raphael from the Ninja Turtles.)
The food served at Samurai Restaurant Time is marginally better than the Robot Restaurant’s offerings. This isn’t saying much © Florentyna Leow
Buying Tickets For Samurai Restaurant Time
Tickets to Samurai Restaurant Time start at ¥8,000 per person. The price of admission includes two drinks. You can show up shortly before showtime to purchase tickets, but this doesn’t always guarantee seats, especially in the evening.
We suggest purchasing Samurai Restaurant Time tickets in advance through a third-party provider like Get Your Guide. You can book through the Gira Gira Girls website, if you want, as the ticket price is basically the same. However, they won’t provide refunds or make changes to your booking unless something unavoidable happens to stop the show. The UX is also awful.
With GYG, you can cancel up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund. You can also make a reservation further ahead of time without having to pay upfront, allowing you to keep your travel plans flexible. It’s a no-brainer.
The original Robot Restaurant cost ¥10 billion to construct back in 2012. No wonder they kept the interiors © Florentyna Leow
There are four showtimes daily:
- First Performance: 10:50am–12:30pm (doors open 10:30am)
- Second Performance: 2:30pm–4:10pm (doors open 2:00pm)
- Third Performance: 5:00pm–6:40pm (doors open 4:30pm)
- Fourth Performance: 7:00pm–9:00pm
The late morning show – the equivalent of a matinee – is the cheapest to book. You’d be brave to start your morning with this level of sound and excess, but you do you!
On the day of the show, bring your mobile voucher or a printout to the ticket counter. This is located inside Samurai Restaurant Time. There are always staff members hovering around, ready to assist.
These are lockers to stash any excess luggage you might have. Not the most kid-friendly decorations © Florentyna Leow
Things to Remember Before You Go To Samurai Restaurant Time
- Bring your passport or some form of ID as the staff will want to verify that you’re above 18 years old. Yes, even if you’re obviously old enough to be their parent.
- Unlike the Robot Restaurant, the food served at Samurai Restaurant Time is actually palatable. Sort of. But given the wealth of fantastic restaurants in Shinjuku, it’s hardly worth your stomach space. Stick with the two drinks and have a meal somewhere in the neighbourhood before or after. You can also buy overpriced drinks and “Samurai popcorn” during intermissions.
- No outside food or drinks are allowed.
- Bring your smartphone, forget the cameras. You’ll be reminded several times before the performance by the emcee that no flash photography is allowed. Smartphone photography and videos are okay.
- Use the bathrooms during the intermissions. There will be ample reminders to do this - if you’re in the bathroom when the performances begin, you won’t be able to return to your seat.
This being Japan, no show is complete without a laundry list of reminders on what not to do © Florentyna Leow
Before The Samurai Restaurant Time Show
- You’ll have a chance to buy more overpriced snacks and drinks. Unless you don’t mind dropping that cash, we suggest skipping this.
- If you’re sensitive to loud noises, ask the staff for a pair of headphones before the show starts. The music is extremely loud, and it’s hard on your ears.
- The show is best experienced when you don’t know exactly what to expect. It heightens the absurdity of it all. Plus, they periodically switch up the content and choreography. So if you already have your heart set on watching the Samurai Restaurant Time show and prefer your entertainment sans spoilers, stop reading now and just go buy some tickets.
You can tell a fair bit of effort went into making the floats © Florentyna Leow
Samurai Restaurant Time: Part 1
The show begins with dramatic taiko drumming on two red moving floats — the first, a two-person revolving affair; the second, four drummers on a Nebuta-inspired demon-themed float decked out in sparkly LEDs.
Are those glow sticks they’re using for the drums? © Florentyna Leow
Then, a second set of blue heaven-themed floats emerges, blue stage lights shining on drummers dressed in blue.
That might be a tengu — a birdlike demon from folklore © Florentyna Leow
The heaven-hell drum-off continues for a while, until several yokai (supernatural beings) float-robots trundle onstage, with dancers astride them exuberantly pounding drums.
Have the dancers transcended some kind of liminal barrier between the material and spiritual worlds by walking through the torii gates? Best not to overthink this © Florentyna Leow
Backup dancers in outfits that look like a cross between dimestore samurai armour and gym shorts stride and sway through three torii gates-on-wheels which have inexplicably appeared on stage.
No cheesy cabaret show is complete without thigh-high boots © Florentyna Leow
Angel vs. demon, heaven vs. hell — who knows what the story is, but the dancers give it their all, whirling around on stage wielding fluffy feathered fans and fabulous fluttering flags. All of the above takes place in less than ten minutes.
A real ninja wouldn’t be caught dead in red. Probably © Florentyna Leow
A quick samurai vs. red ninja battle ensues. The fighting is choreographed in the loosest sense of the word, but the audience clearly enjoys the flips and tricks.
Imagine doing this performance four times a day, though. These people have stamina! © Florentyna Leow
Another ninja has appeared on stage! He’s wielding a huge calligraphy brush, and proceeds to paint the characters for BIG LUCK on the screen behind him. An audience member sitting next to us has won a big bucket of Samurai Popcorn! Lucky him. More flips and tricks ensue.
The entire show is accompanied by live music courtesy of the off-stage band, as well as some of the performers on stage who sing or drum. The drummer and electric guitarist are reasonably competent; the singers struggling on the high notes, less so. But the melodrama in their singing is spot on.
There are multiple short intermissions in Part 1 and 2 so that the stagehands can set up each scene © Florentyna Leow
Samurai Restaurant Time: Part 2
Act 2 opens with two dancers in costumes best described as geisha-meets-sexy-Brazilian-carnival. One of them delivers a decent rendition of an enka song, which makes a perfect if probably unintentional introduction to the Japanese propensity for over-the-top cheesiness in their dramas. (Enka is like blues music if it had absorbed 10,000 telenovelas — plenty of sake-soaked, melodramatic tears for one’s lost love under a moonlit sky.)
What began as a ridiculously long flute turns out to be a suitably stabby stick. Versatile! © Florentyna Leow
A woman in a conical hat appears on stage — a clear send-up of the blind musician character in Edo-period stories.
There is so much running around on stage © Florentyna Leow
Surprise, surprise! She happens to be a fighter. Not a very competent one. But a fighter nonetheless.
One hopes they separate the whites when doing laundry in Hell © Florentyna Leow
The next scene takes place in the Court of Hell. Partially-veiled handmaidens dressed in white perform a stately dance while the supposed King of Hell lounges on his tacky golden throne. For lack of a better description, the accompanying music is perfect for getting high.
It won’t be the last time Musashi “stubs” someone in the chest © Florentyna Leow
Two interlopers have arrived! Sagara Yukimura (or Yukinojo, it’s pretty inconsistent) and Musashi are here to avenge someone. Meikai Enkiou — the King of Hell — has apparently stolen the title from somebody. That “stubborn man!” Musashi turns out to be terrible at swordfighting. The poor lip-syncing to even worse dialogue (projected onto the screen for clarity) is so awful as to be hilarious.
The bored courtiers have seen this a million times © Florentyna Leow
But wait, there’s more! The king’s Catastrophe Armour is magical and “screaming” (he really needs to get that exorcised), wanting to be with Sagara Yukimura. Also, the will within him wants to be with him/her/them. When they do accept Enkiou, the world will revive. In order for this to happen, Sagara Yukinojo must drink the lord’s blood from a cup carved from this erstwhile lord’s skull.
The question is, how did that taste? © Florentyna Leow
The scene ends on this cliffhanger. Will the world be revived? We’ll never know, since it’s time for the next intermission.
Hopefully the lord’s blood tasted better than this cup of “matcha” — probably bottom-of-the-barrel green tea plus liquid food colouring © Florentyna Leow
Samurai Restaurant Time may have committed many egregious crimes against storytelling, but no crime was as grievous as the “matcha” served during the subsequent intermission. In retrospect, it was foolish to expect the real deal, but someone should be jailed for telling tourists that this violently-green liquid is matcha. Sen no Rikyu would cry.
The lion’s braces are super cute! Look at all the emoji and hearts © Florentyna Leow
Samurai Restaurant Time: Part 3
The finale is about as over-the-top as one would expect of the Robot Restaurant’s successor. Enter stage right, a woman decked out in sparkly furisode, singing a melancholy enka while standing on a giant lion-head robot spewing clouds of dry ice-mist from its nostrils.
Ask for headphones. You’ll be thankful for them © Florentyna Leow
Every recurring theme and motif that had appeared before, came out again. Taiko drummers, the samurai armour gym bunnies, flag bearers. Giant mechanised floats in the shape of treasure ships, swans and dragons at their helm; dragon heads; another with… Pepper the Softbank robot? Who knows. It’s best not to think too hard about the details.
All I can think about is how fun it must have been to make the floats © Florentyna Leow
Lasting for approximately 20 minutes, this raucous on-stage festival remains loud and upbeat throughout, and manages to sustain everyone’s attention until the end through sheer good-natured energy. You can’t help but smile at the absurdity of the entire neon-lit spectacle.
No cabaret show here is complete without rainbow-coloured wigs © Florentyna Leow
Is Samurai Restaurant Time Worth It?
If it wasn’t already obvious from the start, Samurai Restaurant Time has no illusions about being an accurate reflection of Japanese culture. It’s unabashedly self-Orientalising and caters directly to the Western tourist gaze. Then again, this uninhibited mash-up and repurposing of cultural motifs is in its own way quite ‘Japanese.’
Curiously enough, I found myself thinking that Samurai Restaurant Time’s predecessor had the edge when it came to sheer madcap expression and creativity — perhaps because they had a wider pool of cultural motifs to draw on, remix, and parody.
Whether or not Samurai Restaurant Time is worth your time depends on what you want to see. First-time visitors who know little about Japan are more likely to enjoy a visit, especially at the beginning of their trip. It’s a fun, cheesy, over-the-top show that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than it is. Put your brain cells away, sit back, and enjoy the ride.
There is literally no way to miss this restaurant © Florentyna Leow
How to Get To Samurai Restaurant Time
Take the East Exit of Shinjuku Station. Walk to the crossing. Cross the street (and don’t go underneath the train tracks), heading towards Kabukicho. Cross the large road at the traffic lights. Don Quijote will be on your right.
Turn right and walk one block, then turn left into Sakura-dori Street. Samurai Restaurant Timeis just down the road. You can’t miss it.
English name:
Samurai Restaurant Time
Japanese name:
サムライレストランタイム
English address:
B1F, 1-7-1, Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Japanese address:
〒160-0021 東京都新宿区歌舞伎町1-7-1 B1F
Opening hours:
10am–9pm
Admission:
From ¥8,000 directly from the venue, or by purchasing online.
Nearest Transport:
Subway: 5-minute walk from Exit B9 of Shinjuku Sanchome Station on the Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line. Or, a 5-minute walk from Shinjuku Station on the JR Yamanote, Chuo, Sobu, Odakyu, and Keio Lines.
Nearest Hotels:
:: Check availability and pricing for hotels near Samurai Restaurant Time on Booking.com or Agoda.com.
Telephone:
+81-3-5369-6571
Website:
Official website
Near To Here:
Samurai Restaurant Time is located in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. See our complete list of things to do in Shinjuku, including places to eat, nightlife and places to stay.
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