1. A Midsummer Night’s…Dream
2. Summer love doesn’t last!? Don’t complain, don’t complain. That’s not good enough! Let’s get drunk all night long…
3. All over Japan, there are festivals and people everywhere… What did you see there?
4. The enthusiastic Yamato fans plus the rabble wait patiently for the results
5. The big screen coldly announces the winner
6. “Yay!! I won” I’m so happy my glasses slip off
7. “Mom!” “Good job, son”
8. Good for you
…The Susumu standee at the venue says nothing
The lottery…
I thought that the only things that would attract a crowd even if it was raining would be horse racing and bargain sales, but my preconceptions were blown away by the experience of this day…
On June 29th, more than 15,000 fans packed into the Be Forever Yamato lottery, held at the Shinjuku Station East Exit Square in Tokyo, to recruit crew members for the Space Battleship Yamato Adventure Roman voyage. Unfortunately, it was raining that day, and a group of umbrella-wielding bats gathered in front of the station, or rather, infested it.
My friend A, who accompanied me, said with wide eyes, “The only time this many people gathered in my town was ten years ago for the mayoral election. No, it’s a hundred times that. Tokyo is an amazing city.” (After all, he had only arrived at Ueno Station two hours before, and it was his first time in Tokyo.)
Even with all of these people, only 500 could go on the voyage. That’s a 30-to-1 ratio. If you were chosen, then even Keio University Medical School was not a dream for you! Every time the winning numbers were displayed on the big screen, a cheer would erupt, and when all the numbers were displayed, the winners let out a roar.
As soon as Nishizaki took the microphone and said something, an enormous cheer erupted. I thought to myself, “What amazing popularity. As expected…” But it turned out that it was because those who didn’t win were given a movie ticket in exchange for their lottery ticket. So, I went to the exchange booth where the winners lined up, smiling and drooling, clutching 3,000 yen. After all, it was a 50,000 yen trip for only 3,000 yen. The winners’ hearts were already crossing the ocean to Kyushu… and they kept saying, “It’s like a dream!”
Good for them…