Will Robb Photography

Japan has its own way of doing things, quite often very different from how it’s done in other countries. Christmas is a good example.

Here in Tokyo, there is hardly a turkey in sight, most people think KFC is what you eat for Christmas and although each year Tokyo is being commercially driven to push the western ideas of Christmas being about spending lots of cash, Christmas here seems to be mostly about young couples. Anyone without a boyfriend or girlfriend will be willing to drop their standards somewhat, just to be able to have a date on Christmas day. Months before Christmas people start making plans to find a date for Christmas, any other day doesn’t seem to matter, it’s all about being with “someone” (anyone) for that one day. For those who successfully find someone to spend those days with, the common Christmas dates seem to focus on a combination of going to Disney land to see the illuminations, going to Disney sea to sea the illuminations, going to anywhere nearby with some sort of illuminations, eating sponge cake, getting drunk and then going off to a love hotel. For those ladies unfortunate enough to not be able to get a date by regular means for Christmas, a popular option is to have a party with their single friends. For the guys unable to get a date, they just do what they normally do and pay money to spend time with a young lady, who owing to the season will be dressed as Santa for a proportion of the evening. Getting a bit more odd, you can find some Goths dressed up like Christmas trees, even some men dressed as Christmas trees accompanying the aforementioned young ladies dressed as Santa. I have never done the whole Disneyland thing, I can’t stand the idea of adults getting giddy over other adults dressed up as stuffed toys. A couple of years ago a girl told me she had the best day of her life when she spent Christmas having a 10 minute lunch with Mickey Mouse. I find it very disturbing that every other Japanese girl who heard this story was green with envy.

However, not every Christmas in Japan is quite as “regular” as this. Not everyone wants a regular date in Disneyland. Some people don’t like the bright lights of the illuminations, some people prefer to lurk in the shadows and see things that not everyone can get to see. A few years ago I had an extremely odd Christmas, even by Japanese standards. I ended up photographing a Christmas S&M show which was really quite a grim experience. I had to photograph it for a magazine (which shall remain nameless) that was wanting images of a “strange Japanese Christmas.” Usually this magazine, which was aimed at dysfunctional teenagers around the world, delighted in publishing really bizarre stories that no-one else would publish. Once they saw the photos I sent them they actually said the images were too much even for them.

So, there I was in the S&M. The initial few shows involved people getting hooks dug into their backs and then been hoisted to the ceiling, bondage shows, the focus being on the pain as you would expect from such a thing. The small select audience sat in absolute silence, hanging on absolutely every bit of pain and suffering inflicted on stage, gasping delightedly as the sound of meat hooks pierced the skin of the “victims” with a “pop” and their torsos turned rigid with pain.

Then, it turned nasty. An old man, probably late 50’s was marched out on stage by a dominatrix dressed as Santa. He was dressed in only a see-through g-string, antlers and some tinsel. Initially he was whipped and beaten a bit, then tied up and hoisted to the ceiling, had hot wax dripped on him and then he was cut down, stripped naked and glow sticks were inserted into parts of his body (please note I said “parts” as in the plural) I didn’t think would be possible without masses of anesthesia, lots of lubrication and a surgeons steady hand. The until then quiet audience was roaring hysterically at his torment, as the glow sticks were pushed further and he screamed more the harder everyone laughed. The he had bells tied to a couple of delicate areas of his body and the dominatrix took to kicking him as hard as she could to make the bells ring. Audience members were then brought on stage to whip him, unlike the dominatrix who as firm but professional with it, the audience members didn’t hold back and the old guy loved them for it. It was grim beyond words, hysterically funny, but sick, even by regular Japanese “sick” standards which pushes the boat at the best of times. I had to crop the photo below somewhat so as to spare everyone the full pain of viewing it, if I had posted up the glow stick shots and a full description of what happened I think very few of the people reading this would ever come back. Maybe even now I’ve scared some slightly more wholesome people away, but when you take photos for clients you sometimes get some odd requests, and when you are finding your feet early in your career I guess you end up doing some strange jobs. I think being in Tokyo there is much more chance of the odd stuff happening.