FUTURE RESTAURANT

TitleFUTURE RESTAURANT
BrandMANEGER MINISTRY: MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE,FORESTRY AND FISHERIES / MINISTRY OF E
Product / ServiceEXPO MILANO 2015 JAPAN PAVILION
CategoryB04. Use of Ambient Media: Large Scale
EntrantDENTSU INC. Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation DENTSU INC. Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation 2 RHIZOMATIKS Tokyo, JAPAN
Production DENTSU TEC Tokyo, JAPAN
Production 2 NOMURA Tokyo, JAPAN
Production 3 TANSEISHA Tokyo, JAPAN
Production 4 RHIZOMATIKS Tokyo, JAPAN
Production 5 TAIYO KIKAKU Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Jun Naito DENTSU INC. Exective Creative Director
Shinichiro Urahashi DENTSU INC. Creative Director
Takayuki Yano DENTSU INC. Producer
Masao Takebayashi DENTSU INC. Producer
Kenji Washida DENTSU INC. Producer
Yi Zhang DENTSU INC. Production Manager
Yasuo Ogawa NOMURA Co.,Ltd. Production Manager
Nobuyuki Kobayashi TANSEISHA Co., Ltd Production Manager
Akihiro Suzuki TANSEISHA Co., Ltd Planner
Shun Aoki DENTSU TEC INC. Planner
Seiichi Saito Rhizomatiks co.,ltd. Creative Director
Eiji Tanigawa TAIYO KIKAKU co.,ltd. Video Direction
Kumiko Iijima porom Costume Design
Kota Iguchi CEKAI Art Direction
Yoshihiro Murata Kikunoi Food Direction

The Campaign

“Itadakimasu” and “gochisosama” are expressions of thanks that naturally come out of the mouths of the Japanese at mealtime, and these two phrases are incorporated in the theme music of this theater. Visitors actually sit at a table and learn about Japanese food culture through a virtual dining experience. It is an interactive, inclusive entertainment show executed with cutting-edge technology. The overriding message is that the Japanese food can be the food of the world, something that connects everyone on earth with a happy feeling.

Creative Execution

The Japan Pavilion featured a 150-seat circular theater space where interactive performance called Future Restaurant took place. The performance ran 34 times per day, and the total of 6000 times during the whole period. Fitting to the concept of the Future Restaurant, a giant chandelier lights the circular stage where cooking performances are acted out. Visitors are seated at tables around the stage, where they use media table to access information on ingredients, choose their own dishes, and participate in the meal. All kinds of Japanese dishes, traditional ones as well as those already popular around the world, come up on the table one after another. The key phrases that unify the experience are “itadakimasu” and “gochisosama.” Chopsticks, the traditional utensil, are chosen as an input interface for the media table. Moving images of Japanese landscape in four seasons accompany the experience.

Results

During the 184-day season, 2,280,000 people visited the Japan Pavilion. That amounts to 1 in 10 of total Expo visitors. In a survey conducted by an Italian agricultural organization, Japanese Pavilion was voted number one as the most popular pavilion. The Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera gave a favorable review, recognizing the “balance of the poetical and the high-tech” of the Japan Pavilion. The word spread through various media, resulting in 9-hour-long waiting lines at peak periods. In the Pavilion Prizes awarded by BIE (Bureau International des Expositions), Japan Pavilion was awarded gold (the best prize) for installation design. This is the first time ever that a Japanese Pavilion has received the gold award.

It is a theatrical live performance show titled Future Restaurant, where visitors interactively experience Japanese food and food culture in a virtual dining space.

The theater’s aim is to let the visitors experience how a sense of connection is created between people who sit around Japanese food, and how that connection can spread, making even the whole world a better place. The key restriction was not being able to taste the real food. To counter that, interactive technology, performance, and music was used to effectively convey the appeal of Japanese food and the fun of dining experience. The visitors use chopsticks to interactively experience the dishes that come up on the media table in front them. At the beginning of this segment, everyone chants “itadakimasu” together, and “gochisosama” at the end of it. When the show is over, the visitors realize that they feel closer to people sharing same table. That sense of connection makes them smile, which then changes the mood of the whole theater for the better.