In the evening of Oct.29th, 450 costumed people occupied three train cars of the Osaka Kanjo (loop) line. The Mainich English article did not mention the nationality of the riders but in Japanese one, it said most of them were foreigners. They said that foreign people coordinated with each other about the Halloween project on the Internet, then jacked the train cars and got boozed up for over 2 hours. Since they continued to ride each stop, the Osaka Kanjo line had to delay service resulting in several stations being stuffed with angry people confused about the party. Well, I don't think train cars are a party place but I like this kind of crazy news very much; they may find a better way to have it next year :-). I also met a Santa Claus in an elevator in my friend's apartment building and he said to me, "the population is getting bigger now". Maybe he meant that he had to start delivery earlier than usual this year. ha ha ha
I can see Halloween displays everywhere in markets making it seem that Halloween is becoming accepted in Japan. I suppose many Japanese don't know the origin of Halloween but, why do they use pumpkins? Why a horror theme? Actually, I heard Halloween could be popular like this because...
1. English conversation schools have Halloween parties. Do you know there are a huge number of English conversation schools in Japan? Well, many Japanese would have the obsessive idea that they have to master English conversation... That could be a reason.
2. It might be another move in commercialism... Completely same as Valentine's Day. Amusement parks can have events like in they have in Harajuku but those are usually bad... Regular Harajuku has more of a "Halloween mood" normally. Also, the food industry can make Halloween sweets; yes even Japanese-style sweets (various types of manju). And variety shops can sell Halloween items with of course Sanrio, they can always do the same thing with that damn CAT!