Big in Tokyo: a massive BE@RBRICK Summer event at Omotesando Hills

Omotesando Hills is a big shopping complex in Tokyo, close to Harajuku. It’s kinda fancy – not as expensive as Ginza, but getting there.

In between the sweeping walkways, it has a massive high space in the middle. Perfect for some kind of art or crazy installation. So, Medicom put the biggest BE@RBRICK (balloon) in the world in there.

This was BE@RBRICK Summer.

Even more bear for your buck (okay, it was free)

We got to see 2 BE@RBRICKS: one high up, and one half sticking out of the floor. Okay, 1 1/2 BE@RBRICKS. Sounds like a sitcom.

The white bear’s 7m tall, and is the largest BE@RBRICK ever made (as a balloon). Maybe a real one would’ve been too heavy? No idea. The blue one underneath’s 3m high, but it’s not complete. So together they make 1o full metres of world-famous bear. We were in awe.

Whenever someone stepped on the footprints at the photo spot, the lights changed. A brighter white spotlight made it easier to take pics and selfies in front of the bears. We were lucky to get shots without anyone standing there, it was crazy busy.

Every hour and half hour, a 3-minute music and light show went off. The spotlights turned blue and purple. We don’t really remember the music. It wasn’t J-Pop. Some beautiful ambient music played by an orchestra. We swear we heard a harp in there.

Maybe other people had better luck taking pics in that light. It made ours look cool but weird.

A summer diorama, now with more bears

Tiny mini bears were in the sand all around the blue BEA@RBRICK. It was meant to be a mini world, like a diorama, to make the big bears look even bigger. Wasn’t hard to do. Put a 7cm bear next to a 3m bear and the difference sure isn’t subtle.

Every mini bear was doing something different. Marching… building a sandcastle… trying to hit a watermelon… sunbathing under an umbrella with a beer… it was like peeking into the secret life of BE@RBRICKS.

The small BE@RBRICKS with Omotesando Hills branding have been on sale, sort of. They’re 7cm high (100% size), made in shiny white or with metallic blue gradation, and limited to a run of only 8,000. Here’s what they look like side by side.

They could have been yours to own forever…

If you spent at least 20,000 yen (in 1 go!) at a shop in Omotesando Hills before August 20th, 2017. No combining receipts to reach that amount. Restaurants didn’t count. You got 1 bear per 1 receipt, no matter how much you spent. And if you got a refund from the shop after, you had to give the bear back as well.

So harsh! So, uh, yeah, we don’t have one.

If you go down to Omotesando Hills today…

…the BE@RBRICK Summer event’s over. Sorry.

If you’re reading this on August 22nd, the day we posted this, it ended a couple days ago. If you’re reading any time after that, it’s way too late. There’s no word on if this is gonna become an annual thing or not.

While we’re all waiting for the next BE@RBRICK event in Japan, you can check out other places to find these trendy bears. Like, online, on our website. Like on Yahoo! Auctions Japan listings, or on Rakuten Marketplace. Anyone determined to own a BE@RBRICK isn’t gonna have any trouble hunting one down.