Other Websites of Interest
Finally to end this section we would like to quickly introduce other websites related to Shakespeare that might be worth mentioning as our final stop in our trip through the presence of Shakespeare in the Japanese cyberspace.
This is a homepage dedicated to the Shakespeare Country Park, placed within the Rosemary Park, which is a British style garden in the prefecture of Chiba, which has at the same time a theme park called the Shakespeare Country Park. If we access the different link on the bottom of the page we will access texts accompanied by pictures of a replica of Shakespeare house with real size figures representing scenes from Shakespeare’s life. The homepage is a very accurate virtual tour on all the attractions of the park, its museums, shops and places of interest.
A very simple homepage announcing a Shakespearean style hotel placed in the middle of the green that offers the Hakuba Village of Nagano Prefecture, and with its surroundings arranged in an English countryside manner. The links in the page introduce us to the facilities, and prices, restaurants and the like.
Shakespeare Collection Database
The Meisei University Shakespeare Collection Database Project is a very ambitious enterprise that was created in 1992 as an attempt to share the university’s Shakespeare resources worldwide, covering, up to now, all the pages of the First and Second Folios of Shakespeare Folios. Meisei University is one of the most important universities in Japan.
The page is self explanatory, and teaches how the search should be performed. As it can be seen in the mean page the website is available in both, English and Japanese.
Bugs Perform Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”
It is difficult to decide at first sight to what extent we should seriously take this site. But if we give it a closer look it is undeniable that in spite of the nonsensical idea, the project was carried out as seriously as it could be. Japan has always felt a strong admiration for beetles. As it can be seen in the photographs, each of the “Romeo and Juliet” characters is represented by a different type of beetle. Then they were filmed with special cameras and some actors put the voices making it a sort of Jim Henson’s movie.
The Globe Tokyo (Tokyo Globe-Za)
As we mentioned before, in 1988 a replica of the Stratford-Upon-Avon Shakespeare’s The Globe in Tokyo was build and it is has become the place where the most important Shakespeare plays in Japanese are staged. The website has various links that explain about the history of the building, the facilities, the program for the next months, the admission tickets fee, etc.
As a closing for this section, we could not miss a Japanese animation TV series based on an adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic. It is a recent production (2006) futuristic adaptation, not a 100% loyal to the original, but close enough to give the children (or adults) a good idea of what the story of Romeo and Juliet was like. It is staged in a levitation mainland called Neo-Verona. The director’s name is Fumitoshi Oizaki and it was based upon the original Japanese comic series. It is a website obviously created by professionals, with a very clear structure, that offers us a synopsis of the already aired episodes, some video samples of the episodes, news, selling of goods and all the cast and staff details.