Wednesday Weirdness: Sound Village Karaoke

Hard to believe a week has flown by since last Wednesday. Busy, busy, busy!

Here's a little dash of weirdness I've been sitting on for a while now: Sound Village, an . . . elaborate (?) karaoke place downtown, near the Canal City mall.

Sound Village is meant to look like a 1950s American town, with each karaoke room playing the role of a typical town building - post office, schoolhouse, church, movie theater, and so on. The facade is even done up like an old-time movie theater marquee.

 For some reason, they always seem to put us gaijin here:

Overall, the effect is pretty neat, but this being Japan and all some elements of the execution are . . . odd.

Santa Claus flying a biplane, for instance. Or the creepy fake-mud-wall-face that greets you in the entrance cave.

Or, for that matter, the racks of incongruous cosplay outfits.

But the crowning touch is probably the array of naked mannequins in the bathroom watching you pee.

Pictured here: the least sketchy thing about these bathrooms.

 Oh, and the bathroom is also a cave.

Other than that, the karaoke is pretty normal: sit in a huge room with your friends, pick your songs from a book, and rock out.

At least, as normal as it can get with the two of us involved.