Is this the coolest karaoke room ever?

I mentioned earlier this week that my friend and I went to karaoke on Monday, after getting that little fake Buddhist token. We stepped into our room, switched on the light, and saw:

I don't know if this is supposed to be a specific character, but the house lights came on and it disappeared. So we played with the light switch for a few minutes to try to get a picture, and then sat down to sing.

Once the karaoke music started flowing, the lights turned themselves off and the display came back! It twinkles and sparkles during the song, pulsing to the rhythm. It isn't animated, though. I wouldn't mind seeing more rooms like this!

I'm not sure what the name of this karaoke place is, but it is located around the corner from M's Pop Life Department Store (the lime green adult novelty shop near the station). Unfortunately, they were quite lacking in music from bands and artists we wanted to sing with, though we certainly found enough songs to entertain ourselves for the full hour.

Karaoke Captures

 Everyone knows karaoke is big business in Japan, and I love to go belt out a few tunes with friends. It's also a comfortable place to kill an hour or two before catching a train or bus. I've even spent the night in one once as emergency lodging. I don't recommend it. The video you see here in my photos is the screen showing the lyrics to an AKB48 song called Heavy Rotation. It's quite a provocative video showing girls wearing cat ears and lingerie... and not much else. It's a fun song, regardless of the video. I blame my friend for introducing me to this song.

At least it has some English lyrics in it. I tried to sing along once and it's way too fast for me right now. Perhaps some day I'll be able to read Japanese as fast as this song goes.

Here's the video: