Kawasaki gets ready to do the 'Time Warp' again

Over at the Frankenstein place: Members of Japan's oldest shadowcasting group, Lip's, pose with the audience at last year's "Rocky Horror Picture Show."
The actress who plays Columbia shows off her hat before the Lip's performance. | DAN SZPARA
One of the guests at Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s cinematic party rests before the festivities. | DAN SZPARA
A fan who came with a bag of treats and knew all of the Japanese calls for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” gets pumped up before the show. | DAN SZPARA
The crowd gets out glow sticks and smartphones during the performance of “There’s a Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place).” | DAN SZPARA
It’s just a jump to the left and then a step to the right as the audience performs “The Time Warp.” | DAN SZPARA
In Japan, the character of Columbia’s tap dance routine is accompanied by classic otaku (a kind of geeky or obsessive fan) chants. | DAN SZPARA
The party may be over, but the Lip’s members stay on to make sure the theater is spotless before they leave. | DAN SZPARA

by David Kracker
Special To The Japan Times

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Oct 15, 2015

Moviegoers in Japan are generally expected to take a vow of silence at the cinema — unless the film happens to be “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

The musical comedy about white-bread newlyweds who stumble upon a creepy castle full of kinky humanoid aliens from the planet Transsexual was a flop upon its initial 1975 release, but then a New York art house revived it as a midnight movie the following year. The audience began to ad-lib bawdy call-and-response banter with the actors while others stood in front of the screen dressed (or undressed) in character to pantomime the dance sequences. Props such as toilet paper, playing cards and hotdogs flew through the air on cue. The cult of Rocky Horror was born.