Rearing up 27 meters on Nakanoshima in the center of Osaka, the huge blue-and-white striped tent looked like a spaceship that had landed among all the concrete buildings. But the massive marquee is actually the current home of Cirque du Soleil's "Corteo" spectacular, the magical circus troupe's hugely successful show whose title means "procession" in Italian.
The circus company based in Montreal, Canada, debuted this show in Japan in Tokyo in February. Since then, more than 930,000 people have paid to see it there and in Nagoya and Osaka.
The day I visited in Osaka recently, that popularity was plain to see as some 3,000 excited people made for a sell-out audience even though this was a weekday show starting at 4 p.m.