The Robot Restaurant in Tokyo - The Most Bizarre Show Ever

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Visit the Robot Restaurant turned Samurai Restaurant in Tokyo and witness a futuristic spectacle of mechanics, disco and lasers. A cabaret like you’ve never seen before.

Everyone knows that the Japanese are the masters of the revolution, leading the way for machines and mechanics to aid the human race. Where the former Robot Restaurant in Tokyo was a window in the future, today’s Samurai Restaurant in its place still presents a wild and hacky experience you will never forget.

Underground in Kabukicho, in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, is an interactive show that blows any sensible notion out of the window, via the medium of entertainment. Exactly what this district is known for.

Here, robots engage in mock battles with beautiful drumming and ninja fighting Japanese women riding giant neon carts and dragon boats. Other robots roller-skate and dance while swathed in a rainbow of neon lights.

A robot in a circular car rides past three tall feminine robots at the Robot Restaurant show in Tokyo. — The former Robot Restaurant show in Tokyo. The same venue now hosts a show with a Samuari theme.

The Story of The Robot Restaurant in Tokyo?

The Robot Restaurant in Tokyo was a $1 million investment that sprung up on the ‘themed’ scene around 2012. Two of the giant robots frequently paraded on the city roads, although you quickly become accustomed to strange and quirky sights in Tokyo. But if you are going to do one thing when in this city of random, you must go and watch the dancing, mock battle quirk of this very Tokyo performance. Who wants to eat in another normal restaurant anyway? This place isn’t really about food at all. You just get a bento box as a bonus.

Following a closure post-COVID, the Robot Restaurant was on the brink of closing altogether, but reopened under a different theme as the Samuari Restaurant at the end of 2023.

The Tokyo Robot/Samaurai Restaurant Show

After picking up your tickets, or showing your pre-booked printed or mobile voucher, you are escorted a few doors down the street and into a building where the performance takes place. Here you wait in a bar area decked floor to ceiling in sparkle, neon, and mirrors, before walking down brightly decorated stairs that make you feel like you are in a giant funhouse or a blinding mind warp. This immediately gets everyone high in childlike excitement, and that’s not even half of it.

People sit in red velvet chairs at the multicoloured and gold tile covered bar at the Robot Restaurant in Tokyo.

A stairway with red light covered walls and floor to ceilings images of female figures, at the Robot show in Tokyo.

The audience at the Robot Restaurant show in Tokyo, eating from snack boxes to a backdrop of neon lights.

Thinking that the hype might give way to letdown, our preconceptions were blown within minutes, and so were our minds. I think I was so gobsmacked during the entire performance that I don’t quite remember it all.

Female dancers and robots performing at the Robot show in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Women pole dancing and playing drums during a Tokyo Robot Restaurant show performance.

For one hour you are treated to a show that is out of this world. Broken down into four sections, the room is filled with a spectacle of LED screens with Anime style graphics, choreographed with flashing lights, lasers and electronic effects.

Women performing with neon lights and laser beans at the Robot Restaurant in Tokyo.

On the ground are performances that showcase traditional Japanese dance routines with a half-naked twist, which later progress into frolicking on neon tanks and aeroplanes and where ninja and army girls fight with giant robots, pandas and dinosaurs.

The audience looks on as a woman riding a dinosaur tries to hit a robot with a giant ball at the Robot show in Tokyo.

Women with dazzling outfits and robot props perform at the Robot Restaurant show in Tokyo.

A robot skates around Starlight Express 2035 style, as giant fembots grace the runway of the stage with their very womanly features, getting the men in the audience all hot under the collar.

An audience waves neon glow sticks while watching a giant robot perform at a show in Tokyo.

Two robots ride on a cart past the audience at the Shinjuko robot show in Tokyo.

All the while, the audience is whipped up into a glow stick-waving frenzy.

Women ride above an audience waving glow sticks at the Robot Restaurant in Tokyo.

Trust me, you WILL be joining in as you get sucked into this insatiable vortex of psychedelic mayhem.

A man and woman with glow sticks, sitting the audience of the Robot show in Tokyo.

Why You Have to Go – Robot Restaurant Review

I’m not making any of this up – the Robot Restaurant Tokyo is so random it’s incredible. This place is fast-paced, jaw-dropping and insane, so much so that some of it had to be captured on video just to bring the random visions to life.

This article is only a small taste of what the now Samurai Restaurant is all about, without giving too much away.

A spectacle that exceeds extraordinary, this is futuristic, disco space crack for the electronics obsessed, gaming generation and I couldn’t think of it being better placed anywhere else than Tokyo and its unique city persona.

And to the women out there, you won’t be outnumbered by excited men reliving their teenage fantasies – this show is for everyone. You’ll believe it when you see it.

A woman standing with two giant robots (one with a multi coloured wig) at the Tokyo Robot Restaurant.

What to Know About Tokyo’s Samurai Restaurant

General Rules and Admission

There are three performances daily starting at 10:50am, 2pm and 4:30pm.
The performance lasts 90 minutes.
Under-18s are not permitted to attend the show.
Photography is allowed during the show and with the characters and robots afterwards.
You are not allowed to touch the girls or take close-up images. This might be a crazy show, but respect is still due.

Robot Restaurant Tokyo Tickets

Tickets: The cost was ¥ 7,000 (Yen) per person which included a snack box and a soft drink. Alcohol was sold separately before the performance and during the intervals.
Book tickets here via GetYourGuide.

How to Get There

To reach Kabukicho go to Shinjuku Station and use the East Exit. The Restaurant is based on Sakura Dori, off the main road on Yasukuni Dori.