Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, full-scale replica makes shooting the impossible possible for makers of movies, Netflix shows and music videos
- Ashikaga Scramble City Studio, a full-scale replica of Tokyo’s Shibuya crossing, allows productions to shoot scenes that would be impossible at the actual site
- With subway entrances and traffic lights, the set has already been used in Netflix’s Alice in Borderland and The Naked Director, as well as in various movies
Those wondering how the Netflix sci-fi thriller Alice in Borderland was able to completely empty of life one of the world’s busiest pedestrian crossings will find their answer around 90km (60 miles) from the real thing, in a quiet suburb of a town in Japan’s Tochigi Prefecture.
Ashikaga Scramble City Studio, built in 2019 by Tokyo-based visual arts company Nouvelle Vague, is a roughly 6,600-square-metre (71,000 sq ft) open set that replicates the famous Shibuya intersection in the Japanese capital in true-to-life size.
In addition to recreating its five converging pedestrian crossings, the set also has replicas of some of the ground-level structures of the real Shibuya, including entrances to the subway network, working traffic lights, and even a set of public toilets inside the gates of one of the station’s entrances.
“Because the set includes a complete replica of Shibuya Station, even productions without a large budget for special effects can shoot scenes that are impossible at the real station, bar some limitations on the lens used,” Akira Morii and Tomoki Takase, the producer and line producer for Alice in Borderland, said in an interview.
In the series, the main character, Arisu, and his friends suddenly find themselves in an emptied-out version of Tokyo after re-emerging from a public restroom in major Tokyo transit hub Shibuya Station, setting the stage for a string of dangerous games they must play in order to survive.