teamLab Planets: I Don’t Understand The Hype

When we were heading to Tokyo, everyone I know raved about the experience at teamLab Planets, an interactive art museum. But our visit left a bit to be desired.

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teamLab Planets Tickets

We booked our tickets about three weeks in advance of our visit via the teamLab Planets website. We had no problems choosing the time slot we wanted. The better time slots do fill up as you get closer to the day of arrival, so keep it in mind if you don’t want the late night time slots.

We paid ¥4,200 (28 USD) per adult and ¥1,500 (10 USD) per child for the experience.

Location

The interactive art museum is found in Tokyo, but it’s not located in a place convenient to other major attractions. It’s somewhat close to the Tsukiji fish market, but it’s still a ten minute drive away (or a 40 minute walk). It took us a good half hour to get here using public transportation from central Tokyo. When you get here, you’ll find not much else in the area. There are few restaurants—there is a street vendor by the curb and a vegan ramen restaurant onsite, but options are limited.

Arrival to teamLab Planets

We arrived shortly before our designated time slot. There was a lengthy line to get in, but it moved fairly quickly. We watched a short video describing a few of the rules, which included going barefoot throughout the museum and free lockers are provided to store your stuff.

They recommend you download an app to supplement your time here, but I didn’t find it added anything significant to the experience. You’ll find the QR code to download the app inside each locker.

The Experiences

Let’s run through all the experiences in the order they were recommended. This is mostly a linear experience, but you can choose to do two activities before the others.

Experience #1

The first stop for us was the room with dangling lights. You’re not allowed to walk through the lights and are required to stay on the path. There is one way to enter, two ways to exit, and a lot of people at every turn.

As with every room here, the walls are mirrored. The floors are also mirrors, so keep this in mind if you come here in a skirt or a dress (Char had pants on that were rolled up).

Experience #2

After this room was the most-talked-about experience where you walk through water. You’ll need to wear shorts or make sure your pants don’t get wet. They do offer shorts if you need them and there are employees here who are quick to yell at you if your pants show even a hint of wetness. It’s not cold water, but I kind of wish it was. It almost felt like the warm water made the room a bit too humid.

The kids enjoyed it in here and the water isn’t deep; it only went up to just above four-year-old Char’s knees. There are images of koi swimming in the water and plenty of lights to stimulate the senses.

Once you exit the room, you’ll find some towels to dry yourself off.

It might be worth it to mention it now, but the hallways between exhibits are incredibly dark. It’s easy to lose track of where our kids went off to and I’ll admit that I missed a turn at least once, leading me to go around in a circle.

Experience #3

The third exhibit was one with giant balls, some of which could be moved around. Think of this as a ball pit intended for adults. The balls weren’t heavy and it was easy for the kids to get a bit carried away here, so watch the little ones if you do bring them here.

Experience #4

The next experience was very disorienting. It’s a circular room with colors and images projected onto the walls. The projected image also slowly rotates around the room, creating the illusion the whole room is turning. Most everyone ends up laying on the ground, getting lost in the world. I don’t get motion sickness often—I can read in the car and be fine—but for some reason, this was really affecting me here.

Experience #5

The next room was… lackluster. First, you have to wear shared flip flops to go to a pseudo-outdoor area. The flip flops were not cleaned between guests, if that matters to you. And the exhibit itself has nothing going on in it. This is the only room where there is zero interactivity with the contents of the room. It’s just a bunch of silver objects placed by mirrors to make the area look more vast.

Experience #6

The sixth exhibit was a room with hanging flowers that go up and down. You’re expected to lay down under the flowers and just look up at them. It’s immersive, but it’s not that different from getting up close and personal at my rose garden at home.

And that was it. There were only six exhibits for us to walk through. You’re welcome to keep doing the same loop multiple times, but the experience didn’t change on a second pass through (yes, the kids wanted to go in the water and the ball room again).

Recommendation: I’d Pass

The entire teamLab Planets experience feels optimized to work with the modern-day Instagram lover. There are vibrant colors and you get to experience what it’s like to be inside art. So where does the experience fall apart for me? For starters, the location isn’t great—you’ll need to go out of your way to get here. That’s not too bad in itself, but for only six rooms of experiences (five, if you don’t count the room with silver objects), the effort to get here painfully stands out.

I found the room with the projectors to be a bit nauseating (and it didn’t help that the music was quite loud here, making it hard to hear others). The other experiences were mostly fine, but the novelty of each room wore off within five minutes each, especially with the large crowds everywhere. I won’t stop you from checking out the experience yourself, but it’s certainly something I have no desire to return to. I know everyone raves about it, so I feel like I am in the minority here.

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