One Piece Statues of Tony Tony Chopper and Monkey D. Luffy in Kumamoto

10 November 2024

Although Kumamoto city has many attractions like the Kumamoto Castle, Suizenji Jojuen Garden, Kumamon Square and shopping areas, we only included the statues of two One Piece characters in our itinerary. The statues of Tony Tony Chopper and Monkey D. Luffy are both located within the city. These statues are related to the ONE PIECE Kumamoto Reconstruction Project.

What is the ONE PIECE Kumamoto Reconstruction Project?

On April 14, 2016, Eiichiro Oda, a manga artist and creator of the series One Piece, donated ¥800,000,000 to help reconstruct his home city of Kumamoto after it was struck by two earthquakes. He also wrote supportive messages, and drew art for local products. In 2018, Kumamoto Prefecture awarded Mr. Oda the People’s Honor Award. After rebuilding Kumamoto, the governor Ikuo Kabashima announced that they would build statues of the Straw Hat Pirates to thank Eiichiro Oda for his help.

The statue of Monkey D. Luffy, the main character in One Piece, was installed at the Kumamoto Prefectural Promenade to symbolize Kumamoto’s post-disaster recovery. Subsequently, additional statues of the One Piece Pirates were installed all over Kumamoto Prefecture, including Chopper in front of the Kumamoto Zoo, Usopp in front of Aso Station, Franky in front of Takamori Station and many others. All in all, the statues of Monkey D, Luffy,  Sanji, Usopp, Tony Tony Chopper, Brook, Franky, Nami, Robin, Zoro, and Jinbe had been installed all over Kumamoto prefecture.

Since then, many One Piece fans have visited these statues to snap photos and also buy the "ONE PIECE" World Collectible figures of the Bronze Statues as souvenirs.

List of places with One Piece Statues and where to buy the collectable figures.

We had already seen the statues of Franky and Usopp earlier during our road trip.

Statue of Franky at Takamori Station.

Statue of Usopp at Asoi Station.

From our hotel located on Nishi-Kumamoto, we drove to the entrance of the Kumamoto City Zoo and Botanical Garden where the statue of Tony Tony Chopper was located.

Statue of Tony Tony Chopper

Tony Tony Chopper is a reindeer, so it was appropriate to place its statue in front of the zoo. Since it was a Sunday, we could see a stream of cars heading to the Kumamoto City Zoo and Botanical Garden. We parked at the zoo’s car park which charges 200 yen for weekend parking. Weekday parking is apparently free.

From the car park, we spotted the statue of Chopper in front of the zoo’s entrance.

Statue of Tony Tony Chopper in front of the Kumamoto zoo. The collectable figures are sold in the building behind the statue.

Chopper looked so cute. In fact, I named my brown Pomeranian Mix “Chopper” since he is so cute and lively too.

We went to zoo’s entrance gate hoping to buy the collectable figurines. As expected, the figures were all sold out. **

We bought the second series which was multi-coloured, instead of bronze.

Second series of the "ONE PIECE" World Collectible figure of Tony Tony Chopper.

 

** Good news for collectors : All types of "ONE PIECE" World Collectible Figure Kumamoto Reconstruction Project Bronze Statue Minifigures, which have been out of stock, will be back on sale from Saturday, January 25th.

Statue of Monkey D. Luffy

The statue of Monkey D. Luffy is located in a middle of a park, next to the Kumamoto Prefectural Office. We parked in a basement of a multi-story car park next to the park as directed by a road marshal. 

The park has rows of gingko trees with beautiful yellow autumn leaves.

When we arrived, there was people queuing to snap photos with Luffy, the straw hat pirate. The queue soon disappears, together with a tour bus that brought the group there.

Orderly queue in front of the statue for a photo.

We had ample time to pose and take photos with the statue. 

Created by Kumamoto native Eiichiro Oda, Monkey D. Luffy stands as a symbol of hope and resilience.

Eiichiro Oda’s hand print and signature at the foot of Monkey D. Luffy’s statue.

My hand is almost same size and shape as the anime artist’s!

There are two places that sell the Luffy collectable figure – Lawson in the Kumamto Prefecture Office and Hotel Kumamoto Terrsa. Both are within walking distance from the Luffy statue.

Since it was a weekend, the government office was closed. So we walked to the Hotel Kumamoto Terrsa.

Once again, we found that the bronze collectable figures were sold out. They had the second series of statues in colour that was quite nice so we bought that one.

The bronze collectable figurine (left) was sold out. We bought the new multi-coloured series of Luffy with Kumamon (the Kumamoto mascot).

Second series of the "ONE PIECE" World Collectible figure of Monkey D. Luffy with Kumamon.

The staff at the hotel was so friendly. He recommended that we take a souvenir photo at the hotel lobby with Kumamon (the Kumamoto mascot.

Souvenir photo at the lobby of Hotel Kumamoto Terrsa.

“Instagram” photo at the Hotel Kumamoto Terrsa with the Luffy figure in hand.

We returned to the park where we saw more One Piece fans snapping photos with this popular character. 

One Piece fans having a blast with the statue of Luffy.

My original plan after seeing the One Piece statues in Kumamoto city was to visit the Suizenji Jojuen Garden before driving to Yanagawa for lunch at Ganso Motoyoshiya.

Since it was already 10 AM, we decided we proceed straight to Yanagawa since it would take about an hour on the expressway to get there.

Yanagawa is dubbed 'the Venice of Kyushu', known for its many canals and steamed unagi. Unagi no Seiromushi is a dish where grilled aromatic eel is put in sweet and spicy sauce and steamed on top of rice. Ganso Motoyoshiya is a popular  restaurant serving the popular eel bento box rice and it is best to get to the restaurant before the lunch time crowds formed.

Next post: Lunch at Ganso Motoyoshiya and a stroll along Yanagawa’s canals.

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Visiting Sogi no Taki or Sogi Falls on drive from Kagoshima to Kumamoto

9 November 2024

After spending more than half a day exploring the sights on Sakurajima and around Kagoshima Bay, we continued on our road trip northwards towards Kumamoto where we would stay for a night.

We stopped by Sogi Falls, also known as Sogi no Taki, as it is one of the largest and most beautiful waterfalls in Japan and it is also one of the most popular tourist spots in the northern part of Kagoshima Prefecture.

Sogi Falls.

Although it is geographically located between Kagoshima and Kumamoto, it is a bit out of the way. We had to take a “detour” off the expressway E3 linking the 2 cities and travel through the slower country roads and residential areas to get to it.

It was about 3.30 PM when we arrived at the large car park next to Sogi Falls Park (Google Maps location here). The park has an observation deck, shops, restaurants, a rest area and public toilets.

We went to nearest viewing platform that is elevated to get an overview of the falls. Although the autumn leaves had been delayed this year, the view of the waterfall was still spectacular. 

View of Sogi Falls from the elevated platform nearest to the car park.

There are well designed viewing platforms along the walking path next to the waterfall so we could get good close up views of the falls. We could hear and feel its power.

There seems to be a dam across the top of the falls

Good views of the falls from the walking path.

We could feel the roar and spray from the water cascading down. 

"Niagara of the Orient".

This waterfall is sometimes called the "Niagara of the Orient" for the overwhelming volume of water cascading down, and also because of the width. It has a width of 210 meters. To me who has seen the actual Niagara Falls, this waterfall did looked a little like Niagara but on a much smaller scale. But still very impressive and beautiful.

The waterfall has a 210 metres width and 12 metres maximum drop, making it one of the most spectacular waterfalls in Japan. 

The boardwalk offers various viewpoints to admire the falls.

    

Sogi Falls Park is a nice place for relaxation but we did not much time to linger. We still have more than 2 hours drive to Kumamoto and the sun sets early in November.

I had chosen to stay in the outskirt of Kumamoto instead of central Kumamoto. Our hotel for the night was the Hotel New Gaea Nishkumamoto Ekimae, located next to the Nishi-Kumamoto JR Station. Since we had no plans to see the sights in central Kumamoto the next day and hotels are generally expensive in the city center, this hotel was a good choice for us.

It was dark when we arrived at Nishi-Kumamoto. There are several restaurants located near the JR station and hotel. We had beef yakiniku for dinner at the Yakinikuchikurin Nishikumamototen.

Dinner at Yakinikuchikurin Nishikumamototen.

The young staff at the restaurant could not speak English but we could see that they were trying their best to communicate with us. The young man who served us knows a few words of basic English and we managed to order our dinner through him. To make things easier for everyone, we ordered the set instead of ala carte. Overall, a nice dinner before we checked into our hotel.

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