Samの英語チャンネル

Hopefully the food prep won’t be as lazy as the AI video preview.

Revolving sushi restaurants have always represented a merger of food and mobility, but that combination is going to come together in an all-new way later this month in Tokyo.

Bus operator Willer Across recently revealed its concept for the Sushi Bus, a double-decker vehicle that’s not only an open-top sightseeing bus, but a mobile sushi restaurant too, with conveyor belts running around the outside edge of its second-floor seating and eating area. Now they’ve unveiled further details, including the eye-catching exterior design, more detailed pricing, and a start date for the Sushi Bus.

Starting with the exterior, Sushi Bus says they were looking for something with plenty of visual impact, and they definitely got that when designers came back with their idea for a wrapping that turns the bus into a giant piece of maguro (tuna) sushi. While there are many different types of fish that lend themselves well to sushi, good maguro is often considered a baseline quality check for a proper sushi restaurant, and the Sushi Bus wants to assure tourists that it’s not going to try to coast by on the novelty factor of its dining experience. The company has partnered with a wholesaler to ship roughly a dozen different kinds of fish to them directly from Tokyo’s Toyosu Fish Market, and promises flavor on a higher level than what’s offered at conventional revolving sushi restaurants.

The exact routes the bus will run through downtown Tokyo are still being finalized, but the starting point is set, as passengers will board from the Kajibashi bus terminal, one block south of Tokyo Station, making a Sushi Bus ride easy to fold into the rest of your travel itinerary.

From there, the Sushi Bus will depart for a 70-minute cruise, passing by famous sightseeing spots and memorable parts of the cityscape. Speeds will only reach around 30 kilometers per hour (roughly 19 miles per hour), so the organizers don’t expect much risk of motion sickness. Thorough testing has been done to ensure that sushi plates will not slide off the conveyor belts even under sudden braking, and for safety’s sake any cutting or slicing of ingredients is done prior to their loading into the first-floor kitchen, not while the bus is underway.

▼ Braking test

The Sushi Bus works on an all-you-can-eat system, with a previously announced price of 16,000 yen (US$100) for passengers aged 2 and up. It turns out that there’s an extra charge for the bus’ two “Premium Seats,” as the two seats in the very front of the second floor are called, which are priced at 20,000 yen per person. The bus has a total capacity of 20 passengers, with non-Premium Seats arranged in booths for two to four people.

And while the bus runs with an open top when the weather is dry, it also has a clear closable roof should the weather get rainy (something that’s been happening a whole lot in Tokyo recently).

Sushi Bus says its core target market is foreign tourists, something that’s reflected in its AI-generated promotional images that look nothing like the actual interior photos…

…as well as in the company’s lazy AI-generated preview video that can’t be bothered to complete its own sentence as it proclaims “This is a unique activity you have to try if you ever”.

Hopefully they put more effort into their food, and passengers will be able to find out for themselves when the Sushi Bus starts running on October 10. Reservations can be made online via the official website here.

Source: PR Times, Sushi Bus
Images: PR Times
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Source: SORA NEWS24