To brighten up the summer school holidays, Metron’s Stamp Rally 2002 is underway through 8/18. In 44 subway stations around Tokyo, you’ll find a rubber stamp chained to a small table, an ink pad secured to the table and a pile of paper slips for stamping.
The game is to collect all the stamps in a special-purpose rally book. 2002 is the Corocoro Comic All-Star series featuring famous Japanese cartoon characters like Doraemon and the Pocket Monsters. In Hibiya station, I found this stamp–Kongo-kun, a former TBS anime character who now features in a Konami game called Muscle Ranking. I’ve never heard of him, but I suppose he’s an all-star to the elementary schoolkids this stamp rally is meant to entertain.
