The most widely sold face in Shinsekai is not the tower but a small smiling god. Where that god originally stood is much less well known.
The funfair of 1912
When Shinsekai opened in 1912, the Luna Park amusement grounds opened with it and stayed in the area until 1923 Fact. As Ep.2 described, tower, funfair and street were designed as one set Estimate. So the original brief for Shinsekai was a place to look at a tower and ride the rides Estimate.
The god inside it
Luna Park is gone, but one thing inside it survived. Tsutenkaku came to enshrine a Billiken because, in 1912 when Luna Park opened, a Billiken — a worldwide craze at the time — was enshrined in the Billiken Hall inside the park Fact. Said to grant wishes when you rub the soles of its feet, the figure can be met today on the Tsutenkaku observation deck Fact, and it appears on signs throughout the district.
What survives
The contrast is striking. An amusement park designed at great expense was gone in eleven years, while one small figure placed inside it outlasted a century to become the district’s face Estimate. The first Tsutenkaku of Ep.3 works the same way — the structure vanished, but the name Tsutenkaku survived and carried over to the second tower (Ep.5) Estimate.
What to notice while walking
Walk Shinsekai and Billiken keeps appearing: shop signs, dolls, sweet wrappers. Each time, it is worth remembering one fact — this face is the only survivor of a vanished funfair Estimate. What this district discarded and what it kept is summarised in that small statue.