Watching Liverpool: Epilogue, Ebisu, Tokyo, Japan
Liverpool kit clad fans watched the match on the projector at Epilogue in the Ebisu Neighborhood of Tokyo, Japan. Tulip shaped wine glass holding champagne included.
This was a proper English-style pub–warm, cozy, wooden accents everywhere. You had to walk down a half set of stairs to enter. A small patio with a few chalkboard signs hanging from the exterior wall greets customers.
You step inside, and the dark, intimate setting almost immediately harkens back to one of the pubs I visited around Rothley in December 2019. There was a natural warmth, one befitting an alehouse of this nature. On a cold winter’s day, you only need a thick sweater and a dram of something delicious.
The music was barely audible—something I like. The music shouldn’t be the main entree unless it’s open mic night.
There was a palpable nervous energy. Folks had gathered at Epilogue in the Tokyo neighborhood of Ebisu for a Liverpool match. I arrived around 11 pm for the midnight kickoff, run ragged by a lack of sleep thanks to sharing a hotel room with an 18-month-old with impolite sleeping habits. But I plowed through.
Tokyo is a beautiful city, and I encourage everyone to visit. It’s a calmer, cheaper, and cleaner version of NYC. The flight from the UK, of course, will be brutal. Luckily, mine was a quick 3-hour haul from Beijing.
Idle chatter drowned out whatever was on the bartender’s playlist. Folks discussing the latest LFC news or catching up since the last time.
If you missed the sign out front indicating Epilogue was for Liverpool supporters only, you couldn’t miss the other clues on display as you entered. Patrons clad in red, a collection of the most recent kits worn by the Mighty Reds. Posters and signed jerseys hung from the wall. Liverpool pint glasses are stacked neatly behind the bar. Graphics from The Anfield Wrap hang from the doors along a back corridor.
The bartender poured a mean pint, too. The beer was fresh with the perfect amount of foam. It was cold but not icy and came with the correct level of carbonation. The sort of thing that lets patrons know the proprietors took care of their stuff.
The big screen at Epilogue.
As I waited for my pint, I scoped out the rest of the bar. A bloke was drinking sparkling wine. I stopped myself from telling him he’d get more out of it if he drank the bubbly from something more tulip-shaped once I realized that’s what he was doing. Better to be an undercover asshole than remove all doubt. It was probably some prematch ritual, anyway. One can’t go around disrupting those. When I looked again, he had ordered an entire bottle and poured it at will as his glass began running low.
I tried conversing with the guy beside me, but the language barrier proved problematic. Though, his English was far better than my Japanese. We managed to get our points across–Google Translate did the heavy lifting. And he excitedly told me about his upcoming trip to the holy shrine of Anfield. The lad scrapped together funds for two matches–Brighton and Sheffield. After the game ended, he told me he would walk home. All his spare money had gone to his upcoming trip to the UK.
The lineups were announced, and there seemed to be a bit more anxiety coursing through the bar. Allisson was out. So was Gomez. That added to the already growing injury issue at the club. If Liverpool needed a spark, there wouldn’t be many options on the bench.
About a half hour before kick-off, a lad from Lincoln showed up. He was teaching Maths in Qingdao, a city I visited early in the year. Like my family and I, he was in Tokyo as China slows down for their own New Year festivities. He’d spent a few years in Liverpool and followed the team around during the 21-22 season, that all too quadruple near miss.
A couple from Chester rolled in a few moments later. The husband could be described as shinnichi–a Japanophile. He has traveled to the country often–eight times by his telling. It started when a Japanese company bought the business he founded several years ago. He liked the people he dealt with, so he decided to visit.
A local fella sings favored LFC anthems before the match.
And as we all readied for kickoff, a local fella hooked up his guitar and microphone to serenade us with his best Jamie Webster impression. He ran through the favored Anfield Anthems–Fields of Anfield Road, Poor Scouser Tommy, Virgil van Dijk, and I’m so Glad Jurgen is a Red, among others. The music quickly filled the space in the bar with the low-slung ceiling. It was the perfect appetizer for what was to come—a hard-fought three points with fans across the globe helping to will the squad to victory.
A slow, disjointed start meant the nervous energy largely remained. The bloke from Lincoln suggested something about needing ‘that ten minutes of dominance to turn the tide.’ It finally came, leading to Jota tucking away the first, giving Trent the all-time lead in Premier League assists by a defender.
A poster from The Anfield Wrap!
An attempt to hit the loo before the halftime rush meant I missed the Burnley goal. The nervous energy at kickoff returned. Even as a second Liverpool goal came, the general sentiment was that we would need a third to see the match off. In what became my theme for the night, I missed LFC’s third and final goal as I rushed to the bathroom again.
As the match ended, however, it was nearing 2 am Tokyo time. The night before had been punctuated by an 18-month-old unwilling to sleep for any reasonable amount of time. Suffice it to say, I was running on fumes and struggling to stay awake. When the final whistle came, I said my goodbyes, told the lucky local lad to have an excellent time at Anfield, and headed outside to wait for my cab ride back to the hotel.
While this wasn’t the most boisterous crowd by any stretch of the imagination, likely due to the late hour, they were loyal members of the Anfield Army. They shouted like the rest of us. Sang the songs with the same energy and vigor. If I return to Tokyo while a match is on, I know there’ll be a place with a pint and a TV to watch along.