Samezu, Tokyo

Yokosuka, Kanagawa

Really really near my place in Samezu, Tokyo. Like most Tokyo parks it's depressingly small. This guy brightens the place up though

© 2010 grooble Komagome, Toshima, Tokyo

A unusal triple elephant slide in Toyonaka City, Osaka Japan. © 2010 matsuyuki

An old american slide from the 1950s found in Hartford, Wisconsin. © 2010 Nels P Olsen

© 2010 Balloon cat

© 2010 Jef Poskanzer

A more unusual example that defies the convention of using the slide in place of the trunk © 2010 Ed.ward

Elephant slides

In parks all across Japan and indeed the world the elephant has provided park designers with one of the best ideas for transforming a boring park slide into a thing of awesomeness. I previously showed a small collection of park animals from Japan but I’d like to look more closely at this one type of character which is commonplace in parks around the world.

To see more elephant slides check out our Flickr gallery. Previous elephant entries on Idle Idol include Elephant and Castle and Elephant Parade.

Tokyo Park Animals

When it came to editing Idle Idol we ended up removing a whole section called Park attendants. They didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the mascots but it was really hard to get rid of such great characters from the book.

All over Japan these creatures brighten up small parks with slides made into elephants, wobbly seat pandas and some animals just there to brighten up a small corner of fun.