Photographs from a small group of islands
Japanese festivals attract all kinds of people, but the annual Tori-no-Ichi celebration at Shinjuku’s Hanazono Shrine is something else. Situated right by Kabukicho, Tokyo’s largest red light district, it attracts hosts and hostesses, plus a far less appealing but equally large number of yakuza and their ilk. A heady mix that means pointing one’s camera is best done with discretion, but at the same time, the results of doing so can definitely be worth it.
Like all art, the urban variety is very subjective, meaning what one man deems worthy, another may see as merely vandalism. It’s also true that while some parts of Tokyo have a good deal of the latter, there’s a growing amount that warrants the tag — pun very much intended — of art.
Some of it is political, some slightly thought provoking, although this piece was simply a pleasure to see.
For a brief moment, Shinjuku’s bright lights and general hullabaloo slipped away, and it seemed like we were in a world I’m only familiar with through photographs or film — the buttons on the telephones the only real disappointment.
Tokyo’s Ueno district may well be home to some of the city’s most important museums, but it’s also where many of the poorest call home too. The area’s park in particular shelters an increasingly obvious number of the capital’s growing homeless population, creating an odd environment where day-trippers and the destitute show utter indifference to one another.
Thrown into this unusual mix is also Ameyoko; a decidedly working class shopping district that in post-war Japan was a well-known black market — elements of which are really not hard to imagine even today.
And just like the wider area, it provides glimpses of both light and dark, old and new.
Over the last few years, Akihabara has been gentrified enormously, with fancy stores and modern spaces replacing a good deal of its previously rag-tag appearance. But pockets of the past do still exist, with tiny shops selling a veritable confusion of electrical components and connectors.
Bits and bobs that are understandably very fiddly to fit, although the less dexterous need not be too deterred, as help is also on hand.
