Tokyo Blog

It’s that time again, when the inhabitants of Tokyo gather in their millions underneath the cherry blossom (sakura 桜) trees to celebrate the arrival of spring and the departure of winter. The tradition, known as Hanami (flower viewing) has been practiced for many centuries, and has evolved into the festival event it is now, with street performers, food stands and rawkus behaviour. Employees of individual companies, groups of friends, or family members will get together at this time of year to eat and drink outside in the ubiquitous parks and gardens of Tokyo. I was in Ueno park yesterday for a bit, to experience the madness, but now is only the beginning of Hanami, so I’m sure there will be a few more stories to follow over the next fortnight.

This 1985 documentary by the writer, photographer and filmmaker, Wim Wenders is particularly relevant I think. My blog is named after the seminal 1953 movie, Tokyo Story by Ozu Yasujiro. In this documentary Wim Wenders goes in search of Ozu’s past collaborators, friends and family and tries to trace the cultural meanings of his films in what was then modern Tokyo at the beginning of the Japanese economic bubble in 1983. Despite the film being almost 25 years old, I can still identify with some of the experiences and, other than the urban landscape, little seems to have changed in Tokyo: Rockabillies still dance in the park on Sundays, salarymen still load balls into pachinko machines and Japanese customs and traditions continue to pervade society. It also struck me that the age of the film only seemed to increase the poignancy of the subject matter. What you see above is only a short excerpt of this masterpiece documentary, but the full version can still be found in places other than YouTube for those determined enough to seek it out. I thoroughly recommend doing so.

I just want to mention the Metropolis Calendar 2009. For those of you in Tokyo, you can get yours now, if you haven’t already. I got mine in January from the tourist information stand in Keisei Ueno Station (the line that you take to get to Narita Airport). The pic that you see above appears on the September spread of the calendar, and was taken by my good friend Trent McBride. Congratulations Trent!

So this is how the balcony’s looking on an early spring day. I’m sitting down, looking out over the buildings, and eating Nattou-Maki (納豆巻き) and a salad. Too much fatty pork and beer has been impacting my health recently, so I’m in ‘get fit for summer’ mode. I took a run up the banks of the Sumida river about an hour after I took this photo, so it’s serious.

There seems to have been a lot of ‘the end of an era’ scenarios recently, and this one is definitely no exception. Easily one of the most well-established graphic design companies in the UK, and possibly one of the most well known around the world, TDR was highly influential from as far back as the early 90’s, and particularly close to my heart due to their association with the independent UK record label, Warp Records - home of Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Mira Calix, Plaid, and of course Warp Films. They closed their doors on Tuesday, but there are rumours of a return from some of the founding members. Apparently, the studio had started down the classic agency model route, with account handlers and such, in order to facilitate the acquisition of big contracts like Coca-Cola. This is miles away from the original manifesto of TDR, which was to be a rebel faction within the design industry, and to shun the usual conventions followed by the big design companies in order to offer some kind of alternative angle. The insolvency was due to business bad luck with debtors and tax complications leading to the collapse. I’m interested to see what happens next.

So, the Tokyo Marathon was yesterday. I cheered the runners as they passed through Ginza, and I also snapped this poster with the camera on my DSi which is instantly identifiable as the work of Groovisions. Now I’m looking at their poster it’s obvious that their style suits this event perfectly. Anyone familiar with their previous work in music videos and their infographics for MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Farming) in Japan, will know their clean isometric vectors and statistical-representation-esque visual style. I like it.

So here’s the video they did for MAFF whist on the subject:

I’m watching TV on my mobile phone right now - just because I can. I can’t do this in the UK, and so it’s a big novelty for me! It kills my battery though. My new phone is a Sony Ericsson and so it uses Sony’s Bravia screen technology, but I can’t see how it makes much difference on the small screen and with 1seg bandwidth being what it is. It comes in handy if you’re out of the house and there’s something on the TV you don’t want to miss which is rare for me in Japan (although the World Baseball Classic has been sucking me in recently).

Another musical interlude for you now, through which you can savour a slice of Japanese pop culture at its finest. This is the beautifully named Toastgirl who, if you visit her site, you can see using vacuum cleaners as rollerskates and so on. Most of her music videos, like this one for a song I’m not sure of the name of, feature her riding a piece of toast or sometimes toasting bread in a toaster she has mounted on top of her head (maybe the song is called Skip Edit No.2, I can’t be sure. She’s really underground and hard to dig up info on). Enjoy this.

Darling wa Gaikokujin (ダーリンは外国人), which roughly translates as My Darling is a Foreigner, is a manga series that deals with the author Saori Oguri’s life as a Japanese woman married to an American man living in Japan. The reason I’m writing about it is that I’ve been watching an animated version on the JR line trains just recently, and the animation style is really nice. The animation has been on the trains since last year. In the most recent installment the couple have a baby. Watch out for it if you’re on the Yamanote line in Tokyo anytime soon.

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

The norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp have a new video directed by Rueben Sutherland. It involves pieces of a city coming together and arraying like pixels to form a game of space invaders in the night sky. Sweet.

There’s a new creative agency in the UK called Displayground, an exceptionally talented group of designers, producers and creatives. I produced the Flash component of their new site, which involved incorporating some of the company’s ambitious ideas. You’ve got a mix of traditional stop-time animation, clay models, motion graphics, and vector shapes coming together to create a really original site. Design and photography credits go to the boys in the studio under creative director Mat Glover. The free-roaming orbs took a while to program and no mistake.

I’ve been asked by someone in Japan to write something on Tokyo Story about yaeba in order to enlighten people outside of Japan. Indeed, I had no clue what it meant, but I’ve seen it first hand here on the streets and subways of Tokyo. Yaeba means ‘crooked teeth’, but usually refers to a movement in Japan, of guys who like yaeba girls. The classic yaeba crooked smile is supposedly a genetic trait of Okinawans mainly, and manifests itself as large, misshapen teeth or as a ‘double tooth’, where two canine teeth grow one in front of the other. Sometimes canine teeth are pushed forwards due to an overcrowded gum line and give the girl a feline look - which is supposedly where the attraction for yaeba fans comes from. It’s supposed to be charming or cute to certain Japanese guys. There are a good few celebrities with yaeba in Japan, but rather than have it fixed at a dentist, they keep it and show it off as an asset. People in the west think it’s strange, as it’s desirable to have perfect teeth there - but it’s different here. As usual.

People don’t tend to bother each other in Tokyo, so it’s possible for people to nod off virtually anywhere without any risk of being woken up, robbed or graffiti’d on. This is why this man exists, counter sleeper. You can go into pretty much any fast food restaurant in Tokyo after the last trains have left the stations and find some middle-aged guy sleeping in his miso soup. From what I can tell, people’s routines are a lot less routine than in other parts of the world. Although punctuality and working schedules are regarded as sacred here, people don’t necessarily sleep in their apartment for 7 hours every night. It’s possible to use Tokyo as your extended living space, and sleep, eat and bathe in public places. And you can certainly eat and drink there, so why go home at all? When this guy wakes up he’ll probably go to the convenience store and pick up a new set of underwear and a fresh shirt then hit up the office.

Intelligence: 5
Stamina: 4
Speed: 2
Resistance to Alcohol: 3
Sleeping Ability: 8
Combat Skill: 2
Voice Volume: 5
Magic Points: 1
Gold: 6

OK, I finally got my new DSi in black. I checked out the white one, but it soon looks dirty due to the fact that it’s a handheld and you’re constantly toting it around in your bag, pocket, etc. I was really amazed by it. I can really appreciate the hours that have gone into the UI and interaction design. The graphics will never be as good as on the PSP, but I bought this to help me study on the train. I’m using Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-kun (lit: Correct Chinese Characters Little Writing Bird), which is designed for school kids to use to brush-up their Kanji. It’s therefore about the right level for me, so I use it on the train on the way to work. You use the pen device to draw Kanji on the touchscreen and it has a built-in recognition system that enables it to gauge the quality of your Kanji writing. It also has meaning and reading practice. The next game I buy will be Devil Survivor.

Uniqlo’s ever popular T-shirt project UT has been going for a while now, but as a recent addition to their plethora of usual outlets, they’ve added this dedicated UT store in Harajuku. It was opened last April, but this is the first time I’ve been there. With temperatures the way they are at the moment I wasn’t planning on buying any T-shirts, I just wanted to check out the store itself. The shop consists of a few racks of T’s and other items, surrounded by a wall of vending machines, above which you have the ticker-tape displays with lines of text making laps of the room as you shop. The vending machines contain the bulk of the T-shirt stock. You choose the one you want, and then out pops the T in the trademark tube-like plastic packaging. I get the feeling they will need an iron once you get the back to your house though. Generally I like the store, so I’ll be back in the spring to pick up some from the manga series.