Customer Reviews

Tokyo Plain

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I was cheerfully surprised to find this realistic Tokyo photographs book next to the (for the least to say) idealistic " Tokyo Megacity ", by Donald Richie, at the Tokyo city center Maruzen Library. I have been living in Japan for three years now, as for Honetsclagher I deeply love Japan, more for its people than its beauty, which in fact is mostly found in the small things the Japanese culture produces, like the interior design and work compare to the outside envelope of the numerous architectualy insignifiant buildings and houses throughout Tokyo, as almost anywhere else in Japan. I regret I could not effort their much too high price at the Maruzen (49,00$ piece), I would have bought both, one doesn't go without the other. Their antinomy is a notable example of the fondamentals of the Japanese culture, for which, among many aspects, beauty coexist without conflict with ugliness.

This book is not a tourist souvenir. It chronicles the Tokyo you see if you live here for any length of time: early in the morning, going on a run, catching the train, taking the kids to school. The photographs are reproduced beautifully. I wasn't expecting the quirky text which, though somewhat self-conscious, offers some memorable passages (I especially liked the one about the old-fashioned vending machine.) The book captures the initial exoticism and increasing familiarity of narrow streets layered with signs in kanji, English and hiragana, tiny yards with insufficient walls, cars parked in improbable spaces, and the surprising persistence of nature in the midst of the metropolis. When it's time for me to move on, I will treasure this book as a reminder of the unglamourous, very human Tokyo I came to know.