A Guide To Tokyo For The Design And Culture Crowd

Many years ago, during my university days, I impulsively enrolled in a Japanese cinema class. Our syllabus covered everything from the gripping Rashomon (1950) to the sweetly earnest Kikujiro (1999). Among them was Yasujiro Ozu’s 1953 classic, Tokyo Monogatari (Story). I found it remarkable, though not for the reasons you might expect. At that time, watching the unassuming family drama felt agonisingly slow, and the slice-of-life narrative seemed mundane. It’s amusing to think that all these years later, the quietness now strikes me as revelatory, and the everyday appears special.

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Having both an insider and outsider perspective on Tokyo, being a Japanese citizen who grew up abroad with mixed…