Latest Features

Punchy posters encourage Tokyo subway etiquette

TOKYO - It doesn’t take a genius to realize that public spaces in Japan are filled with numerous audible and visual reminders about the importance of maintaining personal decorum. Over the past year, some of the catchiest have been the “manner posters,” by graphic artist Bunpei Yorifuji, that appear in the stations and carriages that serve the nine lines of the Tokyo Metro subway system.

Since April of last year, the 35-year-old designer has produced a simple yellow-and-black image each month urging subway travelers to refrain from such generally discomfiting activities as applying makeup, falling down drunk, talking on mobile phones, occupying priority seats for the elderly, infirm or pregnant women or rushing to board as the doors are closing.

“People move at a fast pace through the subway system,” explains Yorifuji as he puffs on a cigarette and reclines on a sofa at Bunpei Ginza, a nine-person operation occupying a fifth-floor office near the Kabuki-za theater in Chuo Ward. “So for the poster to be effective, it needs to have a catchy title, one that can be understood in a second, and contain an illustration that is easy to recognize.” Read the story »

Urban struggle: Tokyo’s tussle with preservation of architecture

TOKYO - The nightlife quarter of Kabukicho, just east of JR Shinjuku Station, bristles with non-stop activity. Amid the garish flashes of neon are touts cruising for clients, drifting drunks, hostesses hustling off to bars and the occasional gangster tiff. In the late 1960s — a time when young architect Minoru Takeyama was commissioned to design a pair of buildings a block apart for accommodating adult entertainment businesses — it wasn’t quite as active.

“Back then there were not a lot of people around. It was a residential area with low buildings,” says the now retired 75-year-old, who also designed the iconic Shibuya 109 building near Shibuya Station. “I wanted to make designs that really stood out, something that caught people’s attention.”

The result was a pair of eight-floor structures that housed bars, clubs and saunas and opposed one another to create a sense of balance. The monochrome Ichibankan (1969) is dark and sleek, its front is similar to a Transformer character whose sides take the shape of arms ready to embrace entering guests. The colorful Nibankan (1970) features a “supergraphic” of red, yellow and white lines and concentric circles emblazoned across its sloping sides of concrete and metallic sheets. Read the story »

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Crimes against property soaring

When a nationwide organization set up to prevent shoplifting surveyed department stores and supermarkets concerning incidents of shoplifting over the past year, 38.5 percent indicated that thefts had increased. The figure registered 27 percent as recently as last November.

Among people caught pilfering, 29 percent were unemployed, followed by housewives, at 20.4 percent.

This trend, reports Nikkan Gendai (July 3), suggests more people are stealing to obtain food.

According to National Police Agency statistics, while murders and other violent crimes showed year-on declines in the January-May period of this year, purse snatchings and robberies increased by 14.2 and 14 percent respectively. Read the story »

Evening tabloid reverts to smut content, holds ‘funeral’ for clean edition

Evening tabloid Naigai Times has reversed a measure put in place by a new management team that removed adult content from its paper — a move reported here on April 13 — and will now resume such coverage, says news site J-cast (June 3).

On the first of this month, the tabloid hosted an unconventional funeral that effectively buried its non-smut, or clean, mandate, with its new intent being to bring back “a paper that is a pleasure to read.”

Real estate firm Arms International purchased Naigai Times in November. The goal of the new ownership was to create a media outlet “like the Nikkei newspaper.” It subsequently pulled all of the paper’s adult coverage — which might have included articles pertaining to gentlemen’s clubs and adult video news — starting from April 6. This coincided with the appointment of new management from the beginning of the fiscal year. Read the story »

Saitama scours ear-cleaning salons peddling adult services

Sex establishments masquerading as salons offering ear-cleaning services have come under fire in Saitama Prefecture, according to the Asahi Shimbun (June 11).

Prefectural police busted two such operations in Saitama City on June 10 and arrested three managers for providing adult services delivered similar to that found in a massage parlor. It is believed that these arrests are the first in what will be a larger nationwide crackdown.

According to police officials, one manager, Michiaki Nishizawa, 41, also ran similar “one shot cleaning” businesses in Omiya and Urawa wards.

In July 2005, the Ministry of Health advised the Tokyo metropolitan government that removal of ear wax was not regarded as medical treatment, which led to a rapid increase in shops offering such services in the Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya metropolitan areas. (K.N.) Read the story »