Geisha prepares to bloom in Tokyo

TOKYO (TR) – Not far from the banks of Tokyo’s Sumida River, below a towering expressway, is Sumida Ward’s sleepy district of Mukojima, the largest of Tokyo’s six remaining geisha quarters, or hanamachi (literally, “flower towns”).

The area is home to roughly 120 of Japan’s iconic traditional entertainers, who, in the evenings, regale well-heeled guests with performances of classical dance and music, lighthearted games and conversation as they dine at the 16 traditional ryotei restaurants scattered within the packed district’s hodgepodge of aging wooden buildings.

One of the youngest of the local geisha is Manten (her geisha name), 20, who decided to enter the profession after realizing that she was not well versed in Japan’s traditions following two visits overseas as a teenager. Read more

Tokyo Sky Tree: Room with a view

TOKYO (TR) – Tall, steel-framed television transmission towers are not generally thought of as being attractive neighbors.

Yet real estate firm Sky Court is hoping that Tokyo Sky Tree, now under construction in the capital’s eastern Sumida Ward, will convey a different image.

The company has taken out newspaper advertising space to promote the units within its Sky Court Oshiage Ichibankan complex as investment properties due to their proximity to the future 634-meter-tall structure, which will make it the world’s tallest free-standing tower when it is completed next year.

“With a location in the center of the city and nearby public transportation, there are positive prospects for further developments in the area targeting single people seeking a lifestyle centered on convenience,” said company representative Tsutomu Sugiura in a dispatch to The Tokyo Reporter. Read more

TV steers Japanese cinema

TOKYO (TR) – A scan of Japan’s recent year-end box office charts reveals a familiar recurring theme: Storylines for top films are typically based on a hit television series or drawn from a popular manga comic.

With ad revenue falling, the major nets are partnering with Toho and other major distributors in an effort to fill that gap with features based on material with which local audiences are already widely familiar.

“Japan is under a unique circumstance in which terrestrial TV programming is of high quality and remains the most powerful media outlet,” says Naoki Suganuma, deputy manager within the film business division of Nippon Television Network (NTV). “And not only kids but also adults read manga in their daily lives. So it’s a natural thing for these kinds of titles to become the basis of movies.”

The result is a consolidation of power in the biz — and Hollywood, with the exception of an occasional “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Avatar,” is increasingly losing clout. Read more

Curtain falling on cinema in Kabukicho

TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment area, once one of Japan’s most vibrant cinema districts, is experiencing a rapid shuttering of its theaters as their aging buildings lose audiences to modern theaters nearby.

The first domino fell in 2008, when Toho acquired the landmark Koma Stadium, a 2,000-seat performing arts theater that opened in 1956. Toho shut the Koma property, which also had two screens in its basement, and its neighboring building, home to the exhibitor’s 1,044-seat Shinjuku Plaza Gekijo, in preparation for redeveloping the entire site.

Last November, four screens operated by Toa Kogyo also closed, and three more, run by Humax Cinema, which had featured everything from “Ben-Hur” to softcore “pink” porn since opening in 1947, had shut six months earlier. Read more

Sudoku singularity by puzzle master Maki Kaji

TOKYO (TR) – With their 81 stacked squares, sudoku puzzles might appear ordinary, but they have become a seemingly boundless phenomenon. Found in the pages of books, magazines and newspapers and on mobile phones and the Internet, sudoku boast more than 100 million devotees across the globe.

In light of such success, the game’s founder, Maki Kaji, could be excused for feeling a degree of self-satisfaction. On the contrary, the 58-year-old president of publisher Nikoli is now attempting to preserve his original ideal for the numeric brainteaser.

“It has been more than 20 years since sudoku was established,” says gray-whiskered Kaji during an interview at his office in Tokyo’s Taito Ward. “Since then, it has been refined into various forms. Because of this and its immense popularity, people in the US and the UK are responding by asking us to produce classic sudoku puzzles.” Read more

Architect Kengo Kuma looks back in remaking Tokyo’s Nezu Museum

TOKYO (TR) – Boxy concrete apartment buildings have come to symbolize Japan nearly as much as sushi and sumo. Following the end of World War II these garish and drab structures began springing up in large numbers along the outskirts of the nation’s larger cities to meet the surging demand of a growing population.

Yet it’s these uninspiring blocks that have perversely inspired renowned architect Kengo Kuma. Proof of this can be found in his work on the recently reconstructed Nezu Museum in Tokyo. “I wanted to create a huge roof,” Kuma says. “I attempted to connect people and the ground once again with the roof.”

Much like a farmhouse, an arched roof rises up to the height of two floors and extends roughly 50 meters laterally over the length of the museum’s main building, which occupies part of a long block in the swanky Minami Aoyama area of the city and is home to a substantial collection of traditional Japanese and Asian works of art. Read more

Navigating Japan’s nyotaimori netherworld

TOKYO (TR) – For at least as long as nyotaimori — the practice of serving sushi on the body of a naked female’s torso — has been making inroads overseas, the media has been raising the same question: Where does the practice fit within the context of Japanese culture?

For an answer, one can turn to the 168-cm-long body of Miho Wakabayashi. Until last year, the 30-year-old’s bare stomach and limbs were adorned with fish and fresh fruit slices once a month at the Sleeping Beauty “happening bar” in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. (Such a drinking establishment is one in which customers engage in uninhibited intimate activities with one another.)

“It was a show promoted as a special event,” says Wakabayashi, who is also a part-time stripper, sometimes performing at the legendary Rokku-za theater in Asakusa, and an actress in adult films. “It was used as a kind of ice-breaker intended to draw laughs.” Read more

Kyoto in 24 hours

KYOTO (TR) – As Japan’s seventh largest city, the ancient capital of Kyoto blends modern urban sprawl with traditional touches. Falling somewhere in between has been the development of an environmental movement considered to be one of the nation’s largest. What follows is a “green” guide to Kyoto for a single day’s stay.

09.00: Kyoto’s nearly 2,000 temples and shrines are well known, yet culinary delicacies are not to be overlooked, and numerous varieties are available at the Nishiki Market, where over 100 family-run shops have offered locally sourced products for four centuries. A walk down the narrow corridor reveals aromas of grilled fish and boisterous shopkeepers enthusiastically peddling sushi and other seafood (oysters, squid and sweetfish), sweets, fresh vegetables and some of Japan’s finest cutlery. For a sampling of the wares, order breakfast at Iyomata (Tel: 075-221-1405), which offers sushi sets, including chirashi zushi (various raw fish over rice).

10.30: In 1997, Kyoto hosted the United Nations conference that set greenhouse gas emission targets, but the streets of Japan’s former capital are often jammed with cars. As an alternative, the Kyoto Cycling Tour Project provides various types of two-wheelers from its outlet just in front of Kyoto Station. Cycle down to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, notable for its path of 5,000 orange entry gates, and back up the bike route hugging the Kamogawa River. Then venture over to the Kyoto Handicraft Center to peruse its selection of painted screens and kimono wear or partake in making your own woodblock print or folding fan in the center’s studio. Read more

Lost gaijin: Damon and Naomi return to Japan

TOKYO (TR) – As the title “Lost Gaijin Tour 2009″ might imply, the folk-pop duo Damon and Naomi are aiming for something a little different during their upcoming slate of live shows that will extend up and down Honshu over the next week.

Guitarist and vocalist Damon Krukowski explained during an email interview that he and his wife, bassist Naomi Yang, once comprising two-thirds of the legendary indie-rock band Galaxie 500, have been performing as a duo quite often, in part because it is simple and inexpensive to travel to places that bands do not normally go.

“The idea for this tour was to travel further north and south than we do usually,” said Krukowski. “And since we have a lot of musician friends in Japan, we have invited different ones to join us onstage in different areas, for a few songs each night. It should be a very relaxed, intimate kind of show.” Read more

On the ‘Tokyo Vice’ beat with Jake Adelstein

TOKYO (TR) – The extortion, racketeering, prostitution and gambling rings associated with Japan’s yakuza criminal organizations have been written up in books and glorified in films too numerous to count. Yet a substantial first-hand peek inside this insidious underworld by a foreign journalist — not straitjacketed by Japan’s rigid press system — has not existed.

Enter reporter Jake Adelstein, a 40-year-old Jewish-American and the author of the recently released memoir “Tokyo Vice,” an account of his 12-year stint of working the crime beat for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper.

Following the successful completion of the paper’s entry exam in 1993, Adelstein began covering Japan’s seamier side. Written in a fast-paced, acerbic and sometimes humorous style, “Tokyo Vice” recounts his investigations into serial rape, child pornography, murder and his greatest scoop: providing details on how four gangsters were able to travel to the U.S. between 2000 and 2004 to receive liver transplants. “Either erase the story, or we’ll erase you,” was the subsequent threat from the particulars involved. “And maybe your family.” Substantial repercussions linger to this day. Read more

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