Japanese pop culture expert Patrick Macias takes you on a illustrated tour of astonishing people, places, and things found inside Tokyo's underground art, music, fashion, and otaku scenes.
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Japan for sale and everything must go. Dying department store in a mall up in Kita-ku wallpapered in fading red and white paper squares. Sale. Sale. Sale. And then no sale at all...A rush job retreat that leaves battered nude mannequins and antiquated cash registers behind. In the allies: boxes of plastic wrap and trash. Outside, a drunken old timer groans and chooses the place for an impromptu piss, tears from one generation to another. Anti-overtone radiation (EDLP) emitting from the Walmart-owned Seiyu nearby, but the place is only popular with a rag-tag bands of survivors after 12am.
Meanwhile, on the train ("the doubutsu-sen"), restored to it's former glory but and already fading again fast, our inappropriate foreign bodies aren't blocking the door so much as just there inhabiting it. Occupying. Arriving at the his stop, an ancient salaryman can't resist shooting a volley of "Sorry-Excuse-Me-Please" at us, the pitch suggesting an mix of intense sarcasm and linguistic unfamiliarity. But we're the least of his problems now...
