The cramped seating area isn’t exactly the comfiest, and the toilet facilities are positively archaic, but this old Tokyo ramen restaurant is pretty much perfect. Great food, decades of clutter and a genuine sense of warmth the moment one walks in.
Tokyo train station drunk
Some Japanese drunks prefer to ease into unconsciousness when sat with friends, or somewhat less safely in a city side street wearing little more than a slip. Others, however, rather more boldly opt for busy train stations, during late night peak time, when predictably there are police about.
Uniform wearing Japanese nationalists at Yasukuni Shrine
With world politics shifting increasingly to the right, this group of nationalists visiting Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine on National Foundation Day now don’t seem quite so out of step as they did in 2011, when I first photographed them. Images that back then benefited enormously from some unexpected snow, meaning that unless the weather is especially inclement again, I’ll very likely never top them. But photographic challenges aside, it’s a scene I feel compelled to return to year after year. Each time being a chance to take in the unusual spectacle, and pick out some familiar faces. A familiarity that fortunately hasn’t bred contempt; instead, it simply increases my fascination, as well as giving rise to more than a few questions.
Questions such as: Who are these men and women?
What drives them to such extremes?
Do they genuinely believe in the revisionist view of World War II they adhere to?
And perhaps most crucial of all, what do they actually hope to achieve?
Old school Tokyo clothes shop
When it comes to modern clothes shops, Tokyo isn’t exactly lacking. But move away from the city’s busy hubs, and the branded stores and cool boutiques slowly make way for considerably older outlets. Places where fashion often plays second fiddle to price and functionality.
The world through a plastic visor
When the world is clearly in trouble, seeing it less clearly might make it look just that little bit kinder.
Tokyo squid-man
He’s not the egg-man. Nor indeed is he the walrus. Instead, he’s the wonderfully silly, smartphone resistant, squid-man.
