Month: October 2004

More than 130 years after the first Maruzen opened in Nihonbashi, the shop that has saved many an expat in Tokyo will shut down and undergo a huge renovation. Although the new Nihonbashi Maruzen will not re-open until 2007, the venerable bookseller has moved into the Oazo shopping and dining complex next to Tokyo station with no less than 200,000 foreign books, the largest selection of its kind in Japan.

In addition to four bilingual book advisors, the new Maruzen has a touch-screen computer system that allows you to search in English for your favorite classic. When we tested it, for instance, Maruzen didn’t have the 2004 BBC Books edition of Agatha Christie’s Caribbean Mystery, but the system did print out an order form to take to the counter. If a book is in stock, the computer can print a map of where it is in the store. Maruzen has an extensive selection of the latest English books, including fiction, academic titles and books on Japan. They also have a limited collection of German and French fiction and nonfiction, and some French audio books.

GA, or Global Architecture, is the preeminent name for architecture aficionados throughout Japan. Predominantly known for its various magazines and journals, the GA organization also operates a gallery space near Yoyogi station. The refined, modern but simple building houses two floors of exhibition space and one of the most extensive architecture bookstores in Tokyo.

“Emerging Generation,” the latest of this exhibition space’s informative and extensive investigations into the contemporary architecture scene, is exactly what the title describes. Nine emerging forty-something architects from around the world are represented in a series of designs, conceptual drawings, and computer-generated prints of 3D models all modestly displayed on color-coded posters that hang around the smooth concrete interior of the gallery.

Tokyo has been the grist for many a first novel, but few have been as leftfield as Hillary Raphael’s. The author of last year’s butoh photography book Outcast Samurai Dancer, Raphael has woven her experiences as a Tokyo hostess and runway model together with real-life events such as the Aum Shinrikyo subway gassing, and used her own febrile imagination to create a rollicking novel of cyber-age esthetics. Set in late-’90s Tokyo, I Lord Buddha recounts the history of the Neo-Geisha Organization, a sex-and-death cult with an anti-consumerist, pro-hedonist ideology. The cult is led by leggy Westerner Hiyoko, and her followers are the young women “whose curiosity and perfect bodies have taken them thousands of miles from home to work in Tokyo’s neon-lit network of hostess bars.”

Blurring the line between art and industry, Masamichi and Nobumichi Tosa are better known by their pseudonym Maywa Denki, or Maywa Electric. In their 11 years of existence they have beguiled the world with whimsical interactive machines that double as musical instruments, calling their concerts “product demonstrations” and dressing in the faceless uniforms of Japan’s industrial workers. “The Nonsense Machines” is a retrospective that brings together their collected inventions, and also features a new Edelweiss series, a consideration in interactive mechanical forms of various aspects of female identity. A free concert is scheduled for December 6 in the adjacent Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall.

Recently, there has been a rash of Japanese films based on manga, but Koi no Mon goes one step further. Not only does it stem from the adult comic of Jun Hanyunyuu, but the piece centers around a bizarre, down-and-out manga-ka (manga artist) named Mon (Ryuhei Matsuda), who draws his cartoons on little stones, and a female counterpart, Koino (Wakana Sakai), whose passion is cosu-pure (“costume play”). Thus we get the title, which also means “gate of love.” It should come as no surprise then that the tone of the piece is “cartoonish” in a surreal, frenetic and often silly way. A lot of the action takes place in the protagonists’ imagination, leading to some interesting computer graphics and visuals. The offbeat love story between the two is only mildly engaging but you have to like any film in which the female lead squeals “tanoshi neeee” and the male lead promptly pukes his guts out.

Theater actor and director Suzuki Matsuo makes his feature film debut with this wacky tale of lovesick manga artists in Tokyo. For a first film, it’s an assured performance: a riot of sight gags, colorful characters, quick-cutting, rock-tempo silliness. Mon (Ryuhei Matsuda) is a scuzzy, furry “manga artisan,” a hopeless failure who draws comics on stones. He meets and falls in love with cute Koino (Wakana Sakai), an OL with a “cos-play” fetish and a secret manga artist to boot. Koino and Mon’s love affair is complicated by the involvement of an older man, manga coffee shop owner (Matsuo), with claims on Koino’s art and heart. While exploring a similar world to the low-budget film “Ai suru Yochu” (which also featured Matsuo as an older lover), this is altogether more satisfying. A complete guide to the workings of the obsessive otaku mind. A few cult directors show up in fun cameos: Takashi Miike as a brothel keeper and Shinya Tsukamoto as a soon-dead customer at the manga coffeeshop. Tokyo geek love.

Ratia is exactly the kind of place that comes to mind when people ask us about cool Tokyo lounges. Dimly lit, multi-level, and filled with enticing nooks, this bar is a sure bet for couples or groups looking to chill out with an inventive cocktail and some good food.

Located a short walk from the sparkling Prada Building, Ratia sits on a quiet side street surrounded by stylish design studios, restaurants and shops. The exterior holds its own against these oshare outposts; even from the outside looking in, the bar emanates an inviting aura. A porch area runs up to large front windows that give a glimpse of a small bar area that’s somewhat mysteriously suffused with a green glow. Once inside, the narrow space has a row of small white tables lining one wall, while farther back is a semi-private seating area.