I’m drawn to the idea that multiple versions of a city exist, each particular to the person encountering it. What you see and what you don’t; what falls inside your remit and what doesn’t. We all walk through the same coordinates, but not the same place.
Greater Tokyo is home to roughly 37 million people. Each year, before domestic tourism is even counted, the city also receives on the order of 20–30 million international visitors. That amounts to roughly 60 million Tokyos in a single year—as if one were not expansive enough.
A lifetime might not be sufficient to walk all of Tokyo’s streets, particularly if you step into somebody else’s shoes occasionally. That perspective is something I’ve always wanted to bring to the newsletter: a curation of voices speaking on the city. This week, we’ve done it with three pieces from three creators, each inscribing a different legend on the map.
Though it wasn’t briefed that way, all three pieces naturally coalesced around firsts in the city: a first neighbourhood visit, a first excursion, and a first small-scale business. In contrast, the places they lead us run pre-modern, pre-war, and even pre-Tokyo. The alignment feels fitting. We’re old souls around here, but always open to new encounters.
With that, settle into your weekend read, and our inaugural Tokyo curation.
AJ
Electric Dreams
Lee Chapman
When I moved to Japan at the end of the 90s, I quickly made a beeline for Akihabara, in need of a new personal stereo. I came away with a fancy Sony CD and MD player—a sleek black piece of kit I would marvel at for months and enjoy for years.
At that point, Akihabara was still unmistakably ‘Electric Town’. After the war, it became one of the capital’s many black markets, where engineers, veterans, and displaced workers set up stalls selling electronic components and repurposed military equipment.
Parts for homemade radios proved most popular. In time, radios themselves came to be sold, initiating a transition towards household electrical appliances more broadly. The shift gained momentum when the once-illegal stalls were organised in the early 1950s, leading to the emergence of electronics shops, both big and small, that would eventually dominate the area. With this came the ‘Electric Town’ moniker—a nickname still attached to the train station’s main exit.
My search for a CD player was not unlike that of early post-war visitors. Akihabara, however, continued to change. Today, little of the original Electric Town is left. Where radios and components were once sold, countless shops focus on manga, anime, and figures, with maid cafés aplenty when a break is needed. The area’s prevailing role is now as an otaku haven. As global interest in Japanese pop culture has grown, increasing numbers of foreign visitors too converge there.
Still, a few old storefronts remain. The ‘Radio Garden’ unit pictured below harks back to the days just after everything became legitimate. The second photograph, from Mitsui Sumitomo Fudosan’s Town Archives, shows it in 1952.
Near the Electric Town exit stands the similarly named Akihabara Radio Center. Until recently, it still held three tiny shops dating back to the period when it all began.
The first to shut was components and audio outlet Miyoshi Wireless, run by its then 93-year-old owner. Its yellow- and blue-coloured interior set the space apart—a business she operated for 64 years before calling it a day at the end of 2021.
A few holes in the wall down was Shimayama-san, a similarly small store the owner took over aged 25 following the death of his father, who started the business. There he worked for the next 43 years, before his own health issues and an ailing mother prompted retirement in 2022.
And that left one: a book and magazine shop dealing in all things electronic, a niche even smaller than the unit itself in the smartphone age. Like Shimayama-san’s, it was started by the owner Shimotori-san’s father, but when he collapsed in the late 1960s, she took over. The shop opened in 1951, when the Radio Center opened, but now aged 90, she decided to close at the end of December 2025.
The heyday for such a business had long since passed, and with sales in decline for consecutive decades, the moment was right to retire and finally grant herself some free time. It marked an end for Shimotori-san and, in many ways, for Electric Town itself.
※ Lee
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Enoden Sundown
Kiara
In Tokyo, much of my time is spent intently studying the city. Every street walked and neighbourhood explored, down to the finest detail, must be stored in my internal Tokyo archive. While this is my natural approach, the sense of a ‘holiday’ often gets swept aside by that curiosity.
Even so, I still reminisce about my first time in Tokyo as a child, already beginning to fall for the city without realising it. Those memories are stored a little too well, sometimes provoking an itch to erase and relive them.
So, when my local friend, Erina, invited me a year ago to accompany her on a daytrip out of Tokyo, I was conflicted. I don’t always jump at the opportunity to leave Tokyo; there’s comfort in what I know best. But this was a chance to experience a part of Japan for the first time again—to see it, perhaps, through the lens of my younger self.
Coastal Impressions
Erina and I sat on the train to Kamakura, a seaside town on the east coast of Kanagawa prefecture. While never short of conversation, our transits have always been dedicated to music-listening and window-watching, a permissible silence between us. All in an hour’s journey, Tokyo faded, and colourful roofs and mountainous terrain came into view.
As we began our day's walk, the townscape assured me we were still very much in Japan, yet the streets told of our distance from Tokyo. Wide roads and roomy sidewalks invited a slow amble, and simple, globe-topped lampposts speckled the street, all framed against a lush green backdrop—a scene you’d be unlikely to find so centrally in the capital.
Fortunate Friends
Greeted by the aroma of incense and winter flora, we arrived at Hasedera Temple. Its lower precinct’s arrangement of small gardens, ponds, and thousands of caped Jizo statues offered a clue to its careful upkeep.
We climbed moss-surrounded stairs leading to the temple’s Main Hall, which sat halfway up Mount Kamakura. The building announced itself with wide, wooden columns holding its weight, and textured roofs with overhanging eaves.
After some time admiring the architecture, a small table to the right of the entrance caught Erina’s eye: the omikuji corner. Omikuji, meaning ‘sacred lot’, she explained to me, is one of her favourite ways to learn about her fortune for the year ahead.
We each drew a numbered stick from a shaken wooden box, and picked out the corresponding pieces of white calligraphic paper. Both read: kichi (吉, Good Fortune). Erina told me that it’s important to keep this on you throughout the year. I promised I would, and indeed I did. Carrying it with me seems to have bestowed good fortune since.
Solar Timing
Twenty-thousand steps behind us, a bus trip to our next destination seemed well earned. It brought us to Hokokuji Bamboo Forest, north east of the city. The day had vanished, and we had only thirty minutes to explore before closing hour. But the time constraint granted something unexpected. The site was empty.
We traded glances, another one of those permissible lulls in conversation. Having both grown up moving frequently, Erina and I became accustomed to change, and share an excitement for the unfamiliar—that unrepeatable first-time experience of a place. Oddly enough, it is a feeling that resembles home, which might be why I’m so captivated by Tokyo each time I return. When you can’t keep places, you keep details.
In that moment, far from the city, there was little to store but stillness. We stood alone in the forest, dwarfed by bamboo groves, so silent that the rustle of leaves became apparent.
Ten minutes from Kamakura station, returning to Tokyo would have been the easy choice. But we could not travel to a coastal town, and not see the coast. Though going to the beach as nighttime loomed seemed counterproductive, we figured we’d take our chances of making it before dark.
We boarded the Enoshima Electric Railway, or Enoden for short, to Shichirigahama beach. This particular 1960s model was painted forest green, its retro windows and wooden flooring making it an attraction in itself. The old Enoden travelled slower than a typical Tokyo train, so our hopes of making the beach for light only waned.
As luck would have it, from the window of the rickety trolley, the sea revealed itself, and burnt orange and scarlet red smothered the sky. It was so brief that we only caught the last few minutes. A second to take it in, then a glance of relief that we’d arrived just in time. Perhaps, our first sign of good fortune.
※ Kiara
A Love Supreme
Allison
A few years ago, a Japanese friend took me to Eagle, an iconic jazz kissaten in Yotsuya. It was my first jazz ‘kissa’. Before visiting, I had imagined a casual café playing background jazz, a place for coffee and conversation. Boy, was I wrong.
Eagle still observes the “no talking” policy. In the 1960s, certain venues adopted this strict rule, thereby creating a space for customers to focus on the music. My friend and I sat wordless, listening to Jackie McLean bursting energetically from the speakers and filling the room. That afternoon at Eagle sparked an obsession.
Jazz first reached Japan in the 1910s, and the first jazz kissa, Black Bird, opened in Tokyo in 1929. The genre gained popularity during the post-war American occupation era, though few had the means to see live performances or own jazz records. Instead, people visited jazz kissaten to hear the latest releases on high-end audio systems, accompanied by drinking and smoking.
Jazz kissa reached their peak in the 1970s, with around 250 operating in Tokyo. Today, roughly 100 remain, and I’ve visited more than fifty so far. I grew progressively enamoured with each visit, and even started an Instagram account to share the journey.
During my early experiences, I was captivated by the utter focus of the owners, often referred to as “masters”. In an age of speed and efficiency, they maintain spaces devoted to jazz in its purest form, preserving a contemplative experience rooted in respect for the art. It is what pulls me, time and again, through their doors.
In doing so, I am consistently astounded by the diversity of jazz kissa. Beyond Eagle, let me share two more I love.
Crescent
Last year I visited Crescent, which opened in 2020. Although newly opened, it has all the makings of a classic jazz kissa: walls stacked with vinyl, a high-quality sound system, affordable drinks, and a collection of posters and ornaments curated by the owner, showcasing their personality throughout.
As one of the few customers, I sat enjoying my own company, listening to standards like Waltz for Debby by Bill Evans. A casual visit to a jazz kissa often follows such a pattern—private, poignant, and, dare I say, sacred.
Uncle Tom
Jazz Inn Uncle Tom in Setagaya, by contrast, has a communal warmth. It is a family business run by the second-generation master, Sakusabe-san, and his mother, who have kept the father’s shop running since 1977. Jazz kissa like these persist through generations, retaining their original spirit and legacy, helping the culture continue.
Uncle Tom’s has JBL speakers stationed at both the front and back of the room, as though deliberately leaving no space for chatter. Alongside this, homemade dishes such as dry curry rice make for another reason to return.
Every jazz kissa offers a different encounter, something best experienced in person. I hope it encourages you to start your own whimsical journey through Tokyo’s jazz kissa, and find your own favourite spots.
I’ll end with a quote from Philip Arneill and James Catchpole’s Tokyo Jazz Joints:
“Japanese jazz joints are so full of love: love of music, audio systems, record collecting, alcohol, social gathering, shared interest, and humanity.”
※ Allison
Of the cities within the city, this week’s curation offers a glimpse into just three. This format allows us to concentrate attention on the practice of writers, photographers, artists, designers, and others who continue in earnest—working with the concentration of a jazz kissa master—at a moment when prevailing systems tend to reward louder, less sensitive approaches. If you’d like to see more, give us a sign and tap the thumbs-up button at the end of this transmission.
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The first edition of Tokyothèque Neighbourhoods: Volume One has now sold out from our online shop. For the time being, the eBook remains available. For those who intended to pick up a print copy but did not manage to do so, preparations for a second edition are now underway.
We’ve received a number of inquiries about whether the book is stocked in Tokyo, Sydney, Paris and elsewhere. We’re currently looking into this. If you can recommend a local bookshop that feels aligned, or better yet introduce us to someone there, we’d be glad to hear from you ahead of the second pressing.
For readers in the UK, Café Vins off Carnaby Street currently has a limited supply, and copies will be available at Manchester’s UNITOM from next week.