Metropolis 一番 (A Tokyo Story, Part One)

Up to this point, it may have escaped your notice that Tokyo is quite big.

Depending on how you count, the city has anything from thirteen million to thirty-eight million people, which means that the hair-splitting of urban geographers can add or subtract the entire population of Australia. When Tokugawa Ieyasu chose the site as the headquarters of his new eastern lands, Edo (now Tokyo) was a small fishing village, but it ballooned quickly; a hundred years later it was probably the biggest city on Earth, a title it’s held on and off since then.

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Dancers in the Sprawl

So, I’m already back from Fukuoka, and I’m itching to write about Sumo- but I had a half-written blog article to finish. So, today’s offering is about beauty and ugliness, and how the two intertwine in modern Japan.

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