Foreword

Tokyo is a wonderful maze: multileveled, new and old, mysterious and boring, sacred and profane, sexy and prudish at the same time. For the glitz and glamour—to explore Roppongi Hills or Omotesandō Hills or whatever needless chrome and electronic modern day shopping mallstrosity that you might want to explore—there are guidebooks galore already available. If you want to know how it feels to live in an old neighborhood, dine on delights not yet splattered all over Instagram, see wonders hidden in narrow alleys, and know the meaning of the mystical monuments and statues in back alley shrines and temples, then this is the book for you.

It’s so much more than a guidebook; it’s a Japanese history lesson, a conversation, an invitation to explore areas of the city you had no idea existed and rediscover parts of city you thought you knew. There are things explained succinctly in this book that I have seen for years but never really understood or appreciated, like the Myth of Tomorrow mural in Shibuya station. For a jaded Tokyoite like myself, it gave me a fresh perspective on the familiar.

In some ways this is a demanding book: there is an assumption that you understand something about Japan and that you are curious about the history of Tokyo, the religions of the nation, and the superstitions and myths that still are subtly intertwined with modern Japanese life.

The description of Kōfukuji 弘福寺 found on page 293 is priceless:

An Ōbaku Zen temple founded in 1673, with the main hall and two-story sanmon gate done in a Chinese style. Both were constructed in 1933 after the temple was destroyed in the Great Kantō Earthquake. This temple also has a small attractive garden on one side—you pass under a short bridge to reach it. The grounds contain a shrine to Hotei and this temple is on the Shichifukujin tour. There is another shrine with statues of an elderly couple, the Jiji Baba. Praying here is said to be effective for treating coughing and asthma. These two statues were carved by a recluse priest named Fugai in the form of his parents. No one knows when the curative powers came to be ascribed to the statues.

I think the number of people who know what “Ōbaku Zen” is in modern Japan are far and few between. I am a Zen Buddhist priest and I barely know myself. I also wonder if prayers offered at the statues will work against coronavirus, but perhaps that is simply because I am a morbid person. There are some references difficult to decipher.

But that’s OK, because even if you don’t know the terms off the bat, Gilles usually does a wonderful job of explaining and exploring them eloquently. The level of detail is immense. The transient nature of Tokyo makes many guidebooks almost obsolete as soon as they are printed. However, by concentrating on businesses and establishments that have been around for over 50 years, there’s a good chance that when you take this book in hand and explore and walk and stroll through both the famous and lesser-known districts of the city, you will find everything in its place, even when you want to come back.

Japan has a folk belief in the power of words, 言霊 (Kotodama) or literally “the spirit of words”. It is an animist society at heart and so everything is imbued with a living presence. In this book that you have in your hands, or on your smartphone, or on your tablet, there’s a little bit of the soul of the author and his love for Tokyo and Japanese culture. Pick a neighborhood from the book and take an afternoon wander through it, knowing that the author is there with you as a kind of guardian angel. You’ll find that what seems to be ordinary becomes rather extraordinary, and you’ll be glad you took the stroll.

Jake Adelstein