Dogatix: 4月 2013

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shinjuku Kabukicho Ichibangai Gate NightLife (2)

Kabukichō, Tokyo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kabukichō (歌舞伎町?) is an entertainment and red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Kabukichō is the location of many host and hostess clubs, love hotels, shops, restaurants, and nightclubs, and is often called the "Sleepless Town" (眠らない街). The district's name comes from late-1940s plans to build a kabuki theater: although the theater was never built, the name stuck.
The area has many movie theaters, and is located near Shinjuku Station, Seibu Shinjuku Station, and several other major railway and subway stations.

History
Originally, the area was known as Tsunohazu (角筈?) and was a swamp. After the Meiji Period, the area became a duck sanctuary. As the Yodobashi Purification Plant was built in 1893, the ponds were filled in. In 1920, a girl's school was built there, and the surroundings were developed into a residential area. During World War II, the bombing of Tokyo in 1945 razed the area to the ground. After the war, a kabuki theatre was planned to be built there and the town changed its name to Kabukichō. Though the theatre was cancelled due to financial problems, the name remained. Kabukichō was quickly redeveloped after the war, mainly due to the efforts of the overseas Chinese in Japan who bought land left unused after the expos and greatly developed them. Examples of such people include the founder of Humax, Lin Yiwen, who started his business with a cabaret.

At present, Kabukichō has transformed from a residential area to a world famous red-light district housing over three thousand bars, nightclubs, love hotels, massage parlours, hostess clubs and the like. Although referred here as a "red light district", there are no red lights in the literal sense with prostitutes in the windows as in Amsterdam. Recently, tourism from China and Korea are on the rise, and so, many tourists can be seen in Kabukichō even during daytime.

The Shinjuku Koma Theater has been a landmark in Kabukichō. Now in its third building, it has hosted concerts and other performances by top stars, including enka singers Saburō Kitajima, Kiyoshi Hikawa, and actor Ken Matsudaira. The management has announced that they will close after the December 31, 2008 show.
Crime
According to a spokesperson of Metropolitan Tokyo in 2004, there are more than 1,000 yakuza members in Kabukichō, and 120 different enterprises under their control.
Entering the new millennium, laws were more strictly enforced and patrols became more frequent. These, adding to the installation of fifty closed-circuit cameras in May 2002, reduced criminal activities in Kabukichō, amidst controversy.
In 2004, the police undertook an operation clamping down on illegal clubs and brothels, causing many to go out of business. Also, there is a movement to rid Kabukichō of the yakuza ("bad hand" gangs), known as the Kabukichō Renaissance.
In culture
Kabukichō is featured in a number of media:

    Shinjuku Incident, a 2009 Jackie Chan movie set in the early '90s about Chinese immigrants in Japan
    Fuyajo, novel by Hase Seishu. Also, a movie based on the novel that was filmed in Kabukichō
    Enter the Void, a film by Gaspar Noé, was partly filmed and set in Kabukichō
    A Guide of the Sleepless Town, novel by Lee Xiaomu
    In the Miso Soup, novel by Ryu Murakami
    Dreaming Pachinko, novel by Isaac Adamson
    "Kabukichō No Joō", song by Shiina Ringo
    The School of Water Business, novel by Hikaru Murozumi
    Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, a role-playing video game by Atlus
    Yakuza series, an Action-adventure game by Sega features a fictionalized Kabukichō as Kamurocho
    Ugly Americans, novel by Ben Mezrich
    Pattern Recognition, novel by William Gibson
    "Shin Pet Shop of Horrors", manga by Matsuri Akino
    The manga Gintama by Hideaki Sorachi is mostly focused around a fictional version of Kabukichou in the late 19th century
    Tokyo Vice, book by Jake Adelstein

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shinjuku Kabukicho Seibu Shinjuku Station Prince Hotel, Yamada

Seibu-Shinjuku Station
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Seibu-Shinjuku Station (西武新宿駅 Seibu-Shinjuku-eki?) is a railway station in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, operated by Seibu Railway.
Lines
The station the terminus of the Seibu Shinjuku Line, which extends to Hon-Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture.
Surrounding area
The station is located to the northeast of the JR East Shinjuku Station, and is connected to the Shinjuku Prince Hotel and the Seibu PePe department store. Directly to the east of Seibu Shinjuku station is the Kabukichō entertainment district.
History
The station opened on March 25, 1952. The modern station complex was completed on March 3, 1977.

Kabukichō, Tokyo
Kabukichō (歌舞伎町?) is an entertainment and red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Kabukichō is the location of many host and hostess clubs, love hotels, shops, restaurants, and nightclubs, and is often called the "Sleepless Town" (眠らない街). The district's name comes from late-1940s plans to build a kabuki theater: although the theater was never built, the name stuck.

The area has many movie theaters, and is located near Shinjuku Station, Seibu Shinjuku Station, and several other major railway and subway stations.

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shibuya Huge mural Taro Okamoto "Myth of Tomorrow"

Tarō Okamoto
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tarō Okamoto (岡本太郎 Okamoto Tarō?, February 26, 1911 -- January 7, 1996) was a Japanese artist noted for his abstract and avant-garde paintings and sculpture.
Biography
He studied at Panthéon-Sorbonne in the 1930s, and created many great works of art after World War II. He was a prolific artist and writer until his death, and has exerted considerable influence on Japanese society.
He was deeply interested in mystery and the occult throughout his years in Paris, where he lived from 1930 to 1940. He majored in ethnology under Professor Marcel Mauss (1872--1950) at the Université Paris Sorbonne and focused on studying the rites among tribes in the zone of Oceania. Okamoto also attended the Collège de Sociologie Sacré organized by George Bataille (1897--1962), and he participated in rites which were carried out in silence and in the darkness of the woods near Saint-Germain in a faubourg of Paris, as a member of Acephale, a secret spiritual society.[citation needed]

He was known for the quote, "Art is Magic" and "Art is Explosion." (「芸術は呪術だ。」「芸術は爆発だ。」 geijutsu wa jujutsu da, geijutsu wa bakuhatsu da?)[citation needed]

Among the artists Okamoto associated with during his stay in Paris were André Breton (1896--1966), the leader of Surrealism, and Kurt Seligmann (1900--62), a Swiss Surrealist artist, who was the Surrealists' authority on magic and who met Okamoto's parents, Ippei and Kanoko Okamoto, during a trip to Japan in 1936.

In the 1950s, he received a commission from the Oriental Nakamura department store in Nagoya to create a large mural on the main facade of their flagship store. The mural was demolished after Oriental Nakamura was bought by Mitsukoshi in the 1970s.

In 1964 Tarō Okamoto published a book titled Shinpi Nihon (Mysteries in Japan). His interest in Japanese mysteries was sparked off by a visit he made to the Tokyo National Museum. After having become intrigued by the Jōmon wares he found there, he journeyed all over Japan in order to research what he perceived as the mystery which lies beneath Japanese culture, and then he published Nihon Sai-hakken－Geijutsu Fudoki (Rediscovery of the Japan－Topography of Art).

One of his most famous works, Tower of the Sun, became the symbol of Expo '70 in Suita, Osaka, 1970. It shows the past (lower part), present (middle part), and future (the face) of the human race. It still stands in the center of the Expo Memorial Park.

After 30 years in Mexico. On November 17, 2008, his mural "The Myth of Tomorrow", depicting a human figure being hit by an atomic bomb, was unveiled in its new permanent location at Shibuya Station, Tokyo. This work was made for the Hotel de Mexico in Mexico city by Manuel Suarez y Suarez.[1]

Kawasaki City, his hometown, has constructed the memorial museum in Tama Ward, northwest of the city.

His studio/home is also open to visitors and is located in Aoyama in Tokyo.

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shibuya 109 dougenzaka Town center Building Fashion

Shibuya 109 (department store)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History and description
The building, located just across the street from Shibuya Station, opened in April 1979. The architect was Minoru Takeyama. Tokyu, the building's operator, designed the building as a "Fashion Community" containing small retail stores targeting the early-30s female consumer. Tokyu intended the store to compete with Seibu Department Stores, which was making inroads into the Shibuya area.

The name of the building, 109, is a form of word play (goroawase, specifically numerical substitution) and is taken from the Japanese characters tō (meaning 10) and kyū (9) as in Tōkyū. The interior of the building is designed to move shoppers in a loop on each floor from the elevators past various shops. A movie theater was originally planned for the top floor, but the fire department would not grant approval due to emergency-evacuation routes not meeting appropriate standards. Although originally targeted at women in their 30s, the building later became more known as a mecca for young women from the gyaru subculture.

Stores
    Shibuya 109 (Shibuya, Tokyo) - April 1979
    109Men's (Shibuya, Tokyo) - April 1979
    Kohrinbo 109 (Kanazawa, Ishikawa) - September 1985
    109 Machida (Machida, Tokyo) - July 2002
    Shizuoka 109 (Shizuoka, Shizuoka) - October 2007

        Created in March 2006 as Shibuya 109 Dreams, later recreated into the current 109.

    Minatomirai 109 (Yokohama) - April 2010
    Shibuya 109 Abeno (Osaka) - April 2011

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shibuya Yoyogi Park

Yoyogi Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yoyogi Park (代々木公園 Yoyogi kōen?) is one of the largest parks in Tokyo, Japan located adjacent to Harajuku Station and Meiji Shrine in Shibuya.
History and features
What is now Yoyogi Park was the site of the first successful powered aircraft flight in Japan, on December 19, 1910, by Captain Yoshitoshi Tokugawa, after which it became an army parade ground. During the post World War II Allied occupation of Japan, it was the site of the Washington Heights residence for U.S. officers.

It was later the site for the main Olympic athletes village of the 1964 Summer Olympics and the swimming, diving, and basketball venues. The distinctive Yoyogi National Gymnasium which hosted swimming, diving, and basketball was designed by Kenzo Tange for the Olympics, and is still in use, but most of the area north of the gymnasium complex and south of Meiji Shrine was turned into a city park in 1967.

Today, the park is a popular hangout, especially on Sundays, when it is used as a gathering place for rock music fans.[5] The park has a bike path, a public basketball court,[6] and bicycle rentals are available.

The Tokyo bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics included a new arena to be built west of the Yoyogi National Gymnasium for volleyball. It would have replaced an existing soccer field and athletic field, and would have remained after the Olympics as a multiple use venue.

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shibuya Yoyogi Park Fountain

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shibuya dougenzakashita Scramble crossing stutaya

Shibuya, Tokyo From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Shibuya (渋谷区 Shibuya-ku?) is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. As of 2008, it has an estimated population of 208,371 and a population density of 13,540 persons per km². The total area is 15.11 km². The name "Shibuya" is also used to refer to the shopping district which surrounds Shibuya Station, one of Tokyo's busiest railway stations. This area is known as one of the fashion centers of Japan, particularly for young people, and as a major nightlife area. History Following the opening of the Yamanote Line in 1885, Shibuya began to emerge as a railway terminal for southwestern Tokyo and eventually as a major commercial and entertainment center. It was incorporated as a village in Minami-Toshima County (Toyotama County from 1896) in 1889, as a town in 1909, as a ward of Tokyo City in 1932, and as a ward of Tokyo Metropolis in 1943. The present-day special ward was established on March 15, 1947. One of the most well-known stories concerning Shibuya is the story of Hachikō, a dog who waited on his late master at Shibuya Station every day from 1923 to 1935, eventually becoming a national celebrity for his loyalty. A statue of Hachikō was built adjacent to the station, and the surrounding Hachikō Square is now the most popular meeting point in the area. Yoyogi Park in Shibuya was one of the main venues for the 1964 Summer Olympics. The ward itself served as part of the athletics 50 km walk and marathon course during those games.[1] In 1965, 18-year-old Misao Katagiri, who had already shot and killed a policeman, went on a shooting rampage, and injured 16 more people. He was sentenced to death and was executed by hanging in 1972. Shibuya has achieved great popularity among young people in the last 30 years. There are several famous fashion department stores in Shibuya. Shibuya 109 is a major shopping center near Shibuya Station, particularly famous as the origin of the kogal subculture. Called "Ichi-Maru-kyū," which translates as 1--0--9 in Japanese, the name is actually a pun on that of the corporation that owns it — Tōkyū (which sounds like 10--9 in Japanese; this is numerical substitution, a form of goroawase wordplay). The contemporary fashion scene in Shibuya extends northward from Shibuya Station to Harajuku, where youth culture reigns; Omotesandō, the zelkova tree- and fashion brand-lined street; and Sendagaya, Tokyo's apparel design district. During the late 1990s, Shibuya also became known as the center of the IT industry in Japan. It was often called "Bit Valley" in English, a pun on both "Bitter Valley," the literal translation of "Shibuya", as well as Bit, the computer term for binary digits.

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shibuya dougenzakashita Scramble crossing stutaya

Japan Trip 2012 Tokyo Shibuya Dougenzakashita Scramble Crossing

Shibuya, Tokyo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shibuya (渋谷区 Shibuya-ku?) is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. As of 2008, it has an estimated population of 208,371 and a population density of 13,540 persons per km². The total area is 15.11 km².

The name "Shibuya" is also used to refer to the shopping district which surrounds Shibuya Station, one of Tokyo's busiest railway stations. This area is known as one of the fashion centers of Japan, particularly for young people, and as a major nightlife area.
History
Following the opening of the Yamanote Line in 1885, Shibuya began to emerge as a railway terminal for southwestern Tokyo and eventually as a major commercial and entertainment center. It was incorporated as a village in Minami-Toshima County (Toyotama County from 1896) in 1889, as a town in 1909, as a ward of Tokyo City in 1932, and as a ward of Tokyo Metropolis in 1943. The present-day special ward was established on March 15, 1947.

One of the most well-known stories concerning Shibuya is the story of Hachikō, a dog who waited on his late master at Shibuya Station every day from 1923 to 1935, eventually becoming a national celebrity for his loyalty. A statue of Hachikō was built adjacent to the station, and the surrounding Hachikō Square is now the most popular meeting point in the area.

Yoyogi Park in Shibuya was one of the main venues for the 1964 Summer Olympics. The ward itself served as part of the athletics 50 km walk and marathon course during those games.[1]

In 1965, 18-year-old Misao Katagiri, who had already shot and killed a policeman, went on a shooting rampage, and injured 16 more people. He was sentenced to death and was executed by hanging in 1972.

Shibuya has achieved great popularity among young people in the last 30 years. There are several famous fashion department stores in Shibuya. Shibuya 109 is a major shopping center near Shibuya Station, particularly famous as the origin of the kogal subculture. Called "Ichi-Maru-kyū," which translates as 1--0--9 in Japanese, the name is actually a pun on that of the corporation that owns it — Tōkyū (which sounds like 10--9 in Japanese; this is numerical substitution, a form of goroawase wordplay). The contemporary fashion scene in Shibuya extends northward from Shibuya Station to Harajuku, where youth culture reigns; Omotesandō, the zelkova tree- and fashion brand-lined street; and Sendagaya, Tokyo's apparel design district.

During the late 1990s, Shibuya also became known as the center of the IT industry in Japan. It was often called "Bit Valley" in English, a pun on both "Bitter Valley," the literal translation of "Shibuya", as well as Bit, the computer term for binary digits.

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