Tokyo On Foot

This prize-winning book is both an illustrated tour of a Tokyo rarely seen in Japan travel guides and an artist's warm, funny, visually rich, and always entertaining graphic memoir. Florent Chavouet, a young graphic artist, spent six months exploring Tokyo while his girlfriend interned at a company there. Each day he would set forth with a pouch full of color pencils and a sketchpad, and visit different neighborhoods. This stunning book records the city that he got to know during his adventures. It isn't the Tokyo of packaged tours and glossy guidebooks, but a grittier, vibrant place, full of ordinary people going about their daily lives and the scenes and activities that unfold on the streets of a bustling metropolis. Here you find businessmen and women, hipsters, students, grandmothers, shopkeepers, policemen, and other urban types and tribes in all manner of dress and hairstyles. A temple nestles among skyscrapers; the corner grocery anchors a diverse assortment of dwellings, cafes, and shops--often tangled in electric lines. The artist mixes styles and tags his pictures with wry comments and observations. Realistically rendered advertisements or posters of pop stars contrast with cartoon sketches of iconic objects or droll vignettes, like a housewife walking her pet pig, a Godzilla statue in a local park, and an urban fishing pond that charges 400 yen per half hour. This very personal guide to Tokyo is organized by neighborhood with hand-drawn maps that provide an overview of each neighborhood, but what really defines them is what caught the artist's eye and attracted his formidable drawing talent. Florent Chavouet begins his introduction by observing that, "Tokyo is said to be the most beautiful of ugly cities." With wit, a playful sense of humor, and the multicolor pencils of his kit, he sets aside the question of urban ugliness or beauty and captures the Japanese essence of a great city in this truly vital portrait.

More than just a Japan travel guide, Manabeshima Island Japan paints a colorful and entertaining picture of a particular place and time in Japan. Japan is made up of thousands of sacred islands, artificial islands, industrial islands, resort islands, wild islands and exploding islands…but artist Florent Chavouet had only ever visited two of them. This graphic novel is the story of one summer when he decides to get to know one more—the tiny island of Manabeshima. This speck of dirt in the Inland Sea, off the coast of Osaka, has a total population of 300, and he sets himself the task of recording everything and everyone he meets there in quirky detail on the pages of his sketchbook. Whereas Chavouet's other best-selling book, Tokyo on Foot, focuses on the physical city, it is the local island inhabitants who form the heart of this new book. Chavouet's sensitive drawings and insightful captions create instant portraits of incredible literary depth. The cast of characters who are lovingly depicted includes Ikkyu-san, owner of the island's only bar (and the bar's three regulars—skinny guy, Day-Glo cap guy and greasy-haired guy); the young Nakamura family and their five kids; the layabout Shimura-san, a living relic from the hippie 1970s; Kurata-san the policeman; Reizo-san the island intellectual in his elegant Meiji-era home; Rock the Neanderthal fisherman; and a chorus of assorted grandmothers and cats—all of whom welcome Chavouet into their community as a kindred soul. Against a backdrop of fireworks, summer festivals, fishing expeditions, and the constant hum of the cicadas, Chavouet depicts these characters so vividly and sympathetically, and describes their rustic way of life in such simple and appealing terms that we find it as hard to finish the book as Chavouet found it to leave the island at the end of his enchanted summer holiday.

This multicultural children's book is a a kid-friendly introduction to Japanese culture! Katie is a young American girl living in present-day Tokyo. One day, as she walks her dog, she meets Keiko, a young Japanese girl, and her brother Kenji. Join Katie, Keiko and Kenji as they explore the city and its surroundings as they learn about cultural diversity and the customs of their respective countries. Whether eating soba (buckwheat noodles) or spaghetti, studying kana (the alphabet), or dancing at the O-bon festival, the friends discover just how much their two cultures differ—and how much they are alike. Vibrantly illustrated by the author, Tokyo Friends is a wonderful Japanese children's book that introduces young readers to Japanese traditions and customs and also serves well as a valuable beginner's guide to the Japanese language.

A long-time Tokyo resident takes readers on a walking tour around each station along the Yamanote Line that circles the heart of Tokyo, offering glimpses of the variety in this city that at first glance seems homogenous.

A funny and intimate travelogue of one woman's unexpected adventures in Japan. French illustrator Julie Blanchin-Fujita arrived in Tokyo for what she thought would be a one-year stint, and ended up never leaving. In this graphic novel-style memoir she shares her love of Japan, while depicting personal experiences and stories from her life in Tokyo--from the exotic (sumo wrestlers, ramen, hot springs, tatami mats, bentos, Japanese trains, Mount Fuji, earthquakes) to the everyday (hanging out with friends, moving houses, falling in love). Her voyage of discovery in the world's most exciting city will appeal to a broad range of readers--from those contemplating a trip to Tokyo and Japanophiles to fans of graphic novels and anyone who enjoys a good manga love story. Packed with keen cultural observations, this enchanting story is told in both English and Japanese--also making it a great language learning resource.

Anyone who has ever set foot in Tokyo or dreamed of seeing its kaleidoscopic wonders will fall in love with this totally unique tour of the beautiful megalopolis. Here are all the spectacular sights of the great big Japanese capital, made tiny enough to fit in a pocket! This teeny tome collects incredible bird's-eye views of the bustling cityscape, all shot using a distinctive photographic technique known as "tilt-shift" that has the effect of seeming to shrink its subjects— making one of the vastest cities in the world look like a miniature model. Epic skyscrapers, crowded city streets, and even sumo wrestling matches resemble tiny plastic toys in this one-of-a-kind little book.

An odyssey Mary and Okinawan partner Etsuko made from the north of Hokkaido to the southern isle of Yonaguni in 15 months. This is an outer journey and an inner one brimming with characters, history and culture, revealing aspects of Japan seldom seen.

This photographic Tokyo travel guide explores the dynamic Japanese culture, art and architecture that make Tokyo a world-class city. It has been said that "every city has its high points, but Tokyo is all exclamation points!" The largest and most populous city in the world, Tokyo must be experienced in person to be understood truly. The next best thing? Tokyo Megacity--a visual and descriptive exploration of a city that combines old with new and traditional with trendy, like no other city in the world. This extraordinary book explores Tokyo through 250 revealing photographs by well-known photographer Ben Simmons and over 30 essays by famed author Donald Richie. Their love of the city, their sense of its history, and the deep respect and pure joy felt in being here, shine through on every page. Simmons and Richie show us how modern Tokyo evolved from a patchwork of villages that still exist today as distinct neighborhoods and districts to the modern, trendsetting metropolis renowned the world over--that combine to make Tokyo a unique and special place. Tokyo Megacity presents the districts of the city in the order that they originally developed, starting with the Imperial Palace, sliding down to the "Low City" along the Sumida River, soaring back up to the "Mid-City," and finally, climbing the hills to the newer districts of the "High City." The combination of Ben Simmons' photographs and Donald Richie's text capture, as never before, the tremendous diversity, vitality and sheer livability of the megacity that is Tokyo.