World City Guide

Culture

The legacy of the pleasure-loving inhabitants of old Edo, modern Tokyo continues to host an astonishing number of festivals, rituals, observances and celebrations. Starting with the traditional New Year visit to major shrines, to pray for good fortune during the coming year, the Tokyo calendar is full of high days and holidays, from the supremely populist to the positively esoteric. Some events mark a particular anniversary or date in the Buddhist calendar and are restricted to particular neighbourhoods, shrines or temples, while others, such as the spring cherry blossom viewing frenzy, occur citywide.

The traditional arts, too, thrive here, with traditional drama, martial arts, the tea ceremony and flower arranging all widely taught and performed. Tokyo is a stop on the touring schedules of many internationally famous music and dance companies, pop groups and art exhibitions, further adding to the vibrancy of the local arts and entertainment scene. The Tourist Information Centre (tel: (03) 3201 3331) has a database of detailed information on the city’s festivals and the English-language magazines Metropolis (website: http://metropolis.japantoday.com/default.asp) and Tokyo Journal (website: www.tokyo.to) publish listings of events, concerts and exhibitions.

The English-language booking agencies, Ticket Pia (tel: (03) 5237 9999) and Lawson Ticket (tel: (03) 5537 9999), are the major ticket merchants, with outlets located around the city. Events are regularly sold out and bookings should be made well in advance.

Music: Lovers of classical music are well catered for in Tokyo. There are several resident symphony orchestras – such as the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra (website: www.tpo.or.jp/english) and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (website: www.tokyosymphony.com/e-tokyo) – as well as regular visits by touring orchestras, choirs and opera companies. There are numerous major venues, among them the Bunkamura Orchard Hal, 2–24–1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (tel: (03) 3477 9999; website: www.bunkamura.co.jp/english/index.html), with transport from Shibuya Station, Suntory Hall, 1–13–1 Akasaka, Minato-ku (tel: (03) 3584 9999; website: www.suntory.co.jp/suntoryhall/english/index.html), with transport from Akasaka Station on the Chiyoda underground line, and the stunningly designed new concert hall, Tokyo Opera City, 3–20–2 Nishi Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku (tel: (03) 5353 9999; website: www.operacity.jp) with transport from Shinjuku Station. Tokyo International Forum, 3–5–1 Marunochi, Chiyoda-ku (tel: (03) 5221 9000; website: www.tif.or.jp) with transport from Yurakucho Station on the JR Yamanote loop line, stages a variety of musical and cultural performances in its four halls, one being among the largest in the world, with 5000 seats. Traditional Japanese musical performances, such as taiko (drum) and shamisen (string instrument), are occasionally held at Bunkamura (see above) and in smaller local venues.

Theatre: Of Japan’s traditional dramatic arts, kabuki, with its gorgeous costumes, elaborate staging and complex plots, is probably the most accessible. Kabuki-za, 4–12–15 Ginza, Chuo-ku (tel: (03) 3541 3131; website: www.kabuki-za.co.jp), with transport from Higashi-Ginza Station on the Hibiya and Asakusa underground lines, holds regular performances and provides English earphone commentary. Performances are long, sometimes lasting five or six hours, however, it is usually possible to purchase tickets for a single act.

Information on programs of other traditional performing arts, including noh (restrained and highly stylised drama, little changed since Japan’s medieval era), bunraku (puppet theatre) and kyogen (short satirical plays, often performed as intervals during noh dramas), can be obtained from the Tourist Information Centre (tel: (03) 3201 3331).

Contemporary Japanese theatre tends towards the obscure and the language barrier is an additional dissuasion. Far more accessible are the extravagant review-style performances of the glamorous all-female Takarazuka troop, held at the Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre, 1–1–3 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku (tel: (03) 5251 2001; website: http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/english/index.html), with transport from Yurakucho Station on the Yamanote loop line.

Dance: Overseas dance companies, ranging from ballet to tango, regularly include Tokyo on their itineraries. Performances are often held at Bunkamura, 2–24–1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (tel: (03) 3477 9999; website: www.bunkamura.co.jp/english/index.html). Butoh, an experimental, sometimes grotesque form of expressive dance developed in Japan in the 1960s, has a loyal following among more avant-garde Japanese audiences. Performances take place in various venues, and are listed in the event sections of Metropolis (website: http://metropolis.japantoday.com/default.asp) and Tokyo Journal (website: www.tokyo.to).

Film: Tokyo’s many cinemas are concentrated in Ginza, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro. Foreign films are generally shown in their original language and subtitled in Japanese. However, tickets are expensive and Hollywood releases often lag months behind other countries. The last show generally starts around 1900, although there is sometimes a later show on weekends. Daily papers and event magazines have listings of what’s on. Mainstream cinemas include Hibiya Chanter Cinema, 1–2–2 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku (tel: (03) 3591 1511), and Shibuya Tokyu Movie Theatre, Tokyu Bunka Kaikan, 2–21–12 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku (tel: (03) 3407 7029). A good arts cinema is Cinema Rise, 13–17 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku (tel: (03) 3464 0052).

Rather than literary representations, Tokyo has always inspired powerful images, from the ‘ukiyo-e’ woodblock prints of the Edo period to the films of the present day. Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (1986) and Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) explore aspects of life in the city, while Katsuhiro Otomo’s acclaimed Akira (1988) is a sci-fi animation set in a futuristic vision of Tokyo. However, it is Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) with which many Westerners will be most familiar. While actually set in a future Los Angeles and filmed in Hollywood, the scenes of a dark, rainy, neon-studded cityscape have become for many an enduring image of Tokyo.

Cultural events: Japan’s traditional neighbourhood matsuri (religious festivals) are still very much a living tradition. Joyous and good-naturedly boisterous, they offer a very different view of the Japanese to that gained in an everyday or business setting. Commencing at the local shrine, mikoshi (portable shrines) are paraded through the streets by men, women and children dressed in festival garb, accompanied by traditional music and dancing. Street stalls sell snacks, trinkets and copious amounts of beer. Held in neighbourhoods throughout Tokyo during the summer, the famous ‘big three’ are the Kanda Matsuri held in Kanda and the Sanja Matsuri held in Asakusa, both of which take place in mid May, and the Sanno Matsuri held in Akasaka in mid June. With thousands of participants and many times that number of spectators, these festivals are great fun but can be incredibly crowded and exhausting.

April is the season for cherry blossom viewing and it seems that the whole population visits the city’s parks to picnic and make merry under the blossoms. During August, traditional Bon-odori dances are held beneath colourful lanterns to commemorate the spirits of the ancestors. The fun, gaudy and very un-Japanese Asakusa Samba Carnival is organised by Brazilian–Japanese returnees and takes place annually in late August on the streets of Asakusa. The annual Tokyo International Film Festival is held in late October/early November at Bunkamura, 2–24–1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku (tel: (03) 3477 9999; website: www.bunkamura.co.jp/english/index.html), and cinemas in the Shibuya area.

The three major sumo tournaments that take place annually in Tokyo are major events, as is the baseball season, which opens in April and runs through the summer to the championships in October. Meanwhile, Tokyo’s two huge trade fair venues host major exhibitions throughout the year, one of the best known being the annual Tokyo Motor Show, which is usually held in late autumn.

Literary Notes
Tokyo is home to Japanese authors as diverse as Kenzaburo Oe, 1994 Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Banana Yoshimoto, author of the cult novel Kitchen (1993). From the great ‘interpreter of Japan’, Lafcadio Hearn – an early foreign resident of Tokyo and from the diplomatic wives of the 19th century, who delighted in the cherry blossoms and the dainty manners of the people – to Angela Carter, who pronounced Tokyo ‘an exceedingly pleasant place in which to live’, Tokyo has merited inclusion in a host of memoirs. These include the writings of William Faulkner, Aldous Huxley, Jean Cocteau and Charlie Chaplin. William Gibson’s novel, Idoru (1997), explores Tokyo’s technological future, while the darker side of the city is vividly portrayed in Speed Tribes: Children of the Japanese Bubble (1994) by Karl Taro Greenfeld. A Booker-shortlisted novel set in Tokyo is the wonderful Number 9 Dream (2001) by David Mitchell.