Tokyo on Foot : Travels in the City's Most Colorful Neighborhoods by Florent Chavouet (Tuttle)
Florent Chavouet is a graphic artist who spent six months wandering around different neighborhoods in Tokyo while his girlfriend Claire was interning at some company in Japan. The only reason why he found himself in Japan. He would go out with a set of sketchbooks and colored pencils along with a mamachari (a term used for the bicycles that most housewives use) and a folding chair. The result of his stay and his sketches led to the publication of Tokyo on Foot : Travels in the City’s Most Colorful Neighborhoods.
Chavouet’s opening statement in the book is “Tokyo is said to be the most beautiful of ugly cities.” He also mentions in the beginning, “So this is a book about Japan. About a trip to Tokyo, to be precise. It’s neither a guide nor an adventure story, but that doesn’t mean you’ll avoid the out-of-date addresses of one or the digressive confidences of the other.”
The six months period of Chavouet’s stay was between June and December, 2006. All the sketches included in the book are Chavouet’s interpretation of what he saw and how he saw the city’s neighborhoods. He has organized the book in which every chapter focuses on a certain neighborhood he visited. “The respective lengths of chapters in no way indicate the relative importance of the neighborhoods in the life of the city but rather my familiarity with them.”
Each chapter is announced by a koban, a small and very local police station, often referred to as a police box whose officers main job is community policing. The illustration following the koban is a hand drawn map of the area listing the places that Chavouet thought were interesting
Once you read the blurbs on the map and take the time to absorb it all into your head, then Chavouet then provides full color illustrations of those various neighborhoods, along with the people who inhabit the place such as the owner of a small shop in Machiya, located in the northern part of Tokyo. He also meets and draws pictures of a woman who runs an okonomiyaki stand in Takadanobaba at the Kotohira-gu Temple. This is where Chavouet also meets a Canadian graphic designer who told him about his lung operation and meditating on the Ganges in India. The Canadian left and came back later and handed Chavouet two-thousand yen for no apparent reason. Chavouet jokes it’s “the first money I earned in Japan.”
In between many of the chapters of the book are “interludes” where Chavouet just indulges himself such as drawing his interpretations of the Strict Salaryman and the Cool Salaryman. The difference between Math Nerd Junior-High Student and Physics Nerd Junior-High Student. They are amusing and humorous and will put a smile on your face.
He also draws from his experience as he tells us his impression of visiting a manga kissa, a shop that carries manga books guessing what the topics are just by looking at the covers. He surmises that the main themes are, “porn (soft, hard, kinky, gay, etc.), romantic stuff, and some sports”.
As Chavouet mentions, this is not a guidebook, just what he saw and sketched when he wandered around Japan. He explored the neighborhoods of Machiya, Ikebukuro, Takadanobaba, Shinjuku, Shibuya, and more. Trendy neighborhoods, downtown neighborhoods, old neighborhoods, new ones. Every page is a visual treasure.
As a former and long-time resident of Tokyo, I can attest to the accuracy of the neighborhoods Chouvet has visited. His eye for detail is amazing. His illustrations draw you in and make you feel like you’re exploring the neighborhood on your own. If I feel homesick for Tokyo, I can always browse through Chavouet’s book and return anytime I want to. ~Ernie Hoyt