Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, Tokyo is part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers Tokyo's central 23 special wards (which formerly made up Tokyo City), various commuter towns and suburbs in its western area, and two outlying island chains known as the Tokyo Islands. Despite most of the world recognising Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments which make up the metropolis. Notable special wards in Tokyo include Chiyoda, the site of the National Diet Building and the Tokyo Imperial Palace, Shinjuku, the city's administrative center, and Shibuya, a commercial, cultural, and business hub in the city.
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (アンダーグラウンド, Andāguraundo, 1997–1998) is a book by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about the 1995 Aum Shinrikyosarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. The book is made up of a series of interviews with individuals who were affected by the attacks, and the English translation also includes interviews with members of Aum, the religious cult responsible for the attacks. Murakami hoped that through these interviews, he could capture a side of the attacks which the sensationalist Japanese media had ignored—the way it had affected average citizens. The interviews were conducted over nearly a year, starting in January 1996 and ending in December of that same year.
The interviews highlight many intriguing aspects of the Japanese psyche. Work was a high, if not central, priority for most of the interviewees. Isolation, individualism, and lack of communication were also strong themes which were common throughout many accounts of the attacks. Many of the interviewees expressed disillusionment with the materialism in Japanese society and the sensationalistic media, as well as the inefficiency of the emergency response system in dealing with the attack. (Full article...)
Image 5A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Tokyo)
Image 9Picture of the Upper Class, a c. 1794–1795 painting by Utamaro. The woman on the left is lower in class than the woman on the right, who wears more colorful clothes (from History of Tokyo)
Image 10A kawaraban (news broadsheet) depicting the damage of the 1855 earthquake (from History of Tokyo)
Image 45The five-story pagoda of Kan'ei-ji, which was constructed during the reign of Tokugawa Hidetada and required the building of the Kimon (Devil's Gate) (from History of Tokyo)
Image 56A scene from the Tokugawa Seiseiroku, showing an aspect of the sankin kotai system: the festive attendance day of daimyo at Edo Castle (from History of Tokyo)
... that episodes of the TV Tokyo late-night show Nogizaka Under Construction are uploaded to YouTube shortly after broadcast, which is considered unusual in Japanese media?
... that pianist Fujita Haruko, one of the first 19 female students enrolled at the University of Tokyo, was taught by Leo Sirota, who was once called the "god of piano"?
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