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Tokyo Graffitti

It is a magazine about: Tokyo and the people who live here.

What I like about it: It is so gosh darn wholesome in a liberal way* without being preachy. You not only get to see what people are wearing, but also read via a marker-board and their own handwriting, what they are thinking. It at first glance looks like just another Street Snap fashion magazine, but after you work your way through it, it’s true charm comes out. It is a social survey of a publication that runs off of Photography- either as a catalog of faces and thoughts (one page for young hipsters, another for gaijin, one for young mothers or salary-men, religiously employed folks and old people), or through the element of time, where they will recreate a family snapshot with the same people in the same poses years later. A different take is when they have a snapshot of a man or woman taken years ago, and on the opposite page there will be a photograph of their son or daughter in the same pose in a similar location. This is also a text heavy magazine, so each photograph is accompanied with a lot of written information.

Photography: Straight, “New Color”- I don’t know what it is really called but imagine a “Rinko Kawaguchi meets William Eggleston” kind of color style. The photographs are not saturated and they are instead that kind of hip bluish greenish tone like you see in all those recent camera and photo (and other types of sophisticated living themes) magazines that are aimed at the 20 something Japanese Woman market. The photographs are intelligently made and most would have no problem being seen on a gallery wall. The monthly “Portrait of the Nuclear Family”photo, a full page photograph of a young father and mother in the tub with their newborn comes to mind.

General mood: Real respectful of people. I have yet to detect any of that stuck up irony that modern American publications seem to reek of. Like the photographs the magazine is open, fair, and beautiful. What other publication is going to take the time to show you the dreams in life of not only the harajuku hipster freetaa crowd, but also those Kabuki -cho hosts and Akihabara Otakus? And to do it with good taste for the right reasons, that’s why it’s worth buying each month.

Tokyo Graffiti: New Generation Magazine (monthly, 480 yen)

* In that it fairly treats same-sex couples like they are in true loving relationships. (gasp)