Tokyo: A vision of its other sides

Masatoshi Naito
Tokyo: A vision of its other sides

Photographs: Masatoshi Naito

Publisher: Super Labo

44 pages

Pictures: 25

Year: 2016

ISBN: 978-4-905052-95-1

Comments: Softcover (hand-shawn), double gatefold cover 28cm by 21,6cm. Doubletone Offset.Limited edition of 1000

For this book, Masatoshi Naito selected photographs by surveying all the negatives of a series in which the photographer extensively shot Tokyo's dark side from 1970 to 1985. None of the photographs in this book have been published before or included in his book, Tokyo: A Vision of Its Other Side (1985). This new book, compiled out of these unseen photographs and edited by Yasunori Hoki, the director of SUPER LABO, vividly portrays "the other side" of Tokyo in a different style from the previous publication and includes a new foreword written by Naito himself.

“In Tokyo, there are layers of sediment from diverse times. Tokyo today. Tokyo in the time of the post-war black-markets. Tokyo in the Edo period. A day of the people in Tokyo commonly begins with getting up in the morning and going to work. When the day's work is done, they go home after stopping by shopping streets or drinking bars. Nowadays, I see crowds of people flooding all over the Tokyo city area from morning to night. The crowds are always there, from the first train to the last train of the Yamanote Line, the Chuo Line, subways and various private railways. However, when the last trains are gone, along with the businessmen and women, students, and the workers of restaurants and bars, Tokyo is deserted, and the "other face of Tokyo" emerges. Somebody gathers food dumped by bars and restaurants. Another one picks up cardboard boxes and cans that may sell. There are people sleeping on the street. Some of them are drinking alcohol. Homeless people begin to act lively. Exactly, Tokyo as a "huge life form" reveals itself.”