Take a moment, and imagine urban Japan of the future. Did you picture corporate-branded smart cities, driverless cars zipping about high-rises and vertical farms, all against a backdrop of distant hills with drones hovering over rice fields, small green patches within the niches of yet another mega-solar power plant — a society apparently humming along...
As Tokyo readied itself to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, its most infamous postwar red-light district, Kabukicho, was surprisingly proactive in welcoming a growing number of international visitors. Boasting new large-scale hotels, capsule hotels created for salarymen now reinvented as low-cost options for tourists, and multi-language menus ubiquitous at local restaurants, enthusiastic efforts by...
Fantastical spaces, they are ubiquitous in contemporary Japanese literature, hidden, secluded, guarded, and with secretive and limited access, altogether reinforcing then ethereal and labyrinthe quality. A fantastical space resembles and yet varies from the everyday world we experience. This setting resonates with fantasy being the unseen culture, but also emphasizes on the boundaries and hence...