Tokyo Culture

Tokyo’s culture divides between what survived from Edo and what the twentieth century invented.

Edo inheritance

The woodblock print, ukiyo-e, was a mass-market Edo product — actors, courtesans, landscapes, sold cheaply — and it changed European painting when it reached Paris. Kabuki and rakugo, the seated comic storytelling form, both still play in Tokyo theatres, and sumo holds three of its six annual tournaments here.

Manga and anime

An industry of enormous scale and genuine cultural weight, not a niche: manga accounts for a large share of all printed matter sold in Japan, and the animation studios have been internationally influential for decades. Nakano and Akihabara are where the subculture is visible.

Food

Tokyo holds more Michelin stars than any other city, and the more interesting fact is the depth beneath that — a standard of sushi, ramen, tempura, soba and yakitori in ordinary places that would be exceptional anywhere else.

Design and craft

Stationery, knives, ceramics, textiles and packaging, all taken seriously, and a shop for each.

The bath

The neighbourhood sento is a surviving piece of Edo social life: you wash thoroughly seated at a tap before entering the water, which is shared and very hot, and the mural of Mount Fuji on the wall is traditional. Numbers have fallen sharply as flats acquired their own bathrooms, but several hundred still operate and they remain one of the easiest ways into ordinary Tokyo.

Music and nightlife

Jazz kissa, tiny live houses, and the six-seat bars of Golden Gai.