A young woman plays the shamisen while seated next to a hibachi (火鉢), a portable charcoal brazier. The metal chopsticks are for handling the charcoal, burning on a thick insulating layer of ash.
A stunning New Year card for Gifu’s Great Exhibition of Rapid Japanese Progress of 1936. During the 1900s–1930s, many Japanese New Year cards were designed by top artists who created a golden age of card design.
I discovered three extremely rare, unidentified, and unknown photos of Jūnisō from the 1860s. Read the story about this extraordinary find.
This visual chronology uses rare images to show how Nishi-Shinjuku’s Jūnisō Pond changed between the 1860s and 1960s. Maps display the viewpoints.
Tank production at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 1944. The Japanese militarism of the 1930s and 1940s initially benefited geisha districts like Jūnisō’s. But in the end it blasted most into oblivion.
Shinjuku in the early 1920s. A railway and population explosion turned it into a thriving modern city. Jūnisō, no longer rural and remote, now became a geisha district, delighting some, enraging others.