A few months after I arrived in Japan I noticed just how important space was in Tokyo. Beyond the obvious limitations afforded by a capital city with an extremely dense population, I started to notice how the management of space was also central to how a lot of things are done in this town - not just flats and habitations.

The impact of space, or lack of it, on how people live is the most obvious aspect of this, evident to anyone who comes here and spends a small amount of time looking at how and where people live. Coming from London, one of the things I’ve missed the most in my time living in Tokyo is house parties. Simply put they rarely happen in Tokyo, and when they do they’re not on the scale they are back in Europe. Instead people go out and party in an izakaya, a club or a karaoke booth. It’s fun but after a while it’s just not the same as a good old house party.

In a city where every bit of land is seemingly up for grabs, where doors appear in the most unimaginable locations and shops and entertainment are all located upwards of the street level, the limitations of space also impact the inside of flats, houses and public spaces. In terms of flats, and smaller offices, you end up realising soon enough that while space seems to be lacking there is always a way to make things fit. And the Japanese have developed a knack, and countless products, to help make the management of space inside cramped spaces as easy as possible.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: crazy, Japan, people, push men, space, tetris, Tokyo, trains

May 21st is the date of the next installment of BTC, now a bi-monthly all nighter affair held on the third wednesday of the month. And it’s also my last BTC for the foreseeable future, so I’ll borrow from Skepta’s lyrics book and ask ‘Are you dumb?’ No? good cos you’d better get your ass down there, it’s a celebration bishes.

I’ll be doing a back to back set with the man like Ske for the occasion while 100 Mado rocks it back to back with ENA and Goth Trad does his usual ting of murdering the dancefloor. As for the live end of things, we’ve got Skyfish and Chinza Dopeness doing what they do best in fine combination style and Dokkebi Q dropping a live set! And seeing as these guys are living in London and not Tokyo, I’d say this makes the occasion a special one if it wasn’t already.

Full details are below. The venue is Club Asia, ladies are free till 1am, and there shall be bass and funky shit, a lot of it, truss. See you there! Peep the BTC blog for more and all that jazz. Oh yeah and there’s also a BTC Facebook group for the FB massive out there.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: back to chill, clubs, dubstep, goth trad, Japan, mad rave, Music

I know I’ve been saying I was gonna start writing again properly for the last 4 months. So I’ll stop saying it. Instead I’ll do what every good blogger does, which is take inspiration from someone else’s work to knock up something of my own. Well kind of…

In this case I’ve actually been meaning to write about the cult of the cute in Japan for a while, but like most other things I haven’t gotten round to it. And considering I’m leaving the country in six weeks, I should really get my arse in gear and play catch up.

Back to the matter at hand. Japan’s love of cute, also known as かわいい　(pronounced kawaii - emphasis on the last i sound please). I was browsing the Sushimatic blog about an hour ago, and came across this post, which speaks for itself in terms of how far the whole cute thing can sometimes be taken in this country.

Thing is Japan really has this weird thing going on with cute. How a foreigner picks up on it depends on the person by and large, but regardless of your degree of ‘immunity’, sooner or later it really starts to stick out like a sore thumb. It’s not entirely exagerated either, as Sushimatic pointed out. There is probably a certain degree of difference depending on who’s speaking on it, but by and large Japan very much seems to hold dear the belief that everything can be ‘cute-d up’ and that making something cute can make it easier to ‘process’.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: cute, Japan, kawaii, signs, society