Neon platforms with clashing patterned tights and backpack. I must try harder to look good.

I was impressed with these neon platform shoes, with clashing patterned tights and backpack on the platform of the JR Nakano station. Tokyo fashion inspires me to try harder.

Sexy acrobat in Koenji

This past weekend Koenji hosted a street fair with dozens of performances happening outside the station and along the shopping streets. It’s called Bikkuri Daidogei, or Surprising Street Performance Festival. Since it was a performance, I took the opportunity to admire this sexy acrobat. The neediness of street performers, craving public attention, certainly draws me in. Plus, I love creative makeup.

The Party is Over, or is it just starting?

I love how Japan is always pioneering feminine entertainment. The Party is Over is a new TV series about five fantasy dates with intensively groomed men.

For the past week, Tokyo’s JR stations have been blanketed with advertisements for this new series available only on the mobile phone channel Bee TV. They are bringing the ikemen of television onto the pocket screen.

Surely one of my readers is watching this feminine entertainment? The first date is with Narimiya Hiroki 成宮 寛貴, the last with my favorite canned coffee idol Koide Keisuke 小出 恵介. The husband likes best Takaoka Sousuke 高岡蒼甫 (his birthday is tomorrow!), he’s date #3 or top right in the photo below.

Here’s the online version of the billboard at the top of the post. It’s brilliant that the image is arranged to focus your attention only on the men. Doesn’t it help you feel like these are *your* dates?

Marui Nakano opens tomorrow!

Marui Nakano is re-opening in its new building tomorrow, January 28. I admit I am pretty excited for this burst of renewal on the south side of the JR Nakano station.

They are advertising a Tokyo Hands. I hope they’ll also have Le Petit Mec, their great French bakery, or the Italian gelato store (both at Marui’s Shinjuku San Chome store). Will there be a food court in the basement?

I took this photo a few weeks ago, and marveled at the pride of the construction workers who line up their super-clean equipment in front of Nakano’s only department store.

Bunny is crying because she’s pregnant with a baby bicycle!

This sign at the JR Nakano station really had me wondering what has happened to my beloved ward. This station, far more than the Seibu Shinjuku or Marunouchi lines, is the heartbeat that animates our local lives.

Poor Bunny is at once crying and carrying a big stick, while this bicycle is stuck in her transparent womb.

If Bunny can be violated, what could happen to us mere mortals? Should I be concerned about my safety, too?

Train bento with train fetish

Yes, transit is very sexy. At least to me. I love how this bento, sold at at the train station, celebrates JR, the national railway. That’s a lot of healthy goodness for 1,000 yen.

JR Characters (3 of 3)

Enough long discussions and outre-looks. Here’s a pleasing image of more prosaic fashion on the JR Nakano platform. The hair may be diminutive, but the men’s handbags certainly aren’t! Ah, Nakano, you are so loveable!

JR Characters (1 of 3)

JR Nakano station is always a people-watching pleasure. Less self-conscious than Harajuku and less desperate than Shibuya, Nakano’s station attracts the hip, the funky, and the downright strange. This is the first in a 3 part series of JR characters.

I love how nonchalant is this lady wearing a sparkly pink top, fluorescent blue skirt, several handbags, and a hat that will not stop. Japanese are so polite that no one stared, and I was the only one who immediately pulled out my camera.

The hat is a marvelous creation. Perched on top of the main quilted, multi-patterned hat, which nearly obscures her (?) face, there is a blue sequin mini-hat, pink butterfly wings, many feathers, a stuffed lady bug, and an over-sized candy inside a rolled up wrapper.

What other objects do you think would go with this hat?

Random Nakano men

Who are these well-coiffed young men hanging outside the Nakano JR station? Nakano is perfect for people watching.

Station agent, mask, machines

Rushing home on the last train Saturday night, I noticed this station agent, surrounded by machines and protecting himself (or protecting others) with his mask. There’s something undeniably moe about authority, masks and machines in one frame.