Tokyo fashion

There are plenty of highly eccentric clothing to be found in Japan. To perhaps the largest degree in the world, form is separated from content. Thus, you can get away with wearing articles which could potentially get you into serious trouble in an European setting.


Witness this gentleman in a Harajuku shopping street:


On a wholly different level, wearing something like this could get you into a wholly different kind of trouble!

Gizmos and gadgets

Lots of small useful stuff around that at least I haven't seen elsewhere, if anyone knows of existing instances in Europe, let me know! Like this little charger for mobile phones. Very cheap and available at all 24-hour convenience stores, prevents awkward "didnt-have-power-in-mobile"-situations, like in Osaka when I forgot the regular mains-charger in Tokyo.


This is a DIY-machine for printing digital photos. Accepts input through compact flash, SD-ram, memory sticks and several other formats. Touch screen for easy selection of photos, numbers and size. Prints within a minute. Handy when you can't/won't be bothered going to a regular shop.

Kawaii Police

A glaring example of the culture of cute (kawaii) that predominates in Japan. Affecting even the symbol of the police force organising the crowds for the 2nd of January appearance of the Emperor at the Imperial Palace.

Cute is good, anything cute is positive. From the enormous Hello Kitty-phenomenon (even with gothic lolita edition as seen below), drawings in instruction manuals, women affecting child-like tonality of speech to road signs - cute rules. And of course the culture of cute has huge commercial power in the crowd mentality of Japan Inc. Cute sells. A lot.

I am stil not sure whether to regard this as good or bad, but very Japan it is!