Believing that cities are mirrors reflecting the times and the spirit of the times, good or bad, I've long been photographing them. Setting my eye from this viewpoint on Tokyo, where I was born and have been prowling about with a camera for more than30 years, I strongly feel that this ever-sprawling capital of Japan is just like a chaotic "toybox." One of my friends who is conversant with the world's 10 largest cities once told me, "Tokyo is the most haphazard city in the world," adding, "I can hardly understand why you are so interested in such a vulgar place!" To be sure, compared with the beautiful streets of European cities with their wealth of historic vestiges, Tokyo is badly lacking in harmony with the past and utterly devoid of regularity both in terms of color and structural design. Newly constructed buildings seem to have all been designed arbitrarily, with little attention paid to integration with their surroundings. What is more, demolition and construction are perpetually under way inall corners of the metropolis, making Tokyo seem as if caught up in an incessant cycle of destruction and rebirth. This is, however, the very reason I cannot help but have an inexpressible affection for Tokyo, a place which as a whole looks to me as ifit were a gigantic living thing.
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