Mondo Tokyo - BookWyrm

Paperback, 218 pages

English language

Published by Sutherland House Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-990823-29-9

Tokyo, in the early aughts, was a weird place. Lonely single men wanted to marry action figures instead of women. High school girls worked at maid cafes and were paid to act like Manga characters. Nightclubs filled with kids in anime cosplay who danced to remixed versions of cartoon theme songs. People’s private obsessions, once confined to bedrooms and computer screens, were transforming entire city blocks. Long before global media, Pharrell Williams, and millions of tourists twigged to the strange new energy emerging from Japan, author Patrick Macias was there, chronicling the emergence of “Cool Japan” in a famous blog entitled “An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla.” Now with biting humor and cultural insight, he looks back on the trends, personalities, and happenings that dominated the bleeding edge of Japanese pop culture in those years. You’ll meet maids who imitate Michael Jackson, anime producers sent to prison for …

Tokyo, in the early aughts, was a weird place. Lonely single men wanted to marry action figures instead of women. High school girls worked at maid cafes and were paid to act like Manga characters. Nightclubs filled with kids in anime cosplay who danced to remixed versions of cartoon theme songs. People’s private obsessions, once confined to bedrooms and computer screens, were transforming entire city blocks. Long before global media, Pharrell Williams, and millions of tourists twigged to the strange new energy emerging from Japan, author Patrick Macias was there, chronicling the emergence of “Cool Japan” in a famous blog entitled “An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla.” Now with biting humor and cultural insight, he looks back on the trends, personalities, and happenings that dominated the bleeding edge of Japanese pop culture in those years. You’ll meet maids who imitate Michael Jackson, anime producers sent to prison for guns and drugs, school girls determined to resurrect surf rock, nightclubbers who worship “uncool foreigners,” and all manner of wide-eyed ex-pats, weirdoes, and dreamers who came to Tokyo in search of a stranger, more surreal version of life.

1 edition

ogd5XOt reviewed Mondo Tokyo by Patrick Macias

Curated Posts from An American-in-Japan Blog

4 stars

This book is a selection of posts from the author's now-defunct blog (he still blogs, just at a different service). There's no narrative thread tying the blogs together, just a specific theme.

As with any book of essays (blog posts), it can feel pretty disjoint. The blog posts are generally brief and you can easily work your way through half a dozen in one sitting. Many of the posts are not especially well written and the lack of a single, common theme can make it a little difficult to keep focus at times.

With that being said, the book is never not entertaining. Patrick has a breezy writing style and a sense of humor. Japan's culture appears pretty quirky to outsiders, and it's under-culture, even more so. The author has found himself in interesting places talking with interesting people, and the book gives me the feel of taking …

This book is a selection of posts from the author's now-defunct blog (he still blogs, just at a different service). There's no narrative thread tying the blogs together, just a specific theme.

As with any book of essays (blog posts), it can feel pretty disjoint. The blog posts are generally brief and you can easily work your way through half a dozen in one sitting. Many of the posts are not especially well written and the lack of a single, common theme can make it a little difficult to keep focus at times.

With that being said, the book is never not entertaining. Patrick has a breezy writing style and a sense of humor. Japan's culture appears pretty quirky to outsiders, and it's under-culture, even more so. The author has found himself in interesting places talking with interesting people, and the book gives me the feel of taking a walking tour of Tokyo with a local who has lived there for years.

If you've every found yourself meandering around Shinjuku or Akihabara and wondered what the funky looking sign for the seedy shop on the fourth floor of a building of shops actually meant - but were too chicken to wander up and see for yourself - you'd enjoy much of what's written here.

Subjects

Japan
Tokyo
Nonfiction