Here’s the segment I did for NHK World’s TOKYO EYE program, as part of their “My Private Tokyo” series, on the pocket parks of Higashi-Ikebukuro (I wrote about the show here, and have photos of each here). As you can see, the idea here was to be a bit more wacky, which helps explain my, huh, “genki” demeanor.
Category: TV • Tokyo Walking
Jean Snow lives and breathes design and pop culture in Tokyo -- sustained by an unhealthy addiction to magazines and frequent visits to his favorites cafes. He has reported on these obsessions for the following online/offline publications: Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, Tokyo Q, Superfuture, OK Fred, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, I.D. (International Design), Metropolis, Azure, MoCo Loco, Kateigaho International Edition, Game|Life, and The Japan Times. He also manages the gallery space at Cafe Pause.
The Superfuture Superguides are a series of PDF travel guides to some of your favorites cities, updated monthly, and obsessively compiling the best places to shop, eat, and drink. The Tokyo guide is edited by Jean Snow.
Jean Snow is a regular contributor to Wired magazine's game blog, Game|Life, covering daily game news from Japan and beyond.
He is also the design/culture editor at Neojaponisme, a web journal covering social and cultural aspects of Japan. Read the manifesto, by founder and chief editor W. David Marx, here.
PauseTalk is a regular series of events that take place at Cafe Pause on the first Monday of every month, with a start time of 20:00. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can get together and discuss their own projects, as well as cultural currents of the city. The next edition happens June 2.
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Holy Jesus mother of god. You look so pretty in there.
Hahahaha…
Aww you’re so genki! The background music is really funny too… I think I recognize some of it from a videogame.
oh jean you’re like a little cute bishonen. are you really married, to a woman?? Too bad!
This makes me want to return to Tokyo so bad… I guess I would spent days and days, just wandering around aimlessly to find places like these. Very nice! I’m looking forward to more segments like this one!
Oh! I remembered what game the music is from! The music for the “Nikko Shrine Gate” park is from Loco Roco for PSP.
LOCO ROCO, yeah! That’s such a great game. I’m really excited that they’re making a follow-up for the PS3.
affraid of heights? You were like 1 meter above ground…haha…
Hehehe… Oh well, you know, trying to make it fun.
Hahaha!
Fantastic. Glad you could share it.
“I think I’ll prefer the catfish, but that’s another story, haha”
Now that’s a bit odd…
nice jean.
did you choose the background music? I noticed Rei Harakami playing in both the Pocket park and the Naka Meguro clips you made
good choice!
No, I don’t have anything to do with the editing (including the sound editing). Actually, for the piece on architecture, they put in some Cornelius and Rei Harakami.
I saw some of the backlogs of this series with a different host, and I really like and appreciate the direction you’re taking with the series (chic japan as opposed to cliche otaku japan)
Hopefully the architecture clip will be on youtube eventually so I can watch it.
Unfortunately, as I wrote in my post about last week’s show, I won’t be able to put it on YouTube because of the exclusive nature of some of the included spaces.
Parks?
Unique and interesting?
It looks sad….