michael john grist

Everybody loves something from Japanese culture- whether it’s the manga, the doll-girls, the bushido way, Mr. Miyagi, Sony, Hello Kitty, haiku, cos-play, Asimo, sumo, the Prius, onsen hot springs, Godzilla, Doraemon, Miyazaki or whatever. They’ve got a helluva lot of culture in this ancient-yet-modern country, and here on this page you can see a slice or two of the pie.

Scott and Makiko’s Wedding	Mike in the Black Diamond Music Video	Mike and Kumi’s Wedding
2 weeks ago my good friend Scott and his long-time girlfriend Makiko had a traditional Japanese wedding ceremony, in a hotel up in Niigata. I say ‘had a ceremony’ rather than ‘got married’ because of course- as things are done here in Japan- you get married first in secret at a local ward office, just by signing some papers.	On Monday I got a call from Yaco, a fluent-in-English casting agent who was urgently looking for background extras to take part in an all-night music video shoot on Wednesday with 2 mega famous J-pop starlets, Namie Amuro and Double.Of course, I said yes, count me in!	Last month my friend Canadian Mike had his wedding ceremony. It was held in Meiji Jingu- the huge central shrine in Harajuku right next to Yoyogi Park. I was invited to the ceremony, which is often reserved for only family, or family and just a few friends.
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Meiji Memorial Gallery	F-line Shibuya Station	Zoshigaya Cemetary
The Meiji Gallery in Aoyama Itchome holds 80 works of art depicting scenes from the life of Emperor Meiji (1852-1912), half painted in the Japanese style and half in a Western style, each about 3 meters square and really quite stunning.	The new subway station on the F-line in Shibuya is remarkably large, spacious, and modern. It reminds me of the subway system in Washington D.C. for all its brushed concrete blocks and cavernous oval underground spaces.	The other day I took a stroll over to Zoshigaya Cemetary, one stop down the Arakawa street-car line from where I live. Soseki Natsume the Japanese novelist (he wrote ‘I am a Cat’ and ‘Kokoro’) is buried there.
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Zoshigaya	Gundam Statue	Taro Okamoto’s Museum
Zoshigaya is the area I live in. It’s a residential area which the large city-looping Meiji Dori flanks on the western edge. To the north is Ikebukuro and to the south Takadanobaba. It has a shrine- Kishimojindo, and the very large and famous Zoshigaya Cemetary.	I’ve always loved Transformers- so when I heard about this bronze 3 meter tall statue of a Gundam robot in front of a nearby train station: Kami Igusa (upper soft reed) in Suginami-ku (cedar avenue city), I knew I had to make the pilgrimage.	To be honest- Taro Okamoto’s art didn’t do much for me. It’s all splashy colors, abstract, bright, with evocative titles and some recognisable motifs. The sculpture I liked- but again, just one or two ideas (for example: the moon-sun face from the Tower of Sun is very common in his work).
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