The Meiji Restoration brought to power a new government after 1868 and ushered in a period of modern transformation in Japan. The sites of greatest change were cities, especially Edo, renamed Tokyo or "Eastern Capital" once the emperor was moved there from Kyoto. Tokyo became the epitome of modern spectacle as the urbanscape underwent the growing pains of modernization. The political and economic center of an emerging world power, Tokyo sported a cosmopolitan face even as it retained some of the character of Edo neighborhoods and the flavor of early modern social life.

Popular cultural activities, too, saw changes as well as continuities. The diversions and entertainments of the old sakariba ("flourishing places" such as the theater district, shopping areas, pleasure quarters, sideshows and street vendors, etc.) lingered on and transformed with the times. The two places that capture most vividly the moderniztion of sakariba were the Ginza and Asakusa. In many respects, the activities among the crowds they attracted represented a range of urban popular culture which flourished in a modern "floating world." While the main drag of the Ginza gained the reputation as being the most cosmopolitan place to see and be seen, Asakusa had the deeper Edo roots under its glitz of stage shows, movie houses, and caberet-crawling crowds.

In this PopSite you will cruise the streets and cafés of the Ginza to provide some visual context to your reading of During the Rains, which follows the plight of a Ginza café girl, and of Naomi, whose eponymous heroine becomes consumed by modern consumption. You will also stroll among the crowds of Asakusa Sixth District, an entertainment center and home of the "Twelve Storeys" until its demise in the Great Kantô Earthquake on September 1, 1923. After your cruising, stroll on over to PopThought 1.