Nagai Kafu 1936

No one will deny that Tokyo, or Edo as it was once named, has changed; that the frantic modern city is overwhelming. Tokyo's dynamics easily distract the eye away from most things considered ordinary and its demands easily disrupt the pace of life. Unfortunately, these distractions that now capture so much attention are only a small part of the real fabric of life in today's Tokyo.

In between the stress and bursts of energy, lie brief moments when the ordinary reveals itself, shown not in the life of Tokyo "the city" but in the lives of the twelve million people who make up Tokyo. And though the quiet may be gone, these short yet mysterious moments in the "new" pace of Tokyo not only tell so much of the reality and mood of contemporary life in Modern Day Edo but also show that the sad harmony once written about by writers like Nagai Kafu may still exist.

— Greg Constantine