Word: asakusa
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Kitano is bemused by the attention. "They probably ran out of ideas," is his explanation for the invitation to exhibit at Fondation Cartier. Childhood is the show's theme, but Kitano warns that "Gosse de Peintre" is less Disneyland and more Hanayashiki Park - a fairground in Tokyo's Asakusa district that's "very old-fashioned and run down. It doesn't cost much, but it has its own unique beauty...
Think of it as the Japanese Mardi Gras. Held in May, the 350-year-old Sanja Matsuri festival brings 1.5 million revelers to Asakusa in eastern Tokyo to honor the three founders of the district's Sensoji - a Buddhist temple that is the city's oldest. The throng, more densely packed than any rush-hour train, is an unforgettable spectacle. Young and old are adorned in festive clothes, and pant with the effort of bearing dozens of mikoshi (portable shrines) through Asakusa's 44 residential blocks, while yakuza in loincloths proudly sport their full-body tattoos in a normally forbidden...
...Sanja Matsuri takes place on the third weekend of May. On the Friday prior, floats process to Asakusa Shrine, a Shinto place of worship close by Sensoji, for the binzasara no mai, or "harvest dance." The mikoshi parade comes the following day. Locals say that the more a shrine sways and shakes, the greater the gods' favor. The festival ends on Sunday, usually with a parade of the three mikoshi belonging to the local shrine. But because revelers became so rowdy last year - climbing on to the structures during the procession - for safety reasons the three mikoshi...
...Located in Tokyo's semiseedy entertainment district of Asakusa, the same streets that birthed Kitano's career, the Rokku-za strip theater has been XXX-rated since 1945, when its owners discovered what cable TV has since learned: even the dullest entertainment can be made palatable with toplessness. In the postwar years, the Rokku-za was a popular hangout for rebel intellectuals; now the club entertains sottish salarymen with nice Japanese girls and sultry Russians gyrating to pop ballads. This is, literally, Mama's house...
...become a fertile breeding ground for film and TV talent. Twenty-five-year-old Shinnosuke Ichikawa cultivates a parallel career as a TV-drama heartthrob, and 20-year-old rising star Shichinosuke Nakamura landed a supporting role in this year's Tom Cruise vehicle The Last Samurai. Tokyo's Asakusa Kokaido theater has capitalized on the trend by staging Kabuki plays showcasing younger actors. "They realize that people like Shido are the key to Kabuki's future," says critic Hagio...