08/21/23: TOKYO SPEED RUN

Mahalo and arigato, y'all.

Aug 21, 2023

Hey y’all,

Not that it makes up for the big pause between posts but— I’ve got a long one for you today. I’m fresh off of a really great trip to Hawaii and across the Pacific Ocean to Japan. The kind of bucket list excursion that left an inspirational impression just when I needed it.

Today I’m focusing on Japan but— my complete gratitude goes out to Comic Con Honolulu for making the first leg of the trip happen. I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting a more hospitable audience, or been gifted so much delicious food. Y’all live in a paradise and deserve every ray of sunshine.

Speaking of Hawaii— My heart goes out to all the folks in Maui who are suffering in the wake of the wild fires. I hope to organize kind of benefit art raffle— but please give to relief efforts if you can.

“TOKYO SPEED RUN… “

I can’t say I’ve ever had a concrete reason for my desire to visit Japan.

It’s a point I only make because, for a lot of people, I know it’s bucket list stuff. And folks who’d made it happen had been extolling the virtues of the trip for years.

The comics centric members of that group would often obsess over Japan’s cultural sights and eccentricities. Libraries of brain-melting manga. Anime and video games that seem as if they were plucked from an alternate reality.

And hey, I grew up obsessing over Street Fighter and Otomo and Samurai movies too. But honestly, as neat as all that nerdy milieu sounded— it was more or less what I’d heard about Europe. Stories of a faster, better, stronger comics culture that turned out to be— well, a life-changing privilege to experience for sure…. but a reality that was also somehow both completely true AND a little fuzzy when it comes to accuracy.

So while the idea of sifting through a bunch of dusty books while on vacation didn’t seem all that appealing— there was also sushi. Sushi had an argument. And the foodies mounted it.

“Japan has the best pizza.”

“The best whisky.”

“The best coffee.”

“When they take on a thing—

They take it far as anyone possibly can.”

It’s the suggestion of that cultural obsession for curiosity that awakened my own. A place where people treat their jobs as an art form sounded like it held a lot of potential for inspiration.

So, after 7 years of scuttled plans and excuses— my comics had put me in a Hawaiian Paradise. With my East Coast jet lag defeated, all that now stood between me and the biggest city in the world was 3 free days, 8 hours in a plane, and a 19-hour time jump across the international dateline.

If you’re going to take on a thing—

Take it as far as ~~anyone~~ you possibly can.

“My main advice for Tokyo is eat absolutely everything you can get your hands on.”

-text from a veteran gaijin.

Look, I’m no Anthony Bourdain.

After wading wide eyed and lost through the Times Square meets a Comicon of Shinjuku’s center, my first meal in Japan came from a late night hot bar at the 7-Eleven in the bottom of the Godzilla themed Toho Tower. An experience I won’t spoil just yet. But take note that I made a note of it.

Anyway, with a solid nap and the international dateline having flipped my sleep schedule to Daywalker— My pal Polly and I hit the streets at sunrise, eager to explore a bustling megalopolis. What we found was a sleeping giant. Barren streets, populated almost exclusively by the crews that gave this sprawling chaos its daily mani-pedi. Desperately in need of a direction, we began a slow trek toward the first available caffeine.

KOFFEE MAMEYA is a small, signless coffee bar in Harajuku.

The kind of place that shares the elegant, brutalist design and size of the Death Star exhaust port. And though it came as highly recommended as possible, I expected high-end coffee. Nothing more.

What I got was lucky. As we ducked into the shady little alcove— there were a scant two parties (both North Americans) ahead of us, ordering from a standing bar. The only coffee cup-friendly structure of any sort available to customers. Patrons who we could tell were encouraged to take their time enjoying as many recommended, personalized coffees as they like. Queue be damned.

As we waited, Polly snapped photos through the thin rectangular window in the blessedly cold concrete wall behind us. A coffee armory. Wherein a couple of white-jacketed technicians prepped ammo for the pair of super soldier baristas at the counter.

Meanwhile, one of those baristas rapped about the Toronto Bluejays with a white guy on a solo migration from Canada. The other gently guided young newlyweds in minor league ball caps through a training wheels coffee 101.

Despite all of this, I expected pushback. That silly kind of record store clerk energy you often feel in places like this back home.

That waxed-mustache-my-entire-identity-hinges-on-showing-you-that-you-don’t-know-shit-bout-this-here-kind of energy.

That mountain-goat-kicking-down-rocks/good luck-getting-off-this-crag-without-me energy.

What we got, was that sherpa gonna open your mother fuckin’ third eye energy.

A handsome, soft-spoken young man, who, with the gentle nuzzle of a gazelle teaching its fawn to stand, guided us through a simple, organized menu. A chart of lighter, fruitier coffees gradually darkening and intersecting with darker, more bitter roasts. The kind of “wait, we can make the ketchup bottles upside down” eureka moment that me wonder why I’ve ever had to guess at what I’m ordering before.

It was an interview. An invitation to coffee.

No sales pitch. No pressure. No question too dumb.

And before any of us realized, two American rubes had gained us enough coffee learnin’ to possibly recreate an amazing cup of coffee in our own home. And all for the cost of a stateside morning coffee run.

The kind of experience I’ve rarely had with an expert of ANY kind.

Here were people who knew their craft inside out and never once did they act like that knowledge was theirs to gatekeep or horde. They gave of it freely. And seemed to enjoy that you enjoyed what they love.

Yes, it’s a very generalized reduction of a diverse and expansive culture— But as we bounced around Tokyo, the experience at KOFFEE MAMEYA wasn’t singular.

Culinarily overall— we probably screwed up as much as we got right. But what I’m here to testify, friends and neighbors, is that—it’s really, really, really hard to take a bad bite in Tokyo. Hell, despite the language barrier and our blunt, western “manners”— there wasn’t even a moment of bad customer service. Even Starbucks got it right, y’all. Starbucks.

It’s almost as if quality, and the competition it breeds there is infectious.

I’ve read it described as “Ikigai”— which roughly means: that which gives your life worth, meaning, or purpose. Sushi chefs who apply that kind of artistic devotion to their craft are called “Shokunin”.

I hazard that it sheds a little light on why Mangaka have been known to work such deadly hours. Or how Hayao Miyazaki can bundle such a bottomless and heartfelt imagination under the coat of a lovable grump.

I won’t say that I “felt seen". Or that I “get it”. Not exactly.

But I can see the edges of it. I can approach and aspire to it.

And that felt good. To know that investing in art, of any form, can make someone’s day.

Even 6,883 miles from home.

I’d say that’s plenty for this time. Next time I’ll talk, maybe even share comics again. I’ve got big plans in motion for more of those to start appearing here.

Hope y’all are doing as well as you can. Here’s everyone’s favorite Japan-o-phile and Golden Gai bar tab holder to play us out…