Apart from a handful of areas, graffiti is remarkably rare in Tokyo’s cityscape, which makes this “Tokyo Zombie” motif all the more striking. I came across it near Ueno Station during one of my early-morning explorations. At the same time, “Tokyo Zombie” became a metaphor for something one might hardly expect in a city of this scale: At certain times of day, it is possible to wander through some neighbourhoods for hours with barely another person in sight. 
 

On those morning walks, I often felt like a “Tokyo Zombie” myself, drifting restlessly through deserted streets. The less noticed parts of the shitamachi districts around Ueno and Asakusa, industrial wastelands in Arakawa and residential blocks in Sumida: this photo book shows neither the hypermodern, polished metropolis nor the “Shōwa-era” Tokyo celebrated on social media. Instead, it focuses on the city’s margins and vacant spaces, its “anti-places” and the often over-looked “city in between”.


A publication in the Tokyo Bento series  
Edition of six Zines in a polystyrene sushi container

36 pages, digital print
Print run: 6 copies
2026, printed in Japan