Tokyo never ends. From the plane I divided the light horizon and invaded me a feeling of Congoja in the face of such immensity. Shortly after I took my first steps in a Japan that I had imagined many times. Soil, Everything seems more human, Because the world is more accessible walking and onkio's sidewalks I understood that the journey began right there, at that precise moment. I felt that I woke up from a lethargy 6 years, that returned to my natural state of new cities, of unpublished odors, that returned to the routine of the surprising. The night gave us the exact temperature to feel welcome and then the ritual of first impressions began: cars circulate on the other side, The letters cease to be letters, The buildings are higher, the lowest men and the most prolific streets.
I felt that I woke up from a lethargy 6 years, that returned to my natural state of new cities
It was enough to enter the hotel room to confirm the novelty. A zen decoration, A kimono on the bed and an extraterrestrial wáter, padded and hot that could emit different splash of water according to the sensitivity of each. So I spent my first night, Tightening buttons or spattered in bed with a kimono.
We load our camera teams like who goes to war and we introduce ourselves in the Asakusa neighborhood, where every May the Sanja Festival is celebrated. Several temples form the religious enclosure that remains oblivious to the world of cement that surrounds it. Sanja is an ancestral illusion in a city that tends towards the future. The Recrea Legends Festival of other times that mix Buddhist and Shinto rites.
Hundreds of devotees carry sacred relics, With a fervor comparable to that of the brotherhoods of the Andalusian Holy Week. Also here the honor of loading each of the figures are vehement. The crowd surrounds the relics while the carriers pull their own steps. Many of them did it without pants, I think that to recreate some legend that I did not quite understand.
Yeray stood out among the multitude of faithful who gathered there. He managed to plant the tripod by holding the crowd's onslaught. Paul lost in the Japanese current with a second camera. I ventured to make the first post of the documentary, While the police separated us all from the road to relics. We were recording temples all morning, EMPJECTS AND TYPES IN BROWNS.
We were recording temples all morning, EMPJECTS AND TYPES IN BROWNS.
We had not tried our first sushi and we already had the experience of one of the most visceral festivals in Japan. In the afternoon we met a more recognizable tokyo. The Shibuya neighborhood is observed upwards, because attention is deviated without remedy to digital screens, giant, From which publicists overwhelm the citizen with soft drinks, Horter musical shampoos or videos. Down, anthill. Observing the zebra crossings one begins to understand Japanese society, To understand its diligence when crossing avenues, its haste contained in a red traffic light. Below yet, In the subsoil, The order of the tide is more evident. Millions of people travel every morning in a meter loaded with digital tablets and frown. No one speaks, It is the stealth of a crowd that venerates the sacred time of going to the office. The commitment to work is perceived before their day begins.
Yeray and I descended the mechanical stairs to try to capture the honorable procession of souls that do not dare to answer the phone in public places so as not to disturb the neighbor, That trajín without pushing, That robotic education.
You might think that in a city where reigns the order and reverence as a greeting, discretion is the usual pattern of its inhabitants, but there, just there, the most disconcerting part of the city begins.
While a bag broker adjusts the tie in an elevator to the plant 64, A young man with leather jacket dyes the orange bangs, An old man looks like a Scottish skirt at a modern art festival and a schoolgirl compulsively reads a manga comic where someone tries to load the planet. And all live with an overwhelming naturalness. It may be simply that what we call eccentricity, They call it respect.
What we call eccentricity, They call it respect.
And in each behavior, In each other than renowned family there is a deep sense of social conscience. Each Japanese is part of a group of 126 millions of people and sacrifices their self for everyone's. It is not a feeling of civism, not a way of understanding the public as a shared space, It is something else. Being part of this society is imperative and the dishonor of the failure or shame of the road causes a collective rejection that in many cases ends up launching the unworthy from the plant 33 of a hotel. The suicide index is one of the highest in the world in a country that aspires to shared happiness.
And that explains a fact that for days had intrigued me: In Tokyo there are no bins.
There is no bin, There is no container throughout the country to throw a paper. And there are no sidewalks in the cleanest world or asphalt more shiny. A guide explained how such a paradox was possible: "Garbage is private, You take it home ». Once again social conscience. The street is also your neighbor, And the most consistent way to respect him is not sharing with him your waste.
Relieved for having resolved the enigma of the bins, I thought it was a good time to fight with a huge guy in a great fight. We wanted to bring our cameras closer to this sport, try to understand what is behind these fat men who carry, unjustifiable, A tiny thong in fighting. They received us in a Sumo school. Under no circumstances would I let me participate without the appropriate belt. The solemnity of the teachers and the discipline of the children moved any feeling of frivolity. The guys trained with a seriousness that made their outfit forget. Sumo is considered an art full of rituals that raise it to a much more honorable category than that of a game. I felt a great curiosity for that world of huge men - they didn't seem fat- pushing desperately. But curiosity is sometimes daring and almost without time to reconsider it, I found myself, for curious, Dressing the thong-one, in front of a teacher who challenged me about the sand of dohio, which is what is called the circle that marks the limit of glory or failure in a fight.
I got fired to fall back to the ground between children and their face of messing.
He received me without contemplation, as one more, And the fight lasted what he wanted. For me it was like trying to move a wall and at a given time -more or less thirty seconds after starting- The wall pushed me with an insolent ease and I was fired to fall back to the ground between the children and their faals of messing.
That afternoon, With a sincere back pain, We went to the Ryogoku Kokugikan stadium where the real fighting took place. In fact, In Tokyo one of the seven most important international events of this sport was being held. The fighters dwarfed the taxis in which they arrived acclaimed by the crowd. Most measured more than two meters high and perhaps also wide.
For an hour and a half we were witnessing human collisions, hundreds of kilos of meat colliding with an improper agility of that size. Then they rolled through the sand as dancers and the winner retired without a single grim of joy, As if the duty to win was much more serious than the victory itself.
Our first steps in Pacific They had been clean, sacros and even violent and we get a rare feeling from Tokyo. I still did not understand the country, so drastic in their differences, so little like nothing. And that bewilderment only feed my desire to continue touring Japan.
