Takeshita Dori, always a pedestrian zoo (Photo: Christopher Jue)

(Writer: Neil White)

Fashions vary greatly with the mainstream donning the labels of the day in the styles seen in teeny bopper mags sold at convenience stores all over Japan. A handful go ‘ regular alternative’ with Lolita types rubbing shoulders with Goths, wannabe princesses mixing it up with masked boys and girls dressed more like members of the respective opposite sex!

And then, there are the oddballs! The folk that make the Goths and the Lols look mainstream. A couple of hundred meters away from the main entrance of Takeshita Dori, up the slope leading to Meiji Shrine a small bridge on the right with a wide sidewalk plays host to some of the weirdest and wackiest of ‘fashion’ varieties ever seen in Japan.

Only here, just outside the main gate to a shrine connected to the Emperor whose reign opened up Japan can you see schoolgirls decked out in wedding dresses with blood dripping from the corner of one mouth – as they clutch a favorite teddy bear, adult men in authentic schoolgirl outfits (sold nearby in sixes ranging to men’s XL), vampire lookalikes, and more punk-meets-girl next door types than you will ever see gathered in one place again.

And only here in the city of Tokyo are you free to snap away, ask the youngsters dressed to the nines to pose, and perhaps even stand alongside you as you obtain for nothing the quintessential ‘modern day Tokyo’ pictorial alternative to a bona fide postcard of the nation’s capital.