You know how being from a place colors your perspective of a place? A few years ago I asked friends who were not American and had lived in Tokyo, Dehli and London before moving to NYC if NYC was really odd or if it's a big city thing and they unequivocally were like no we see real weird shit here.
Because internet: this is not me saying any of the above cities is worse. I havent even been to Tokyo. It was an honest question posed to friends. And the best city in the world is the one you enjoy living in 😘
Having lived in Tokyo nearly half my life now, NYC is *far* weirder, and the wild part is how that weirdness is just Out There On The Streets and everyone just rolls with it.
Tokyo's weirdness is structured and sanitized, NYC's weirdness is 100% chaos magic that cannot be replicated.
I'm reminded of when a friend showed me around Akiba and he denoted that the boundaries of the Otaku Zone are extremely firm - on the other side of a certain street it's 100% normie zone, no dropoff.
I think about that a lot when thinking about "weird Tokyo".
The edges there are a bit blurrier these days - especially as new shops filter into whatever buildings have the cheapest rent - but yes. Everything's allowed as long as it's contained in its little box, just like how there's relatively little LGBTQ presence past the Shinjuku Nichome 'gayborhood.'
