Tokyo on Foot

Read Harder Task #8: Read a travel memoir

I wanted to read this because I went to Japan for work last year, but I only got to spend a few hours in Tokyo and I wished I'd gotten to see more. The cover describes this as a “graphic memoir” - the author/artist is a French dude whose significant other had an internship in Japan for six months, so he spent his time drawing the different neighborhoods and people he saw. So I guess it counts as both a travel book and a memoir, and I'm going to count it. The artwork is lovely and very informative, and really captures the feel I got from my short stay (and my slightly-longer visits in Osaka and Kyoto).

I think the reason I don't want to give it more stars is because I was kind of expecting a memoir to be more narrative. There are occasional comments about his day-to-day, but as far as I can tell they're not in date order (the book is arranged by neighborhood), and much more of the book is devoted to drawing things he saw: houses, skylines, people, maps of the various neighborhoods, advertisements, and kobans (police stations, which designated the start of each new neighborhood included). I think I wish it had been more linear, and included more of his life, and not just that of everyone around him.