Generally speaking, what matters in the streetwear bubble rarely has much, if any, relevance to the world at large; Stan Smiths aside, perhaps. But one thing that Supreme aficionados and most of the wider public can agree on is Japan – that it’s really fucking cool and worth visiting. Or so I was told by everyone that I know that had visited it, so I decided to go check it out for myself recently, and to be perfectly honest with you, I still haven’t washed the taste of disappointment out of my mouth.

I get that this is an unorthodox opinion. Since returning from my trip, most people that have asked me about it find it difficult to comprehend how I possibly could’ve been left underwhelmed by the experience. All the former visitors that I know thought it was incredible, an opinion that they’re quick to voice in the most gushing of terms should you ever even whisper the J-word.

I have never heard anyone express a negative opinion of the country, and, resultantly, I don’t know anyone that hasn’t been that doesn’t have a burning desire to go. It often seems as though there’s an equivocal consensus that Japan is objectively amazing. I realize now that a total absence of critical, balanced discourse swelled my expectations and ultimately set me up for disappointment. I feel like I should say something so the same thing doesn’t happen to you.

I guess that a big part of my disappointment with Japan has to do with the fact that I used to live in Singapore, so my touchdown point of Tokyo didn’t feel all that foreign or abstract to me. For those that haven’t been to Asia before, I imagine that it must feel like landing on Mars, but I’ve seen a fair bit of the continent so that abstract, foreign “wow” factor was replaced by a certain familiarity. Singapore and Tokyo are about as divergent as say, Brussels and Vienna or New York and Miami. There are differences, but many of them are only surface-deep, the fundamentals remain the same.

My trip also took me to Kyoto and Osaka, the first of which I liked: I’m not usually a fan of the quaint, and Kyoto was quaint to the point of cutesiness, but it felt different to what I had seen before. It retained its own sense of identity. Japan’s enthusiasm for Western culture, which often borders on rabid obsession, is well-documented and far more pronounced in Tokyo than in Kyoto. For me, this has watered down Tokyo’s feeling of authenticity – or at least an imagined Japanese “authenticity” that existed in my mind prior to my trip. It feels more like a monument to globalization, an internationalized hybrid city of the future where disparate cultural influences bleed into one. This has its benefits, but it also adds an element of homogeneity. Whether this is good or bad is down to interpretation, but it does dim that element of adventure that most people go on holiday for. Osaka, meanwhile, is just downright ugly, and looks like the backdrop to Blade Runner.

If you’re planning your own journey to Japan, here’s a practical tip: make sure you go in either the spring or in the fall. Tokyo (the obvious focal point) is a sprawling monster of a metropolis, a chaotic, overpopulated mess of clogged arteries that makes London feel like an idyllic Tuscan village in comparison. It is not a humane city: people are stacked on top of one another in cubicle apartments like battery farmed chickens. Cities like Copenhagen have urbanistic plans devised to make its inhabitants lives more livable; Japanese cities, so starved of inhabitable land mass, have to maximize the little space that they have, at great human cost. Add in the heat and humidity of late June and they become asphyxiating.

My biggest beef with Tokyo, however (and this is something that applies to other Japanese cities as well) has to be its privatized subway system. For a city to be functional, it needs a good public transport; as an urban area becomes bigger and denser, the importance of public transportation is amplified. Tokyo, lest we forget, is the biggest metropolitan area in the world, and while its subway system is top notch, the fact that its various lines are run by disparate private operators mean that you have to buy a new ticket if you want to transfer in between them. Maybe you only want to go one stop before interchanging again – it doesn’t matter, you’ll either have to shell out for a new ticket or walk. This shows blatant disregard for the people that live in and travel through the city. It places profit over livability, and is exactly why I could never live in Japan, the U.S. or any other country without some form of socialist heritage: because the demands of capital are ultimately at odds with the needs of humanity. Now combine that with Tokyo’s titanic size and navigating it becomes a miserable chore.

[amendment: a backlash in the comments has informed me that you can, in fact, buy one all-use card. But, according to my research, that’s a fairly new development, with Japan’s disparate rail operators unified under a single pass only as recently as 2013, so my criticism still stands – regard for the commuter isn’t a fundamental concern in Japan, but rather an after-thought]

And there really isn’t the faintest whiff of socialism in Japan, or at least as far as I could see. Quite the opposite: nowhere have I witnessed such unbridled consumerism, America aside. People are more concerned with ridiculous, anime-inspired outfits and owl cafes than anything of real substance. Local popular culture is also incredibly infantile and completely devoid of any sort of edge. Harajuku might be visually impressive, but it feels totally hollow, like a decorative accessory compared to a piece of conceptual art. Obviously these are all matters of personal taste. I live in Berlin and my favorite holiday was spent in Rio De Janeiro. There’s a certain grit to these cities that appeals to me that’s totally antithetical to the staid rigidity of Japan. For you it might be different.

I’m clearly not the Japanese Tourism Board’s target consumer, and I’m not going to tell anyone not to go – absolutely not: go, especially if you’ve never been to Asia before. Japan is totally worth seeing, there’s plenty of great things about it (I just don’t feel the need to mention them as they’re easy enough to find) and I think that travel is fundamentally a good thing that broadens people intellectually. All I’m saying is don’t believe the hype and taper your expectations, as you might just enjoy Japan more for it.

The views and opinions expressed in this piece are those solely of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of Highsnobiety as a whole.

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Lead Image: Joseph Ward

Words by Aleks Eror Contributor