“This is Tokyo’s Ueno, the most pugnacious part of town, where tempers and nostrils flare, and every inch of territory – even the space under a train trestle – is guarded jealously. Yes, it is just the sort of place where, not so very long ago, there was a bloody row in which the locals took on the gendarmes of the law. “It is also what comes in the wake of war and its fire: a city in ruins, the burnt-out shell of a metropolis. Its creatures have hatched out of the debris, and now they survive by the sheer tenacity with which they came in to the world and by which they cling to life. “… For the denizens of the marketplace are as ready as eer to reach into the crowd and sink their teeth into a potential customer. Indeed they have so devised the business of selling food that they need only to rattle a plate to make the cheapest yen notes fly forth from someone’s tired pocket. It is like a trap or a clever springlike device in which the clatter of dishes sets up a hollow sound that echoes all the way down to the pit of the empty stomach of every customer and makes him or her want to eat.” – “The Jesus of the Ruins”, Ishikawa Jun, 1946

“Japan lay prostrate. Industrial output [in 1945] had fallen to mere 10 per cent of the prewar level, and as late as 1946, more than 13 million remained unemployed. Nearly 40 per cent of Japan’s urban areas had been turned to rubble, and some 9 million people were homeless. “… Shantytowns built of scrap wood, rusted metal and scavenged odss and ends sprang up everywhere, resembling junk yards. The poorest searched smouldering refuse heaps for castoff items that might somehow be bartered for a scrap to eat or something to wear. “Black markets (yami’ichi, lit. ‘dark market’) run by Japanese, Koreans and Formosans mushroomed to replace collapse distribution channels and cash in on inflated prices. Tokyo became ‘a world of scarcity in which every nail, every rag, and even atangerine peel [had a] market value.’ “Black market yami goods fetched prices more than 30 times higher than those for officially controlled commodities. Such markets also were awash with food stores, clothing and industrial equipment pilfered from military stockpiles by corrupt industrialists, bureaucrats and former military officers, whose illegal activities made black marketeering a low-risk, high-growth industry.” – Inside GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy, by Takemae Eiji, 2002

Urgent notice to enterprises, factories and those manufacturers in the process of shifting from wartime production to peacetime production. Your product will be bought in large quantities at a suitable price. Those who wish to sell should come with samples and estimates of production cost to the following address:



Shinjuku Market, 1-8-54, Tsunohazu,

Yodobashiku, Shinjuku Tokyo.



Kanto Ozu Gumi

August 18, 1945