Children

I mentioned low birthrates in an earlier statement, as it stands now the Japanese population is aging, and the birthrate is so low that the population is not replenishing itself. Rather, it is doing the opposite, Japan’s birth rate is currently 7.64 births per 1,000 people. By the same 2009 United States CIA estimation the birth rate in America is 13.83 births per 1,000 people. Despite the longevity of Japan’s elderly population, and the influx of foreigners moving into the country the population growth is negative 0.191%. When families are out and about it is usually a mother and one or two children, sometimes more. This along with the negative population rate means that women have pressure put on them to have children, and young men have a pressure from their families and the media to get married and have children. In Tokyo it can be noticed that when there is a child around, many adults will watch them, knowing that they are the hope and the future of the country.

In noir it is very rare to see children, just as in Tokyo, on a normal day for many men and women who work in offices. In noir children always represent hope and future. The world and especially the city in noir are twisted and torn; it’s a dark place with so few bright spots to shine on any type of optimism. Often it seems that in the few noir films where children do exist, something happens to them, and there is a type of loss of innocence, whether this is through a criminal act, or murder done to the child, or children, such as in the film Night of the Hunter in which the Preacher, Harry Powell, played by Robert Mitchum, first manipulates, then kills the mother of two children, only to then try to kill them to find money that their father had hidden.

Lonely City

While living in Tokyo, one may see several hundred people every morning on the way to work school, none of these people really look around to notice each other. Although they are pressed, like sardines in a can on the Yamanote-sen, they do not speak, and most people barley look at one another, save for children and occasional college students. As soon as the doors open, the pressed sardines turn into a herd of cattle being lead through gates. So many people crammed together on the streets and in the subways, yet the one thing that people in Tokyo seem to complain about is that they are lonely. This is from both the gaikokujin or foreigners, and the Japanese. Loneliness exists in every noir city and is often a major element to a plot-line. Take for example, a film such as Citizen Kane, in which our main character dies in the beginning leaving behind a mysterious message “Rosebud.” At this point it becomes a quest for the reporters to find the meaning of this last word. While watching Kane’s rise and fall to wealth and power we realize that in this life of success, where this great man seemed to have everything, he was in fact quite lonely, during most of his days. Surrounded by colleagues, employees, famed the media, and even with his wife at his side, he was alone in his success.


It seems that many people in Tokyo are also willing to give up relationships with friends and family to be able to have that successful career, to just get a little further ahead before thinking of relaxing for a moment. Unfortunately, in Tokyo that “next step,” that next position higher on the rung, is only a baby step, and often years away. So the salary man gives all of his time to the company, so that if he has a family, he loses touch with his spouse and children, however it seems that more people in Japan wait for years until they ‘have time to marry,’ only to later realize that they have run out of time for a family. This is perhaps one of the main contributors to the low birthrate in Japan.


For the foreigner, there is often the same workday loneliness, but there is something else as well. Remember, as a foreigner, there is always some other place to go, even if there is something back in the home country that this gaikokujin is running away from. There are countries other than Japan offering visas and work. So why come to Japan? It seems that all Noir cities have some allure, about them. There is something here that you can’t get anywhere else, opportunity or experience, perhaps, but it is something that many people are willing to live through loneliness to have. It is also interesting to note that many of these foreigners even those living in Tokyo for years, cannot speak Japanese. So they are even more alone because they cannot communicate well, and may know very few people who even speak their mother tongue. Once someone gets over any many of the cultural barriers and linguistic problems, there is still another, they will always be gaijin. While gaikokujin is a foreigner, gaijin directly translates to outsider. Of the two gaijin is the more common term, and is often used as a slander towards any foreign person, and even to some Japanese who has one parent from another country, because they are different.




In a city so lonely there will always be industries that appear, to pamper those who are in need of some type of companionship, however unlike in the western world, there are places here in Japan that caters to every need a lonely man or woman may have. There are maid and butler cafes where one may pay to have someone pay a little attention or to merely have a conversation with them. While much o the world takes such simple companionship for granted, in Tokyo it is worth millions. Some of these businesses are actually quite specified to cover any special needs a client may have. For instance, a woman who wants male attention, but is uncomfortable around men can go to a specific type of butler café that has an all female staff that dresses up like boys.

Final

One may easily say that Tokyo is a noir city, but what does that mean really? Is it the sights, the sounds, the buildings, the people, is it the stories in the news, or the crimes on the street. Really it is everything that makes up the city, from the old men on the streets, striving to get by to the children playing on the streets. It’s the young couple that never had real chance, and it’s that lonely man on the subway. It’s the hardships that befall all who live in the city, and the moments of passion caught between the city lights, and in the dark alleys. When you turn a corner on that busy Shibuya street and feel totally alone. Perhaps this feeling is highlighted for those who come to this city as a traveler or as an expat, because these people often come alone, and cannot read or speak Japanese. They are treated as an outsider, even once they pick up the mannerisms and the language, they are always an outsider. Ironically, essentially everyone in Tokyo is an outsider to something. Consider the Cosplayers, they are in public dressed as an anime character or in a furry costume, but hate to have pictures taken. In fact there is a formality of a business card exchange that is to take place before pictures are taken.


It seems odd, but because many of the weekend cosplayers have important jobs in large companies, they do not want their faces shown. The consequence that they may face is to be fired from their job. Your very interests and hobbies, the simple things that one does to keep him or herself sane, can cause them to lose there lively hood. In Japan of all places where it is acceptable for an old man to read manga on a train, a young man working at a company cannot have a picture taken at a club, lest it be discovered by a superior.