Phantom on the Tokyo Metro

"The train pulls into Kagurazaka, and from the platform I see a foreign guy shove a big-ass kanji dictionary into his backpack and stand up. He was sitting next to this Japanese girl playing Game Boy - she's wearing cowboy boots and blue jeans so tight they follow the tops of her thighs down before heading up her waist. I edge forward, brush past both of them, and snag the seat next to the girl. I glance over - her rack is huge for an Asian - and I notice she's playing Tetris. Awesome. I can talk Tetris, even in Japanese."

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Wow, I was wondering where you were going with that but the end result was great. Ever been to Tokyo?

Haha, this was brilliant.

I'm curious now as to whether or not "Rox" is genuinely circulating slang.

Last page gave me a giggle-fit.
Good one.

wow i really liked that article!
very enjoyable from beginning to end ^^

You know, its a rare occurrence for me to read a full article on here, especially on a work day. Good work, very entertaining.

Well done indeed. That last page really pulled it together well, even if it was a bit predictable.

I felt sorry for Andrew because he was genuinely interested in the culture and learning about it but everyone was still laughing at him.

I thought it was funny cause I'm now in Japanese (I only know 25 Hiragana letters)
My Teacher joked about how foriegners typically behave on the carts

Jannix:
I felt sorry for Andrew because he was genuinely interested in the culture and learning about it but everyone was still laughing at him.

I felt sorry for Andrew too, but it goes away once you realise he wasn't interested in the girl, more that fact she's Japanese.

The article made me smirk. It's one of those "Oh, I get it..." one. Thank you for the great read.

You're an excellent writer. This was very well put together and interesting! I hope to see a lot more like this.

Eagle Est1986:
Ever been to Tokyo?

Yeah, I'm on my second year living right outside Tokyo, in Chiba. (Apart from the airport and me, there's little of interest in Chiba--it's not even in the index of most guidebooks. But if William Gibson's right, it'll eventually make up for that by evolving into a cyberpunk dystopia.)

Your Characters are very clearly defined and While I do not think I would want to spend more then five minutes with any of them (except maybe anjuru) I Felt they where all real people.
Superb!

I liked this a lot. Very entertaining and a great talent for story telling.

Loved it! This article clearly points out the fact, that many people traveling to another country tends to think the locals are retarded or easy pickings, just because they don't speak your language (english in this case). But people in different cultures can be smart, witty and complicated, just like your average fellow countrymen. They are just that...different, but not retarded or in any way lesser than you. Don't underestimate foreigners, especially if you are on their turf!
This is a good advice I got from a friend of mine, who lived in Argentina and Japan for years.

Good read. The twist was done well, and the characters were solid. Hitomi's payback was funny, and it was both an effective means to wrap up the threads, as well as give the whole piece a positive tone. Not bad at all.

This was a little hard to follow; since each tale was in first person, there wasn't a different enough 'voice' in each character for me to easily make the break between one character and another. Once I got the hang of it, the story was almost over. Enjoyable though.

An interesting and well presented story. Very creepy in the first three sections, as I'm sure was your intention, and not only does it point to that sort of strange behaviour which exists within these sorts of men, but also the rather overcrowded, if efficient public transport system present in Japan, because of the high populations present in a small area.

I'm not normally very interested in Japanese culture, either. Of course, I enjoy their video games, but any country with one of the largest automotive industries in the world, but only a 100km/h speed limit, and a public transport system which is faster than its road system perplexes me.

Very, very nice. The ending page was great and unexpected (For me, at least).

Very nice story, I was a bit confused through the first two pages but at the end it gave me a good laugh. And I know those kind of stereotypes; this one kid at my school told me how easy women are to get in Japan, how if I went there with him we'd get action every night. I'm glad to see this article showed what idiots people like that are.

After reading the first 2-3 pages I was gearing up to tear into the author through this comment box.. it is guys exactly like that who give gaijin such a bad name here. Spot on with the 2 years, 200 characters mix of misplaced pride and self-effacing rubbish they all seem to spout too. Nice work! Glad I read it to the end!

that was an absolutely fantastic piece. interesting, deceptive in its direction, and well composed; this was truly an interesting piece. you may have put some people off from the article though by putting the perverts perspective first, i really did think that i had somehow clicked a link to a different sort of article.

I loved it! The observations were spot on! I was just in Tokyo for a month and half with my boyfriend (now ex), who has been teaching English there for the last 4 months. All the Caucasians there looked like they were people you would never bother with in your own city. The ones I met, who teach English, were losers who didn't fit into their own society, had yellow fever or were 'in search of adventure', i.e. running away from real life. One guy had a Japanese to warm his bed on weekends, and another to be his companion/ bird the first two weeks he was there. I felt terribly sorry for the Japanese girls who were dying for change and the experience of western culture, but had such a slimy pick to choose from and the crap that they had to put up with. Great story, wonderful insights, and so true!

P.S. Chiba is pretty dead and ugly. Yokohama might be a nicer option.