The 101st views in Utagawa Hiroshige’s “100 Famous Views of Edo” is Yoshiwara Nihon-Tsutsumi. The original picture is here.
The road that runs from Asakusa to Yoshiwara Daimon and then on to Minowa is called Dote(Rivwe Bank) st. As the name suggests, there used to be a river here, and the river bank was called Nihon-Tsutsumi. However, when I got off the bus and walked along Dote st, there was no sign of a river or bank.
I wondered if the area had completely changed in the nearly 200 years since then, but when I turned down a side street, I found that there were indeed traces of it.
This back street, which runs parallel to the wide Dote st. through the crowded commercial district of narrow streets characteristic of East Tokyo area, is named ‘Sanya moat Park’ and is undoubtedly a remnant of the waterway.
After walking a little further, I found a sign explaining the origin of the name Nihon-Tsutsumi (which is still in use as an address). It was a proper historical guide that even quoted the picture from the “100 Famous Views”, but for the atmosphere I wanted to capture, I decided to use the photo of the apartment block above the sign. If I had taken the photo at dusk, it would have been more like the original picture, but there are various risks involved in setting up a camera when it gets dark around there, so I’ll just have to settle for this.
“100 Views” paintings depict the many stalls that were set up for the people who frequented Yoshiwara(Red light dostrict in Edo), and even now there are many long-established restaurants lining the banks of the Dote st, so you can really feel the history here.
The tempura restaurant “Iseya on the bank” in the queue is a little newer than the time of Hiroshige, but it is said that it has been in business for over 120 years, a very long-established one.
By the way, if you walk a little further past the Yoshiwara Great Gate, you can take a photo like this.
This is a statue of famous boxing comic “Ashita no Joe”. It is said that it was built here because it is close to the “Tange Gym” that used to be located near Namidabashi Bridge (the bridge is no longer there as the river has been reclaimed). It is valuable and precious just to have it built and maintained, so please don’t say it doesn’t look like the real thing in an unadult way.
It’s a rather mature setting, with Joe Yabuki looking back at the people in the slums. There is certainly a Joe of this style in Chiba Sensei’s illustrations, but as a selfish, childish thought, I still prefer the one with the red hat.
The location for this “100 Views” photo shoot
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