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Culture Express
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00:00For over 60 years, Tokyo has been the world's largest city.
00:12Today, its gigantic metropolitan area is home to more than 36 million people.
00:18The already overpopulated expanse is still rising.
00:25Some observers believe that Japan's resolutely global capital city
00:29embracing the avant-garde embodies the future of our urbanized technological societies.
00:37Yet, only 150 years ago, Tokyo was still Edo,
00:42a sprawl of wooden dwellings with a population of 1 million,
00:46the seat of power for the Shogun ruler and his samurai knights.
00:53The city's spectacular expansion accompanied the rise of modern Japan,
00:58which seems to have obliterated all memories of the past.
01:17These rare photographs capture a pivotal moment in Japan's history,
01:21the era when Edo became Tokyo.
01:27For over two centuries, Edo Japan had flourished,
01:30intentionally isolated, ruled by feudal lords.
01:34Foreign contact was limited to two countries, China and Holland.
01:40Suddenly, in the mid-19th century, the great colonial empires forced Japan
01:44to open its seaports to international trade and exchanges.
01:52The supporters of Emperor Meiji adopted a new credo.
01:55Japan had to be modeled on the western nations,
01:58like Britain, France and the U.S. to maintain its independence.
02:01In 1868, the emperor moved his government from Kyoto to Edo,
02:09renamed Tokyo, the eastern capital.
02:16Tokyo's calling was to both drive and display the development of a modern Japan,
02:20capable of confronting the great western nations as a peer.
02:23Thirty years later, the first motion pictures of Tokyo were made by western visitors.
02:38Samurai slung with swords, who worried the Edo's first foreign visitors,
02:43no longer strolled the streets.
02:45The government had revoked their right to carry weapons openly.
02:49During this time, the most common means of transportation was the rickshaw.
02:56These carts were invented in Japan three decades earlier.
03:00Newly built roads and bridges, one of the first signs of modernization,
03:04contributed to their development.
03:12The first western mode of transportation to appear in the city were streetcars.
03:15Here, they are still horse-drawn.
03:19The lines would later be electrified.
03:25These are traditional wooden buildings, typical of the Edo period,
03:29still lining the sides of the city's many waterways.
03:36Tokyo's fish market, feeding the whole capital, operated from these wharves.
03:39Forty years had passed since Japan decided to take a running jump into the modern world.
03:49And many things had already changed.
03:52The official slogan of these times was Fukuoko Kyohai.
03:56Enrich the state, strengthen the army.
03:58When Japan adopted Western techniques, it launched the development of its industry and the modernization of its army.
04:07Consulting with French, British, Prussian and American advisors, it began to build a colonial empire.
04:14In 1895, victory over China positioned Japan as the new military superpower of the Far East.
04:27Japan captured the island of Formosa, today's Taiwan.
04:32In the ensuing ten years, Japan doubled the size of its armies and rapidly built more battleships.
04:38In February 1904, Japan declared war on the Russian Empire.
04:50After more than a year of especially grim combat, Japan triumphed, to everyone's surprise.
04:57It was the first time a European power had lost a war to an Asian country.
05:03The Empire of Japan established a protectorate in Korea and gained control over the Liaodong Peninsula and half of the island of Sakhalin.
05:14In 1914, as an ally of the United Kingdom, it easily captured German possessions in China and the Pacific.
05:22By 1919, Japan was invited to the negotiating table as one of the five great victors, the only non-Western nation there.
05:30Ginza Dori was the first Tokyo Boulevard to adopt a Western style of architecture.
05:37It has played a starring role in spreading foreign cultures in Japan, and is still today a showcase shopping area for international luxury brands.
05:47Orange trolleys, now electrically powered, trundled along the major downtown arteries.
05:57They had supplanted the rickshaw as rapid transit.
06:00New metal bridges, based on European models, span the Sumida River, underscoring the productivity of Japanese steel mills.
06:09The fish market is unrecognizable. The docks and warbs have been widened, and three-story warehouses, painted bright white, have appeared on the waterfront.
06:22The massive modernization effort also spawned a new business district, where office buildings sprang up to house growing corporations.
06:36Today, Maranucci is the heart of Japanese banking. Back in 1920, its new red-brick facades earned it the nickname Little London.
06:50The most emblematic of these structures is the famed Tokyo train station, completed in 1914.
07:04The development of railways, with the help of British engineers, was at the center of Japan's modernization effort.
07:10By 1917, a 5,000-mile rail system was already operating.
07:19Bueno Park is the home of a beloved sculpture, illustrating the strong attachment to traditional values that accompanied Japan's leap into the modern world.
07:27The last samurai, Takamori Saigo, was a fervent partisan of Emperor Meiji.
07:44The posh downtown neighborhoods were not the only ones to show signs of rapid change.
07:48The Tokyo of the masses was also evolving.
08:03Asakusa was a shopping area already flourishing during the Edo period.
08:10Urban renovation created a new street, Asakusa Raku, a theater district, which instantly drew crowds.
08:16It was Tokyo's Broadway.
08:20Since 1890, Asakusa boasted modern Tokyo's first western-style spire, the Rionkaku Tower, whose name means surpassing the clouds.
08:39Designed by a Scottish engineer, it was then the capital's tallest building.
08:42It quickly became the city's most popular attraction.
08:46Six floors were occupied by stores selling goods imported from all over the world.
08:51The new 360-degree terrace offered a massive overview of the city.
09:01Barely 55 years after the end of the Edo period, the first aerial footage of Tokyo was shot in 1923.
09:08The city had been transformed into a huge modern metropolis.
09:17Its population of one million had more than doubled to 2.2 million people.
09:21But Tokyo still lagged behind the great western cities of its time.
09:28London was the world's largest, with 7.5 million inhabitants.
09:34New York was booming with 5 million people.
09:37Paris's population stood at 3 million.
09:42But Tokyo was catching up quickly with its modernization, when its development was abruptly halted by a horrific disaster.
09:49On September 1st, 1923, Tokyo was devastated by an unusually violent natural catastrophe, the great Kanto earthquake.
10:02At 11.58 AM, the first tremor, measuring 7.9 in magnitude, wrought havoc downtown, causing the first wave of casualties.
10:07A few minutes later, it was followed by a strong aftershock.
10:17Total chaos was unleashed when the ground shook for a third time.
10:21130 of the wooden houses of the lower city were ablaze in less than half an hour, mainly due to the lunchtime cooking fires.
10:28High winds from a typhoon that had just hit Tokyo Bay fanned the flames.
10:39Half of Tokyo was burning.
10:42For the inhabitants trapped in the firestorm, it was utter horror.
10:52By late afternoon that day, the city was in total panic.
10:55Hundreds of thousands of Tokyoites were trying to flee to safety, by any means possible.
11:11All the fire hydrants had been destroyed, so it took two whole days to get the fires under control.
11:16Nothing could be done to save the historical center of Tokyo.
11:27It was entirely destroyed.
11:32The evidence of the last three centuries of history went up in smoke.
11:36The death toll was appalling.
11:39The death toll was appalling.
11:41In three days and two nights, over 105,000 lives were wiped out.
11:46Most people were killed by fire.
11:53Nearly all of the buildings that symbolized the 50-year push towards modernization had been leveled.
11:58The city was in ruins.
11:59In 1923, nearly half of the dwellings in Tokyo were gone.
12:11The great Kanto earthquake caused damage on such a huge scale that even today, it has a traumatic memory.
12:19Tokyo still lives in fear of an enormous earthquake that could once again level the city.
12:281.4 million of the city's 2.2 million inhabitants were homeless.
12:33Wayno Park became the city's largest refugee camp, housing a half million people who had lost everything.
12:50To overcome, it would take fortitude, order, and unity.
12:54Another mammoth struggle had begun for the Tokyoites, only 50 years after the city had raced to win a place in the modern world.
13:10With nearly all of the urban infrastructure destroyed, everything was in short supply.
13:16Water, food, clothing, shelter, and latrines.
13:24The army was a valuable source of manpower, erecting temporary dwellings, rebuilding transportation lines, and clearing away rubble and unsafe structures.
13:37But most of the labor was supplied by the residents of Tokyo.
13:56Over half a million people simply returned to their property and camped there, in improvised structures.
14:06until they could rebuild homes, often identical to the ones they had lost.
14:15The Tokyo of this time was a vast shantytown.
14:21But these images show the pragmatism and resilience of its people.
14:28The death in 1926 of Emperor Teisho marked the end of an era for Japan.
14:33In Tokyo, hundreds of thousands of people from throughout the country lined the mile-long route of the funeral motorcade, paying their respects in silence.
14:46But the event was also an opportunity to symbolically reassert Japan's determination to press on towards its goal of renewal, despite the ordeal.
14:59When Emperor Teisho's son Hirohito ascended to the throne, a new period began for Japan.
15:13He was the first Japanese prince to have spent six months in Europe.
15:16For seven years, he'd already been the regent of an empire, the world's third-largest naval power, and one of four permanent members of the League of Nations.
15:26But Tokyo still lagged behind the great western cities of its time.
15:30Only seven years after the great Kanto earthquake, Tokyo's reconstruction, carried out largely thanks to the development of credit, was complete.
15:48New avenues adapted to automobile traffic criss-crossed the capital.
16:01The new Tokyo emphatically asserted its status as a big, modern, 20th century city.
16:12The entire time, Ginza and downtown Tokyo adopted Yankee ways.
16:25Its streets looked more and more like those of its western models, with the addition of hundreds of new cabs and cars.
16:32Some of the structures that have become emblematic of Tokyo had appeared.
16:36They're still visible today, particularly the bridges over the Sumida that had been destroyed by the earthquake.
16:44Eitai Bridge was rebuilt in steel in 1926.
16:49Kyosu Bridge was built in 1928.
16:53It's a copy of a bridge in Cologne, Germany.
16:56Tokyo's main train station, miraculously preserved, was restored.
17:01The Kabuki Za theater was rebuilt in reinforced concrete, sheathed in traditional wooden trim.
17:09Even today, it is the most famous Kabuki theater in Tokyo.
17:16A newly reconstructed Ginza was again serving to showcase Tokyo's modernization.
17:21Style and fashion became increasingly important.
17:30Japanese women looked to liberated, provocative flappers for a new image.
17:37Some of them relegated the kimono to the backs of their closets, adopting western dress.
17:43They were nicknamed Mogas, an abbreviation for the epithet Modern Girl, translated into Japanese.
17:51Japanese nationalism fed upon the economic difficulties that had followed in the aftermath of the Great Depression of 1929.
18:03But the rapid westernization was accompanied by the development of a hostile warlike trend within Japanese society.
18:09Young officers, accusing legislators of corruption, called for the expansion of the Japanese empire.
18:16Colonial conquest would help Japan overcome the crisis.
18:21In 1931, Japanese army officers who had been stationed in southern Manchuria since the war with Russia in 1905 had staged a sham attack.
18:32It was an excuse for a swift invasion of China.
18:35Three Chinese provinces fell into Japanese hands, almost without a battle.
18:49The territory was named Manchukuo, the Great Manchu State.
18:54It immediately seceded from China, to be ruled by an emperor chosen by the Japanese.
18:59Most countries refused to recognize the puppet state.
19:04The League of Nations declared it was still part of China.
19:07As a result, Japan decided to resign from the organization in 1933.
19:12However, Mussolini's fascist Italy did recognize Manchukuo in 1936.
19:17That same year, there was a coup attempt in Tokyo.
19:25It is remembered in Japan as the February 26 incident.
19:30Radical young officers took over the government offices in the center of town and shot several leading politicians.
19:36The rebels claimed that their goal was to restore the emperor's omnipotence.
19:42But Hirohito himself called for the repression of the coup.
19:46Two officers committed suicide.
19:49Seventeen others were tried and executed.
19:52Seventy were sentenced to imprisonment.
19:53But the neon lights still sparkled in Ginza, advertising the country's enthusiasm for all things Western, despite the looming shadow of totalitarianism.
20:07Pressure from hawkish elements, agitating for a war of conquest against China, was growing.
20:13Government propaganda fanned the fires of Sino-Japanese hostility.
20:25This film was shot in 1937 in a Tokyo kindergarten.
20:30Wearing paper gas masks, the children act out an attack on a cardboard pagoda, clearly symbolizing Nanking, the capital of China.
20:43The military elements prevailed within Japanese society.
20:48Militaristic elements prevailed within Japanese society.
20:58Tensions with China were rising.
21:00It would soon lead to the second Sino-Japanese war.
21:07The United Kingdom, France and the United States warned of reprisals.
21:14Others, however, were discovering the country as a potential new ally.
21:31In this film, Nazi Germany heaps praise upon Japan's imperialist ambitions.
21:36Japan, engine of the Far East.
21:40For a long time now, these islands have been too small for their people.
21:44Japan must expand.
21:46The year it was screened for the first time, Germany recognized the state of Manchukuo and cut diplomatic ties with China.
21:53Trains loaded with Japanese soldiers left Tokyo for the Chinese front, cheered on by the crowd.
22:09In early August, the Japanese army took Peking and Tianjin.
22:12Shanghai fell in November, after three months of deadly bombing.
22:18Between December 1937 and January 1938, the Japanese marched on Nanking, where they perpetrated one of the most horrible massacres in modern history, killing between 40 and 300,000 people.
22:31But a stalemate soon ensued.
22:38Despite its military superiority, the Japanese army proved incapable of controlling the immense lands it had conquered.
22:45Then, the ashes of the first Japanese soldiers to die on Chinese soil began to return to Tokyo.
22:59In 1938, the national mobilization law was decreed.
23:04Each act in the daily life of a Tokyoite became an extension of the war effort, as shown in this propaganda film.
23:10Japan lacks natural resources, so we have to secure the resources needed to make the nation strong.
23:18Waste recycling is a source of materials.
23:21Please carry tin cans and other scrap metal to the collection points.
23:26They will be transformed into a valuable raw material.
23:30That year, the inhabitants of Tokyo formed long lines to dispose of their metals in order to participate in Japan's victory and the prosperity it would bring.
23:40To be continued...
23:43Send-off ceremonies for the soldiers began to increase at a frenetic pace.
23:47Women wore somber robes over their colorful kimonos.
23:53Soon, a new air defense law imposed blackouts.
24:00Ultimately, the war would deprive Tokyoites of the event that was supposed to symbolize their success in the eyes of the world.
24:06With great regret, the government announces its decision to cancel the Olympic Games.
24:13Funding was reallocated to the war effort in China.
24:18In 1940, instead of the scheduled Olympics, the people of Tokyo were treated to a gigantic military parade.
24:30Officially, the occasion was the 2600th anniversary of Japan's founding.
24:35Propaganda now embraced the theme of the superiority of the Japanese race, entitling it to rule Asia.
24:50That same year, Japan signed the Berlin Pact with the Axis powers, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
24:56From the end of 1940 to July 1941, Japanese troops gradually encroached on French Indochina.
25:07U.S. President Roosevelt demanded Japan withdraw and slapped an embargo on oil exports to Japan, which had no oil deposits of its own.
25:15On the morning of December 8, 1941, the people of Tokyo heard how the Imperial General Headquarters had chosen to respond to the American embargo.
25:26In this official announcement, the Imperial Army and Navy, early this morning, on December 8, entered into combat.
25:39The Japanese Air Force and Navy launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in the Pacific.
25:55An act that forced the United States into World War II.
26:02Back in Japan, the nation mobilized.
26:09Japanese air raid defense doctrine required civilians to serve as firefighters, medical rescuers, and to prepare for chemical weapon attacks.
26:23Air raid shelters were dug into the sidewalks of Ginza, where months earlier style-conscious Japanese women strutted their western finery.
26:39Within six months, the superiority of U.S. military strength became evident to Japan's generals.
26:46But ordinary citizens were kept in the dark about the war's realities.
26:49In 1943, while popular fervor was being stoked by patriotic ceremonies, the country was pounded by a series of painful defeats in the Pacific Islands.
27:03Due to heavy combat losses, all the country's youth are now pressed into service.
27:14This film, from October 1943, is entitled Student Mobilization, focusing on a ceremony for young soldiers heading off to battle.
27:25We do not expect to return alive. We simply hope to honor our debt to the Emperor for his infinite kindness.
27:38Long live the Emperor!
27:51Banzai!
27:52Banzai!
27:53Banzai!
27:54Banzai!
27:55Banzai!
27:56Banzai!
27:57Banzai!
27:58Banzai!
27:59Banzai!
28:00Banzai!
28:01Banzai!
28:02Banzai!
28:03The Americans had recaptured the Pacific Islands one by one.
28:07Now their bombers were within range of Japan.
28:17Starting in November 1944, air raids on Tokyo became a reality.
28:26The night of March 9th to 10th, 1945 was one of the most horrific in Tokyo's history.
28:35In a matter of hours, 334 B-29s dropped 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs, an early version of napalm.
28:44They leveled more than half of Tokyo's old city, killing over 100,000 people in a single night.
28:53In the daylight, the toll was shocking.
28:58Just 22 years after its first destruction, the heart of Tokyo was again reduced to ashes, and its population annihilated.
29:06The city was bombed periodically for months.
29:10In all, over 115,000 people perished in the attacks.
29:15Yet Japan still refused to surrender.
29:18On August 6th, 1945, the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
29:22On the morning of August 9th, the Soviets began to invade Manchuria.
29:27The same day, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
29:32On August 15th, 1945, all over Tokyo, amid the ruins, people listened to the Emperor's announcement over the radio that Japan had surrendered.
29:42By enduring the unendurable, and suffering what is insufferable, we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come.
29:54For Tokyo, a terrible cycle was ending, and its people were overwhelmed by feelings of humiliation.
30:04And once again, they would be rebuilding their city.
30:07August 30th, 1945, only 24 days after Hiroshima, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in the Pacific, arrived in Japan to serve as the military governor.
30:29Based in Tokyo, MacArthur was to demilitarize and democratize the country.
30:33The United States was now determined to wipe out communism in the region.
30:39With the Soviet Union presenting a threat, Japan would become a valuable ally in US strategy and policy.
30:54MacArthur tried to spur the country's reconstruction and the redevelopment of its national economy based on the capitalist model.
31:01But he faced a daunting task.
31:07Japan was in a state of wretched poverty.
31:11Temporary housing was constructed to shelter Tokyo's inhabitants.
31:18There were aching needs everywhere.
31:21For a gigantic population of weak and destitute survivors, sanitation and healthcare treatments were necessary to prevent epidemics.
31:35Meanwhile, in exchange for a promise that the imperial family would never be prosecuted for war crimes, the emperor signed a Humanity Declaration.
31:49On January 1st, 1946, in his greeting to the public, he officially denied he was a living god and gave up all political powers.
31:59The occupation of Japan and close cooperation between US and Japanese authorities continued for seven years.
32:13The whole time, Ginza and downtown Tokyo adopted Yankee ways.
32:20But for years, there were stark contrasts between the luxury of the American's neighborhoods and the reality of the rest of Tokyo.
32:28American authorities imposed severe austerity measures to restore the Japanese economy.
32:35Food rations for the population were insufficient and a parallel economy developed.
32:41Tokyo's citizens often had to resort to the black market.
32:44Despite the hardships they experienced, most residents of Tokyo felt the dark years of the war were behind them.
32:53In November 1946, a crowd of over 100,000 people gathered in front of the imperial palace to celebrate the proclamation of the new Japanese constitution in the presence of the emperor and empress.
33:06Democracy, including freedom of the press, women's suffrage and the renunciation of war were at the heart of this constitution, influenced by the American occupiers.
33:23In order to encourage the spread of these democratic values, which were totally new to the Japanese, education received special attention.
33:30Supervised by the United States, curricula and textbooks were revised.
33:37The classes in nationalist morale were abolished and replaced by civic education courses.
33:43Students were both learning the egalitarian ideals of democracy and developing pride in being citizens of the only country with pacifism written into its very constitution.
33:54The country was also disposing of its past.
33:57Without shedding any tears, the people of Tokyo watched as the statue of Japan's military hero Hirose was destroyed.
34:05Once again, the people of Tokyo had gone to work to rebuild their capital, but times were still hard.
34:12Then, suddenly, everything changed.
34:15In 1950, the United States went to war in Korea, using Japan as an operations base and equipment supplier.
34:33The burgeoning demand was an ideal opportunity for Japanese industry.
34:38On April 16th, 1951, General Douglas MacArthur left the country, and a crowd of Tokyoites waved goodbye.
34:51Since dawn, 200,000 people have been lining the streets.
34:59Five months later, Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the Mutual Security Treaty with the United States.
35:13The enemies of yesteryear had become allies, and the new pacifist Japan would be protected by the American nuclear umbrella.
35:26On April 28th, 1952, Japan's independence was restored.
35:40Only ten years after its destruction, Tokyo is now the beating heart of the country's economic reconstruction.
35:46During the war, the country's youth left for the front lines from Ueno Station.
35:57A decade later, Ueno is where they now converge from everywhere in the country, bringing their determination and eagerness to jobs in the capital.
36:06By 1955, Tokyo's population reaches over 8.5 million, making it the world's most populous city.
36:14Only three years after the departure of the U.S. occupation forces, Japan has embarked on a phase of rapid expansion with no parallel in modern history.
36:31The Ginza shopping district has risen from its ashes, and is glamorous again.
36:35Tokyo is subject to wave after wave of fashion trends, a product of an American monopoly on ideas.
36:45Its western-style shops attract fashionable young ladies for a pleasant stroll.
36:51In 1964, the choice of Tokyo to host the Olympic Games is pivotal.
37:02These are the first games to be held in Asia.
37:07To ensure their success, Tokyo launches a vast infrastructure modernization program.
37:17The Metamorphosis aims at two goals, to reinforce the country's growth and impress upon the world the image of a peaceful, prosperous Japan at the cutting edge of modernity.
37:31One great badge of technological progress is the Shinkansen bullet train.
37:40100% made in Japan.
37:42It's a high-speed link shooting from city to city at over 150 miles per hour.
37:47When the Japanese capital stood before the TV cameras of the world, it looked stunning.
37:56It joined the ranks of the most modern cities of the world.
38:01The opening ceremonies unfolded beneath blue skies at the National Olympic Stadium.
38:06This Olympiad was the first to be telecast internationally via satellite.
38:14It attracted some 600 million viewers.
38:17Between 1954 and 1973, the country went through a dazzling economic growth spurt, unparalleled in world history.
38:27The spectacular boom was stimulated by two factors, massive public investment and massive orders from the United States military mired in the Vietnam War.
38:42Tokyoites saw the city's first skyscrapers rise.
38:46In two decades, Japan's rural population plummeted as salarymen flocked to the city.
38:59To house all of these new residents, new towns sprouted up faster than weeds on Tokyo's western periphery.
39:05In 30 years, these satellite cities grew by almost 20 million people.
39:14The tide of commuters traveling to central Tokyo every morning and riding home every night to the suburbs required exponential growth in the rail transport system.
39:24Today, Tokyo's public transportation network is by far the world's largest.
39:29Daily ridership in the greater Tokyo area is double the figure for all of the major U.S. cities combined.
39:37Frenzied consumerism, which stimulated economic growth, became a patriotic attitude.
39:46The oil crisis of 1973 crippled Japan, which had always lacked energy resources.
39:52In Tokyo, the fear that consumer goods would be in short supply led to a rush on supermarkets.
39:59The country reacted by developing energy efficient cars and miniaturizing their industrial products.
40:05It also undertook a vast atomic energy generation program.
40:10To supply Tokyo with light and power, the second reactor at Fukushima Daiichi went online in 1974.
40:18Japan's rise reached its apex in the 1980s, known as the period of the economic bubble.
40:28The automobile and electronics industries were generating astronomical profits, increased exponentially by investment in real estate and finance.
40:37In 1989, the Tokyo Stock Exchange became the world's largest.
40:41The following year, Japan's GDP was second only to that of the U.S.
40:47Tokyo had fulfilled its mission.
40:52Finally surpassing its European and American models as a modern megalopolis, and inspiring Westerners with its futuristic globalism.
41:001991 was the year the bubble burst.
41:09Japan was in the midst of an economic recession and plagued with rising unemployment.
41:14One by one, values and promises that were the bedrock of the rise of modern post-war Japan were undermined by dramatic events.
41:23The myth of the country's domestic harmony and security was shattered.
41:29When, in 1995, 12 people died and 5,500 were injured in a sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, it was perpetrated by well-educated Japanese.
41:40During the winter holidays in 2008, the first post-war soup kitchens appeared, giving support for the jobless residents of Tokyo.
41:51Since the adoption of democracy, citizens have thought of themselves as members of one vast egalitarian middle class, but suddenly drastic social inequalities appeared.
42:04Finally, the Tohoku earthquake of March 2011, followed by the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, aroused sharp doubts in the population.
42:16Could they still trust the authorities?
42:21For the first time since the 1970s, demonstrations were staged in Tokyo.
42:26Crowds marched to protest the government decision to reopen Japan's nuclear power plants.
42:31In 2012, the Tokyo Skytree, the second tallest tower in the world, was inaugurated.
42:42And in 2013, Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Games.
42:48But the popular mood is much less enthusiastic than it was in 1964.
42:52Tokyo has risen from annihilation and given birth to a unique form of modernism.
43:07But today, some of its citizens question the wisdom of the constant rush to the future.
43:12The whole country must confront the problem of an aging population.
43:19Ideas that had been set aside for over a century, for the sake of a collective effort, have again become central preoccupations.
43:26The relationship to nature, the quality of life, individual fulfillment, harmony.
43:39The answers to those questions cannot be derived from any Western model.
43:49And Tokyo, born of Japan's leap into the modern world, is now wondering how to redefine being modern for its future.
43:57For its future.