Morioka Shoten

How nice to see this here. My wife had a book published and was able to reserve a week here to promote it. It was a great experience for her. I got the impression that a week there is more like an art showing. Sure, you'll sell some books, but it is a well-known place and well-known people tend to pop in, so it is as much about relationships and good impressions. Also, he was just a really nice guy who loved talking about books and art.

The economics of this fascinate me. There is absolutely no way selling paper copies of a single book (even/especially if it changes daily: what happens to unsold stock?) can cover the costs of ground floor retail store rental in the Ginza plus apparently engaging boutique branding agencies to do in depth explorations of a logo complete with a custom typeface.

For reference, a standard bunko paperback in Japan costs on the order of ¥600 (US$4), maybe 2-3x that if you splash out on the hardcover.

Less is a way to signal more, like restaurants which only have 5-6 options available, the impression is they have less so they must be doing more with what they have.

Also, it unifies people around a book making a natural environment for book clubs to emerge from and it reduces the anxiety of pretending to look at the selection when you have already decided not to buy.

What a great idea!

Love the aesthetic. Thoughts and prayers for the mental health of that poor salesperson, barely visible in the last photo at the bottom.

Its reminding me very much of NYC's Chelsea district. Probably inspired by that fine arts culture, which is a little odd for Tokyo, as I've always found it have more subtle aesthetic sensibilities than New York.

Another interesting building nearby, with very small art galleries and independent shopowners, and a manually-operated elevator from some hundred years ago:

https://www.nippon.com/en/guide-to-japan/gu900067/ginza’s-ok...

https://www.dennisherman.com/blog/2024/2/26/okuno-a-ghost-of...

Okuno Building