Tokyo Jammin' magazine

Recently many arty magazines have been discontinued in Japan. A street culture magazine, "Tokyo Jammin'" is one of them. However it was discontinued in 2001 and existed for only one and a half years. Maybe the publisher had some business problems and now there's no possibility to come back.

When I found out about Tokyo Jammin', I was a university freshman and knew almost nothing about cultural scenes in Tokyo. At first, I thought the magazine was really strange. Every issue was quite thin and the designs were very different--rougher and more abstract than other cultural magazines by major publishers in Japan. However I was really impressed that Tokyo Jammin' had a variety of contents including abstract artworks, photos, texts and graphics. Besides, poets, painters, computer artists, designers, actors and musicians--so many artists were included in the magazine. Particularly I like Muddy Stone Axel's poetry. Also they featured a lot of restaurants and bars which were chosen from the dark corners of Tokyo. I think the magazine opened a door for me to see every face of the city.

I’ve kept some copies of the magazine in my bookshelf for almost 10 years and am still looking for their other issues. Maybe I will explore some used bookstores again this weekend.