I visited the new
New People
mall in San Francisco’s Japantown a few days after its grand opening
the weekend of August 16. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a
sucker for Japantown’s, Little Tokyo’s, Japanese malls, stores, urants,
etc. located anywhere outside of Japan. I’ve found them in Paris (in
the Opera district) and Dusseldorf and in more typical places like
Seattle, Los Angeles, Orange County, New York City, San Jose, San Mateo
and, of course, my hometown of San Francisco.
San
Francisco’s Japantown stood in for Japan for me before I ever traveled
abroad and I made the best of I could of it, enjoying the only Japanese
bookstore for miles around (Kinokuniya) and my first tastes of sushi
and udon at Toraya, which is still in business and happens to be right
next door to New People.
But
I tend to get over-excited about these things and my expectations run
high. And when I heard about New People I figured that finally we’d be
getting something that you actually might encounter in Tokyo or Osaka.
And by looking at the physical structure, it does look like it would
fit right in, though any kind of center like this in Tokyo would
probably have at least five more floors (I envisioned something like
109 in Shibuya, but then, as I said, I’m a dreamer). And it boasts a
hip design and is all shiny and new.
There’s supposed to be a
cafe and I guess you could call it that, but it’s really just the
concession stand for the movie theater (albeit with bento boxes from
Delica and Blue Bottle Coffee). Again, I envisioned something like the
very pleasant and cool cafe at Kinokuniya in Manhattan that has its own
space and actual seating.
The flagship New People store sells
books, DVDs, toys, trinkets, etc. that are largely anime and manga
related. It’s a nice airy space, but it struck me that the merchandise
wasn’t too different from what you can buy at Kinokuniya or several of
the other gift stores in the Japantown mall.
On the next floor
are two clothing stores and the footwear shop Sou-Sou. This floor feels
empty and maybe there will be additions in the future, but it felt
unfinished. The clothing, unlike the variety you would find in La Foret
in Harajuku or the aforementioned 109 in Shibuya, is of the extreme
niche variety favored by some anime fans—mainly frilly Lolita Goth.
This is fine, but it would be great to see all kinds of Japanese
fashion represented at New People. There is also a museum in the
complex, but it was “closed for repairs” the day I was there so I can’t
comment on it.
And there is a movie theater, which is a welcome
addition to Japantown, which long ago lost the Kokusai Theater to a
Denny’s. The Kabuki Sundance theaters do host the Asian Film Festival
but they don’t show first-run Japanese movies very often. It looks as
though the New People cinema won’t only be showing anime and will
embrace other types of Japanese film and that’s a good thing.
All
in all I am glad to see that there is anything new in Japantown, but
New People, at least at this point, is kind of a disappointment.
Perhaps it will expand and grow in the future and I do wish it well.
But it caters more toward the more narrow American anime/manga fan view
of what Japanese pop culture is, which isn’t surprising since the
vision is from the head of the Viz Media empire.
Ironically, a branch of the Japanese “livingware” supplier,
Daiso,
has recently opened in Japantown. Daiso is famous for its 100-yen shops
in Japan and has nine stores in the U.S. It should tell you something
that the biggest branch is in Union City and that one of the last
places it opened was in Japantown. Japantown does not attract many
Japanese expats because so many of them live in the South Bay and this
is also why some of the best, most authentic Japanese restaurants are
south of San Francisco. And this is why sometimes when I’m at Curry
House in Cupertino I feel more like I’m in Japan than when I’m visiting
Japantown.
Walking through the latest branch of Daiso, with 99 percent
of the products made in China, but designed with the Japanese
sensibility I first fell in love with in Tokyo years ago, it struck me
that this is what evokes the real Japan to me much more than New
People.