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Documentary, Rise of Tokyo in Colour
Discover the rapid expansion as it happened, in color, and through rarely seen archival footage.
Discover the rapid expansion as it happened, in color, and through rarely seen archival footage.
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00:00For over 60 years, Tokyo has been the world's largest city.
00:09Today, its gigantic metropolitan area is home to more than 36 million people.
00:18The already overpopulated expanse is still rising.
00:21Some 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,
00:58but seems to have obliterated all memories of the past.
01:17These rare photographs capture a pivotal moment in Japan's history,
01:22the 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 to open its seaports
01:46to international trade and exchanges.
01:52The supporters of Emperor Meiji adopted a new credo.
01:55Japan had to be modeled on the western nations, like Britain, France and the U.S.
02:00to maintain its independence.
02:04In 1868, the emperor moved his government from Kyoto to Edo,
02:09renamed Tokyo, the eastern capital.
02:15Tokyo'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.
02:29Thirty years later, the first motion pictures of Tokyo were made by western visitors.
02:34Samurai 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.
02:52During this time, the most common means of transportation was the rickshaw.
02:57These carts were invented in Japan three decades earlier.
03:00Newly built roads and bridges, one of the first signs of modernization contributed to their development.
03:12The first western mode of transportation to appear in the city were streetcars.
03:17Here, they are still horse-drawn.
03:19The lines would later be electrified.
03:21These 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.
03:40Forty 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.
03:57Enrich the state, strengthen the army.
03:59When Japan adopted western techniques, it launched the development of its industry and the modernization of its army.
04:08Consulting 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.
04:51After more than a year of especially grim combat, Japan triumphed, to everyone's surprise.
04:59It 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.
09:15Its 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.
09:33New York was booming with 5 million people.
09:36Paris's population stood at 3 million.
09:40But 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.
10:01At 1158 AM, the first tremor, measuring 7.9 in magnitude, wrought havoc downtown, causing the first wave of casualties.
10:12A few minutes later, it was followed by a strong aftershock.
10:17Total chaos was unleashed when the ground shook for a third time.
10:20130 of the wooden houses of the lower city were ablaze in less than half an hour, mainly due to the lunchtime cooking fires.
10:29High winds from a typhoon that had just hit Tokyo Bay fanned the flames.
10:39Half of Tokyo was burning.
10:41For the inhabitants trapped in the firestorm, it was utter horror.
10:52By late afternoon that day, the city was in total panic.
10:58Hundreds 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.
11:23Nothing 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.
11:41In 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.
11:59The city was in ruins.
12:02In 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.
12:291.4 million of the city's 2.2 million inhabitants were homeless.
12:34Weno Park became the city's largest refugee camp, housing a half-million people who had lost everything.
12:48To overcome, it would take fortitude, order, and unity.
12:53Another 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.
13:19The 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.
13:59Over half a million people simply returned to their property and camped there, in improvised structures, until they could rebuild homes, often identical to the ones they had lost.
14:12The Tokyo of this time was a vast shantytown.
14:18But these images show the pragmatism and resilience of its people.
14:25The death in 1926 of Emperor Teisho marked the end of an era for Japan.
14:32In Tokyo, hundreds of thousands of people from throughout the country lined the mile-long route of the funeral motorcade, paying their respects in silence.
14:44But 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.
15:12He 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.
15:27But Tokyo still lagged behind the great western cities of its time.
15:31Only seven years after the great Kanto earthquake, Tokyo's reconstruction, carried out largely thanks to the development of credit, was complete.
15:52New avenues adapted to automobile traffic crisscrossed the capital.
16:06The new Tokyo emphatically asserted its status as a big, modern, 20th century city.
16:13The 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.
16:50Kyosu Bridge was built in 1928.
16:53It's a copy of a bridge in Cologne, Germany.
16:57Tokyo'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.
17:26Style and fashion became increasingly important.
17:31Japanese women looked to liberated, provocative flappers for a new image.
17:39Some of them relegated the kimono to the backs of their closets, adopting western dress.
17:45They 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.
17:59But the rapid westernization was accompanied by the development of a hostile war-like trend within Japanese society.
18:10Young officers, accusing legislators of corruption, called for the expansion of the Japanese Empire.
18:17Colonial conquest would help Japan overcome the crisis.
18:20In 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.
19:00Most countries refused to recognize the puppet state.
19:04The League of Nations declared it was still part of China.
19:06As a result, Japan decided to resign from the organization in 1933.
19:13However, Mussolini's fascist Italy did recognize Manchukuo in 1936.
19:18That same year, there was a coup attempt in Tokyo.
19:25It is remembered in Japan as the February 26 incident.
19:29Radical 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.
19:57But the neon lights still sparkled in Ginza, advertising the country's enthusiasm for all things Western,
20:03despite the looming shadow of totalitarianism.
20:08Pressure from hawkish elements, agitating for a war of conquest against China, was growing.
20:17Government propaganda fanned the fires of Sino-Japanese hostility.
20:26This film was shot in 1937 in a Tokyo kindergarten.
20:29Wearing paper-gas masks, the children act out an attack on a cardboard pagoda,
20:35clearly symbolizing Nanking, the capital of China.
20:48Militaristic elements prevailed within Japanese society.
20:51Tensions with China were rising.
21:01It would soon lead to the second Sino-Japanese war.
21:06The United Kingdom, France, and the United States warned of reprisals.
21:10Others, however, were discovering the country as a potential new ally.
21:19In this film, Nazi Germany heaps praise upon Japan's imperialist ambitions.
21:23Japan, engine of the Far East.
21:24For a long time now, these islands have been too small for their people.
21:26Japan must expand.
21:29The year it was screened for the first time, Germany recognized the state of Manchukuo,
21:33and cut diplomatic plans.
21:35In this film, Nazi Germany heaps praise upon Japan's imperialist ambitions.
21:37Japan, engine of the Far East.
21:39For a long time now, these islands have been too small for their people.
21:42Japan must expand.
21:44The year it was screened for the first time, Germany recognized the state of Manchukuo,
21:47and cut diplomatic ties with China.
21:50Trains 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,
22:24where they perpetrated one of the most horrible massacres in modern history,
22:29killing between 40,000 and 300,000 people.
22:35But a stalemate soon ensued.
22:38Despite its military superiority, the Japanese army proved
22:41incapable of controlling the immense lands it had conquered.
22:48Then, 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.
23:03Each 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.
23:17Waste recycling is a source of materials.
23:21Please carry tin cans and other scrap metal to the collection points.
23:25They will be transformed into a valuable raw material.
23:28That year, the inhabitants of Tokyo formed long lines to dispose of their medals in order to participate in Japan's victory,
23:38and the prosperity it would bring.
23:40Send-off ceremonies for the soldiers began to increase at a frenetic pace.
23:47Women wore somber robes over their colorful kimonos.
23:51Soon, a new air defense law imposed blackouts.
23:55Ultimately, the war would deprive Tokyoites of the event that was supposed to symbolize their success in the eyes of the world.
24:09With great regret, the government announces its decision to cancel the Olympic Games.
24:16Funding was reallocated to the war effort in China.
24:19In 1940, instead of the scheduled Olympics, the people of Tokyo were treated to a gigantic military parade.
24:31Officially, the occasion was the 2600th anniversary of Japan's founding.
24:41Propaganda 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.
24:59From 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,
25:14which had no oil deposits of its own.
25:16On 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.
25:54An act that forced the United States into World War II.
25:58Back in Japan, the nation mobilized.
26:05Japanese Air Raid Defense Doctrine required civilians to serve as firefighters, medical rescuers, and to prepare for chemical weapon attacks.
26:16Air raid shelters were dug into the sidewalks of Ginza, where months earlier style-conscious Japanese women strutted their western finery.
26:31Within 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.
27:04Due to heavy combat losses, all the country's youth are now pressed into service.
27:15This film, from October 1943, is entitled Student Mobilization.
27:21Focusing on a ceremony for young soldiers heading off to battle.
27:25We do not expect to return alive.
27:33We simply hope to honor our debt to the Emperor for his infinite kindness.
27:50Long live the Emperor!
27:52Banzai!
27:56Banzai!
28:00Banzai!
28:04The Americans had recaptured the Pacific Islands one by one.
28:08Now their bombers were within range of Japan.
28:17Starting in November 1944, air raids on Tokyo became a reality.
28:21The 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.
28:43They 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.
28:55Just 22 years after its first destruction, the heart of Tokyo was again reduced to ashes, and its population annihilated.
29:07The city was bombed periodically for months.
29:09In all, over 115,000 people perished in the attacks.
29:14Yet 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 grand peace for older generations to come.
29:55For 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.
30:46MacArthur tried to spur the country's reconstruction, and the redevelopment of its national economy, based on the capitalist model.
31:02But he faced a daunting task.
31:06Japan was in a state of wretched poverty.
31:11Temporary housing was constructed to shelter Tokyo's inhabitants.
31:17There were aching needs everywhere.
31:20For a gigantic population of weak and destitute survivors, sanitation and healthcare treatments were necessary to prevent epidemics.
31:36Meanwhile, 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.
32:21But for years, there were stark contrasts between the luxury of the Americans' neighborhoods and the reality of the rest of Tokyo.
32:29American authorities imposed severe austerity measures to restore the Japanese economy.
32:35Food rations for the population were insufficient, and a parallel economy developed.
32:42Tokyo citizens often had to resort to the black market.
32:46Despite 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.
33:04In the presence of the emperor and empress.
33:07In the presence of the emperor and empress.
33:11Democracy, 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.
33:21In 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.
33:53The country was also disposing of its past.
33:58Without 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.
34:09But times were still hard.
34:12Then, suddenly, everything changed.
34:14Everything changed.
34:26In 1950, the United States went to war in Korea, using Japan as an operations base and equipment supplier.
34:35The burgeoning demand was an ideal opportunity for Japanese industry.
34:39On April 16th, 1951, General Douglas MacArthur left the country, and a crowd of Tokyoites waved goodbye.
34:56Since dawn, 200,000 people have been lining the streets.
35:00Five months later, Japan signed the San Francisco peace treaty and the mutual security treaty with the United States.
35:14The enemies of yesteryear had become allies, and the new pacifist Japan would be protected by the American nuclear umbrella.
35:22On 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.
36:05By 1955, Tokyo's population reaches over 8.5 million, making it the world's most populous city.
36:18Only 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.
36:27The Ginza shopping district has risen from its ashes and is glamorous again.
36:38Tokyo is subject to wave after wave of fashion trends, the product of an American monopoly on ideas.
36:44It's western-style shops attract fashionable young ladies for a pleasant stroll.
36:57In 1964, the choice of Tokyo to host the Olympic Games is pivotal.
37:03These are the first games to be held in Asia.
37:08To ensure their success, Tokyo launches a vast infrastructure modernization program.
37:21The 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.
37:32One great badge of technological progress is the Shinkansen bullet train.
37:41100% made in Japan.
37:43It's a high-speed link shooting from city to city at over 150 miles per hour.
37:50When the Japanese capital stood before the TV cameras of the world, it looked stunning.
37:54It joined the ranks of the most modern cities of the world.
38:01The opening ceremonies unfolded beneath blue skies at the National Olympic Stadium.
38:07This Olympiad was the first to be telecast internationally via satellite.
38:13It attracted some 600 million viewers.
38:16Between 1954 and 1973, the country went through a dazzling economic growth spurt, unparalleled in world history.
38:31The spectacular boom was stimulated by two factors.
38:35Massive public investment and massive orders from the United States military mired in the Vietnam War.
38:41Tokyoites saw the city's first skyscrapers rise.
38:50In 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 US 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.
40:09To supply Tokyo with light and power, the second reactor at Fukushima Daiichi went online in 1974.
40:21Japan's rise reached its apex in the 1980s, known as the period of the economic bubble.
40:27The 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.
40:42The following year, Japan's GDP was second only to that of the US.
40:47Tokyo had fulfilled its mission.
40:49Finally surpassing its European and American models as a modern megalopolis and inspiring Westerners with its futuristic globalism.
41:061991 was the year the bubble burst.
41:09Japan was in the midst of an economic recession and plagued with rising unemployment.
41:13One by one, values and promises that were the bedrock of the rise of modern post-war Japan were undermined by dramatic events.
41:24The 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?
42:19For the first time since the 1970s, demonstrations were staged in Tokyo.
42:24Crowds marched to protest the government decision to reopen Japan's nuclear power plants.
42:36In 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.
42:49But the popular mood is much less enthusiastic than it was in 1964.
42:57Tokyo has risen from annihilation and given birth to a unique form of modernism.
43:02But today, some of its citizens question the wisdom of the constant rush to the future.
43:13The 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.
43:44Answers to those questions cannot be derived from any Western model.
43:48And Tokyo, born of Japan's leap into the modern world, is now wondering how to redefine being modern for its future.
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