Japan Tour: Cool Tokyo Guide: Adventures in the City of Kawaii Fashion, Train Sushi a

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Let's face it: product manuals, while incredibly useful, are not compelling reading, no matter how invested we are in the product itself. And let's also face it, no matter how much you've invested in your trip to Tokyo, the guide book you also invested in might not be as get-into-able as you'd like it to be.

Cool Tokyo Guide: Adventures in the City of Kawaii Fashion, Train Sushi and Godzilla, by Abby Denson.American manga cartoon artist, Abby Denson, proffers a fun solution: Cool Tokyo Guide: Adventures in the City of Kawaii Fashion, Train Sushi and Godzilla. There! Irresistible already - not to mention the cute, colorful cartoons on the semi-gloss cover.

From the New Words prefacing every chapter, your guide, the mauve colored Kitty Sweet Tooth, takes you through your upcoming trip to Tokyo, starting with things to prepare: a JR Rail Pass, tickets to the Ghibli Museum, specific festivals to check out depending on when you'll be there, and useful websites (but JapanVisitor.com Tokyo guide, which is hands-down the most in-depth Tokyo tourist information of any other Tokyo guide site out there, is not listed. Horrors!)

Traditional Japanese entertainment covered in Cover of Cool Tokyo Guide: Adventures in the City of Kawaii Fashion, Train Sushi and Godzilla, by Abby Denson.
This guide is more about how information is presented than what is presented. It's information you'll find in any guidebook worth its salt, but it's the eminent accessibility of the information here that makes Cool Tokyo Guide worth having. After the above-mentioned pre-departure tips come chapters - an average of 8 to 10 pages of simple, jazzy quarter- or half-page cartoon frames - covering getting around (trains, taxis, rendezvous spots, etc.), survival skills (toilets, shopping, police, pharmacies, etc.), food, entertainment, shopping, sightseeing spots, kids, "culture shock funnies", and hotel-related advice.

Dozens, scores, if not hundreds, of snippets of info and advice - from the titillating to the essential - are included in these engagingly drawn and handwritten illustrations. They are observations and tips that the author conveys from experience. You can tell. They're compelling. But, to take up the product manual analogy again, Cool Tokyo Guide is a product overview, not step-by-step instructions, which, considering the vastness of the product: Tokyo, is the best anyone can manage in just under 130 pages (which even include, however, a final chapter on nearby Yokohama and other extra-metropolitan day-trips).

Accommodation and dining out information, in Traditional Japanese entertainment covered in Cover of Cool Tokyo Guide: Adventures in the City of Kawaii Fashion, Train Sushi and Godzilla, by Abby Denson.
Cool Tokyo Guide is a guidebook chocolate box, to be picked from at random and nibbled on, and shared with travel companions , in bits and bites, ideally on the plane coming over. There are numerous specific recommendations of restaurants and sightseeing spots, but, lacking area guides, it won't be of much use when you're actually stomping the sidewalks of Tokyo. (The "offbeat, upbeat tour of Tokyo" emblazoned at the top of the cover is a little misleading. Spots covered on the same page are often in completely different areas of the metropolis.) However, as an imaginative, amusing appetizer it will introduce you to the flavors of Tokyo you're most interested in trying, and ease you into the heavier and less colorful, but more savory, Tokyo guidebook you'll need when walking the streets.

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