Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2011
How did you become interested in unusual places? On motorcycle excursions around Japan in my twenties, I came across strange places like Unryuuji temple in Hachioji, where instead of Buddha statues there were statues of pirates. Later, I found that these chindera (weird temples) exist all over the nation.
Which chinspotto (weird places) do you recommend? Hihokan, literally “houses of hidden treasure,” or sex museums, which are on the verge of extinction. In the Kanto area there is one in Atami and Kinugawa Onsen. There are Buddha statues you can enter and climb up, like Tokyo Bay Kannon in Chiba and the 120-meter Ushiku Daibutsu in Ibaraki that has an interior elevator. Gunkanjima is already pretty famous but nonetheless it is a must see. In the wider world, try Thailand’s Hell Gardens, Vietnam’s Suoi Tien theme park, and the UK’s Maunsell Sea Forts.
How did Wonder Japan come into being? There weren’t any magazines around I could get excited about. What I wanted was to see minor buildings or haikyo ruins. I launched Wonder Japan to be full of pictures of unique buildings not given a spotlight anywhere else.
What is your greatest inspiration? The book Monogusa Seishin Bunseki (“Slacker Psychoanalysis”), whose author, Shu Kishida, argued the world was an illusion. Values are a human creation, so everything is relative. The book answers spiritual questions like why we live. In animals’ eyes, humans are abnormal. If everything is relative, chinspotto may not be weird after all. The mainstream is defined by mass media, like the notion of subculture and what is unusual.
You are Japan’s only chinspotto magazine. What does the future hold? We have only covered one hundredth of what’s out there, so we’ll continue with our mission. We’ll also expand on new genres, like emergency-exit stairs. We often forget about rarely-used stairs, but we found many interesting aspects. For example, we found emergency exit slides at nursing homes. Other genres include rooftops, and rails used to hang window-cleaning gondolas. If you change your point of view, the world is filled with amazing things.
Any last comments? Wonder Japan’s 18th issue comes out on June 17, featuring “Kumamoto and Kagoshima wonder spots” and “100 curious buildings.” The mini-feature is on attractive emergency stairs. It’s in Japanese but foreign readership is growing. Contemporary artist Cameron Jamie says she gets excited just by looking at the mag. It’s filled with amazing photos of places you’d never have imagined in your dreams.
For more info visit www.sansaibooks.co.jp/wanderjapan.html or Sekiguchi’s photo blog: http://wj.cocolog-nifty.com/blog (Japanese)
