Not smoked or injected, but absorbed sublingually and slowly, Scandalous Metropolitan is an undemanding fix of the coolest city in the world – something to browse through, there on the shelf when you need it.

This book is a collection of Tokyo ‘stuff’. Street photography is the key ingredient, but it’s not a photography book. It will cater to those with an

interest in the city, and those with an obsession. It won’t explain Japanese pop culture and fashion in pedantic detail because it’s 2008 and the world already knows all it needs to about that. Text will be present, to add to the imagery, but for the most part it’s an entirely visual book.

The imagery is chronologically organised (loosely over a 24-hour period), and each spread is tightly themed around a topic. It captures that which makes Tokyo unique: glowing vending machines, quirky shops, whiskey bars and the streets after the night before are all in; clichés such as geisha, temples and Harajuku street fashion are out.