Some things can happen only in Japan, and Tokyo keeps us coming back for more.

Ambitious and eccentric in style and vision, Tokyo always appears to rise above the urban rat race. A slick metropolis, this is a city that defines and redefines the avant-garde, setting trends today that the rest of the world won’t pick up on for the next few years. Whether it’s anime and manga, Harajuku fashions, kabuki theater, or J-pop, nations take notice and adopt Tokyo’s style into their own. Designers here showed their stuff to a strong crowd in 2007, and we’re looking forward to the fresh takes Tokyo will bring to Cut&Paste for 2009.

Photographs for Cut&Paste Tokyo by Satoshi Hasegwa.