Tokyo Totem: A Subjective Guide to Tokyo

I would describe this as a casual anthropological book, mostly written by foreigners who have visited or lived in Tokyo. It is a good perspective to have, but it also tells you what sentiments to expect. I think I enjoyed at least half of it, mostly the visual chapters and creative writing (fiction). The rest were, as others have written, pretentious and bland - pertaining to the essays which were hard to read and offer little to no striking insight. I felt something was missing - the intimacy of daily life - aspects of the society that I encountered having visited the country about 6 times thus far. It somehow fails to humanize the people as they should be.