When Tokyo was chosen to host the Olympic Games, I got an idea to photograph the symbolic things the city is known for in the leadup to 2020. Of all the different places and scenes I captured, the one subject that stuck in my mind was the “scramble” intersection in Shibuya. For one minute, while all of the pedestrian signals are green, a countless number of lives scurry through the melee, each and every one heading in their own direction off in their own world.

The media always returns to this famed intersection to show public reaction to what is going on in the world. They did this when the World Cup was being played, when the Heisei Era was rolled into the Reiwa Era, as the city was getting ready to celebrate Halloween, when all signs of life had vanished from the streets under the state of emergency or just to report tomorrowʼs weather. Some people say that this fuels madness amongst the young. But, one “crazy” intersection does not mean the end of the world, if you ask me.

If you run a search for “#shibuyacrossing” (with a hashtag ^*1) on social media ^*2, you get tons of pics of smiling faces of people obviously from all corners of the world. Sadly, however, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, foreigners have literally disappeared from the worldʼs most famous intersection. Today, people tacitly cross the road, their emotions hidden from view by the masks they wear. When the smiles return to Shibuya, Iʼll know that the corona hell is over.

*1：A metatag that categorizes social media postings into easily searchable keywords and topics by adding a #(hashtag) symbol.
*2：A collective term for websites where registered members can interact like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.