Purple Magazine Issue 43: The Tokyo Diary Issue

Spring/Summer 2025, the Tokyo Diary issue, Purple's largest, with a hundred and ten features and eighteen covers.

Roland Barthes's "Empire of Signs" and Tanizaki's "In Praise of Shadows" are reprinted, and Leonard Koren writes on wabi-sabi. Jérôme Sans interviews Takashi Murakami, Olivier Zahm talks to Tomoo Gokita, Kei Ninomiya, Hajime Kinoko and Yōko Yamanaka, Aleph Molinari to Motoko Ishibashi, Jun Takahashi, Masaru Hatanaka and Tadashi Kawamata, and Zahm with Molinari to Wim Wenders. The photography runs through Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Masahisa Fukase, Hajime Sawatari, Keiichi Tanaami, Tadanori Yokoo, Chikashi Suzuki and Takashi Homma, who shoots zen gardens, trails, waves and the season's collections. Nikolai von Bismarck photographs butoh, and Kazuo Ohno, Ruth Asawa, Yoshitomo Nara, Mariko Mori and Ozu all get their pages.

A recurring "Why Japan?" question is put to Urs Fischer, Helmut Lang, Stefano Pilati, Coco Capitán, Setsuko and André, and Ryoko Sekiguchi files an announcement to humanity.