“ONLY THUMBS stood up from the flatlands—the chimneys of bath-houses, heavy house safes and an occasional stout building with heavy iron shutters,” wrote Russell Brines, the first foreign journalist to enter Tokyo after the second world war. From a pre-war population of 7m people, only 3.5m were left. As Tokyo rebuilt, the city was rife with violence and slum-like living conditions. Ahead of the 1964 Olympics, officials rushed to spruce up the infrastructure and clean up the streets, clamping down on then-widespread practices such as public urination.