A sushi restaurant staff member holds the cut tail of the auctioned 212-kilogram Bluefin tuna after the New Year's first auction of the Toyosu Market, at the Kaiten Sushi Ginza Onodera in Tokyo, Japan, 05 January 2023. Yukitaka Yamaguchi, president of wholesaler Yamayuki, and the company operating the Sushi Ginza Onodera restaurants, secured the first tuna auction of the New Year with a bid of almost 257,000 euros (36.04 million Japanese Yen). (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA/EFE)

A zookeeper wearing orangutan costume tries to escape while zookeepers hold up a net in an attempt to capture it during an Escaped Animal Drill at Tama Zoological Park in Tokyo, Japan on February 22, 2019. The annual escape drill is held to train zookeepers what to do in the event of an animal escape. This year a member of staff wearing an orangutan costume was captured and subdued with large nets, sticks and tranquilizer guns to make sure the orangutan did not get away. (Photo by Rodrigo Reyes Marin/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News)

Minoru Suzuki and Sanshiro Takagi, wrestlers from Japanese professional wrestling promotion DDT Pro-Wrestling, fight inside Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Nagoya during a wrestling show in Japan on September 18, 2023, in this handout photo released by JR Tokai (The Central Japan Railway Company). (Photo by JR Tokai/Handout via Reuters)

The head of a 276-kilogram bluefin tuna that was auctioned for 207 million Japanese yen (about 1.3 million U.S. dollars), which was bought jointly by sushi restaurant operator Onodera Group and wholesaler Yamayuki, is carried by a sushi chef at an Onodera sushi restaurant after the first tuna auction of the New Year in Tokyo, Japan on January 5, 2025. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

A Japanese twenty-year-old woman enjoys a cigarette during the annual Coming-of-Age Day ceremony at Toshimaen Amusement Park on January 11, 2010 in Tokyo, Japan. 1.27 million young people celebrate their passage into adulthood on the day while they become eligible to drink alcohol, smoke and vote at the age of 20. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

“Pivo”, Nissan's concept car is introduced at Nissan's Gallery on September 30, 2005 in Tokyo, Japan. “Pivo” is an electric car in which the direction of the cabin moves 180 degrees, therefore, when making a turn in a different direction, it simply needs to move the cabin without moving the car. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

“Kusakabe Kimbei (1841 – 1934) was a Japanese photographer. He usually went by his given name, Kimbei, because his clientele, mostly non-Japanese-speaking foreign residents and visitors, found it easier to pronounce than his family name. Kusakabe Kimbei worked with Felice Beato and Baron Raimund von Stillfried as a photographic colourist and assistant before opening his own workshop in Yokohama in 1881 in the Benten-dōri quarter, and from 1889 operating in the Honmachi quarter. He also opened a branch in the Ginza quarter of Tokyo”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Writing Letter. (Photo by Kusakabe Kimbei)

Hirotoshi Itoh graduated from Tokyo National Fine Arts University in 1982 and later went into his family business as a stonemason. He spent several years working with metal before turning his attention to stones. He utilizes stones found in a river bank near his home, and he creates sculptures that juxtapose the original shape and hardness of the material with surprising humor and texture. You can find more of his work on his Deviant Art page.