Shōtengai as Part of the Everyday: Starting from Tamako Market

Note: In the autograph series, I use AI only in a supporting role—translation, research, and the like. The writing itself is done solely by the person behind Re:Context. I can almost hear, from somewhere, the words “Du musst schweigen.” Still, this time, I will attempt to give words to what cannot ordinarily be spoken.

Impressions of the Work and Its Background

To be honest, my memory of the story of Tamako Market is rather faint. At this point, I can only recall it dimly, prompted by things like the descriptions on the official website.

And yet, this very feeling—that sense of “not remembering much”—struck me as something that might itself be worth examining, which is why I decided to take it up here.

Even now, the “KyoAni” brand—the widely accepted shorthand for the animation studio Kyoto Animation—is well known for producing consistently high-quality work. Thinking back to KyoAni as it stood in 2013, when this series was released, my personal impression is that Tamako Market emerged from a lineage that runs from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, through Lucky☆Star and CLANNAD, then K-ON!—and, though there may have been a slight sense of that momentum easing—onward to prominent, much-discussed titles such as Hyouka and Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions![1]. Whenever I list these works—Lucky☆Star, in particular—I find myself inevitably recalling the Kyoto Animation arson attack in which director Yasuhiro Takemoto lost his life [2,3]. Each time, I am left filled with both a sense of mourning and a deep feeling of loss.

With that intention, I would like to dedicate the next section to silence, in their memory. I would be grateful if you would join me.

Silence

Continued: Impressions of the Work and Its Background

A Digression: On “A Moment of Silence”

This may be something of a digression, but I have felt for some time that there is something profoundly beautiful about the practice of a moment of silence. It often seems to me that we find beauty in states that depart from the ordinary. By “depart from the ordinary,” I mean something that does not readily occur in the natural world.

What I have in mind here are purely geometric forms—perfectly straight lines, perfectly complete circles. Gothic architecture, for instance, seems to move in this direction. Art Nouveau, by contrast, tends to find beauty in forms already present in nature. And yet, at least part of what we call “beautiful” may lie in what is purely geometric.

Even in nature, sharply defined lines, like those of pyrite, may appear. Yet at the scale we actually inhabit—measured in meters rather than in minerals—I take it that such purely geometric lines or circles often require deliberate effort to produce. Nor is this limited to “appearance” alone. Physical “motion,” too, does not easily attain a purely geometric quality without considerable discipline. Perhaps it is for that reason that, when exceptional technique emerges, the motions it gives rise to can seem almost purely geometric.

One need only observe the string section of an orchestra. The difference in skill between amateur and professional ensembles is audible, of course. But if one looks carefully, there is also something that might be called “unnatural”—in the sense that it does not occur without deliberate effort. In a professional orchestra, the motion of the bows can appear almost unsettlingly straight, and perfectly synchronized across the entire section.

Something similar can be seen in group rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming. These performances are beautiful, yet on reflection one realizes that something—again, in a positive sense—slightly uncanny is taking place.

With this in mind, consider the act of “a moment of silence.” Silence—true absence of sound—demands considerable effort to create in the natural world.

There exist anechoic chambers in which no sound is heard[4], but such spaces themselves feel almost technologically “abnormal.”

When a large number of people gather, the larger the group becomes, the more difficult it is for everyone to fall completely silent unless they share the same intention. (It may be possible to design spaces that nudge such behavior, but ordinarily it would seem difficult.) And yet, here, all of them sustain that effort for roughly a minute. It is a span of time that can feel rather long when one must maintain it, though the experience naturally varies from person to person. And they do so together, in such numbers, for remembrance alone.

In this seemingly unnatural act, I sense a certain beauty of collective action. Perhaps I am also perceiving something akin to the aesthetic of “emptiness” that I touched upon in another article.

On KyoAni Works Around 2013

Now then—after quite a detour—let me return to the original thread. I had been speaking about KyoAni’s works around 2013. Among the titles from that period, Tamako Market did later receive a film adaptation. It seems to me, however, that it did not draw the same degree of attention as some of KyoAni’s other major works. I remember watching it with genuine enjoyment.

As a slice-of-life series in which, on the surface, not very much seems to happen—though of course events do unfold within the story—it is set in the familiar and commonplace environment of a Japanese shopping street, “shōtengai.” This very sense of everyday proximity may be one reason the work has not remained vividly in my memory. Of course, similar settings appear in other works that have stayed with me—series such as Haruhi or K-ON!, which are also set in the ordinary space of a high school. And naturally, much of this may simply be a matter of my own memory.

Let me say this clearly: I have no intention of disparaging Tamako Market. What I am describing here is only the fact that, with the passage of time, I do not remember its details very vividly. I would not wish for the creators of the work to take this in any negative sense. My overall impression of the series was, in fact, entirely positive.

Shōtengai: Japanese Shopping Streets

From the perspective of Re:Context, one of the themes worth exploring in this work may lie in the shōtengai.

When Japanese people hear the word “shōtengai,” many may picture a space that begins with an arched entrance and continues under a covered arcade—much like the setting depicted in Tamako Market. This is only a personal impression, but the image of an arcade-covered street may in fact be more closely associated with urban shopping districts. As I will discuss later, this likely reflects the historical background in which arcade-style shōtengai were developed as part of broader urban planning initiatives.

Defining “Shōtengai”

To begin, let me cite the definition of “shōtengai” (商店街) used in the 2021 (Reiwa 3) survey commissioned by Japan’s Small and Medium Enterprise Agency, titled Survey on the Actual Conditions of Shopping Streets (商店街実態調査)[5,6]. I will adopt this definition here:

本調査でいう「商店街」とは、①小売業、サービス業等を営む者の店舗等が主体となって街区を形成し、②これらが何らかの組織（例えば○○商店街振興組合、○○商店会等で法人格の有無およびその種類を問わない。）を形成しているものをいう。

My own translation, provided for reference, follows: For the purposes of this survey, a “shōtengai” refers to a district in which (1) stores operated by retailers, service providers, and similar businesses constitute the primary component of the block, and (2) these entities have formed some kind of organization (for example, a Shopping Street Promotion Association or a Merchants’ Association), regardless of whether such organization possesses legal personality and of its legal form.

On “Hiyashi-ame”

The word “shōtengai” calls to mind a particular stall that stood in one such street in the mid-1990s, where a drink known as hiyashi-ame was sold[7]. There may be variations in appearance. What I remember is a ginger-based drink, the color of mugi-cha (麦茶—barley tea)[8], very sweet and delicious. I seem to remember that a cup cost 70 or perhaps 80 yen at the time.

To me, the version sold at this stall was exceptional. It was chilled to an almost excessive degree by a machine—inside a transparent cylindrical container, metal parts were constantly rotating and stirring the liquid. That intense coldness was essential to its appeal. On several occasions, I bought multiple cups at once and took them home in a thermos. I also tried hiyashi-ame sold elsewhere as an ordinary bottled drink. Yet those versions were either too sweet or simply felt “somehow different,” and none tasted as good as the one from that stall. The same stall also sold taiko-manju (太鼓まんじゅう).

Incidentally, taiko-manju is known by other names such as imagawayaki (今川焼き) or ōbanyaki (大判焼き). In my own sense, it resembles a round version of taiyaki (たい焼)—a thick, filled Japanese confection. The name used for this sweet varies by region in Japan, and a survey released by Nichirei Foods on November 28, 2025 offers an interesting breakdown of these regional differences[9].

As a further aside, even taiyaki itself is sometimes categorized into “natural” and “cultivated” types—but that is a topic I will leave for another occasion. I may write about it someday, though I would ask that you not wait in expectation. If there happens to be interest, I may take it up.

Around the year 2000, the stall selling this hiyashi-ame disappeared from the shōtengai. I remember feeling genuinely disappointed. Even now, I sometimes wish I could taste that particular hiyashi-ame again. In my somewhat hazy memory, the stall was run by an elderly couple, and it may have by now become something of a lost technology. I place a small hope in FoodStock’s “Archive of Famous Flavors”[10]. As it happens, I once had the opportunity to mention this directly to an executive of the company at a certain event.

Shōtengai in Anime

The shōtengai appears to be a fairly recurring concept in Japanese anime. Even when it is not the primary focus of a story, it often exists within the everyday sphere of the characters, or is naturally embedded in the world of the work.

Among titles in which the shōtengai is more consciously foregrounded, works such as Otaku Elf and The Demon Girl Next Door come readily to my mind. In the case of Otaku Elf, the connection to the local shōtengai is particularly strong, and I found it interesting that the work also contains significant nuances of Shinto (神道)—the indigenous religious tradition of Japan. On Shinto, however, I suspect I would have to devote a separate essay.

I cannot recall which specific series it was, but the structural opposition between large-scale retailers—such as department stores—and small independent shops (or alliances of small shops, including shōtengai) seems to be a recurring motif in anime. This configuration appears intertwined with the actual historical development of Japanese shōtengai and the legal frameworks that shaped relations between large and small retailers.

The karaage episode in Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma seems to reflect this structure. There may have been something similar in KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops, though I am not certain. At a personal level, this tension between large-scale capital and smaller, community-based actors sometimes even strikes me as faintly reminiscent of the exchanges between the blockchain and crypto sphere and the traditional financial industry.

The History of Shōtengai in Japan

While many countries no doubt possess cultural forms comparable to what Japan calls shōtengai, I took the opportunity to look into the historical trajectory of the Japanese case in particular. What follows is also, in a sense, a memorandum of my own understanding[11-13].

Ichi (Markets), Za (Guilds), and Kabunakama

In thinking about Japanese shōtengai, it seems necessary to consider two axes: a spatial concept, ichi (market), and organizational concepts such as za (guilds) and kabunakama. Hearing the pair “ichi and za” likely calls to mind, for many Japanese people, Oda Nobunaga’s policy of rakuichi-rakuza (楽市楽座). (It was not unique to Nobunaga, of course, but in my own recollection it was most often taught in connection with him.)

These are keywords frequently taught in elementary education and often appearing in examinations. The association between “ichi and za” and “Oda Nobunaga” may, perhaps, be helpful at some point when trying to understand the broader context of Japanese cultural history.

In the Chinese chronicle commonly known as the Gishi Wajinden (魏志倭人伝)[14], which records early accounts of Japan, one finds passages such as “國國有市,” often rendered as “in every polity there is a marketplace.” This passage may be read as indicating the presence of some form of exchange site during the Yayoi period, when the queen Himiko (卑弥呼) is said to have ruled. It is generally understood that Japan did not yet possess an indigenous script at that time (the existence of so-called jindai moji (神代文字) is said to be widely rejected[15]), and it is therefore often stated that no native written records survive from that period. For this reason, foreign texts are regarded as important historical sources for understanding early Japan.

The Yayoi (弥生) period is generally dated from around the third century BCE to the third century CE (though some theories propose that it began as early as the 10th century BCE). It follows the Jōmon (縄文) period and constitutes one of the earliest divisions in Japanese history[16,17]. One of its defining features is the introduction of wet-rice agriculture, which I understand as the Japanese instance of the broader “agricultural revolution” often discussed in macro-historical narratives.

The form of rule attributed to Himiko has sometimes been described as a precursor to the imperial institution that continues into the present. In the subsequent Kofun (古墳) period, a political order centered on the emperor—drawing upon ritual and religious forms of authority—became more firmly established as the governing structure of the Japanese polity[18]. Governance legitimized through religious authority—what Max Weber termed Traditionale Herrschaft—is a pattern observable in the early stages of state formation across many regions of the world[19]. Japan, too, appears to have undergone this familiar process.

However, in Japan a distinct development occurred with the establishment of the office of Sei-i Taishōgun (征夷大将軍) and the formation of the Kamakura (鎌倉) shogunate. From that point, what may reasonably be described as a form of military power—exercised by the shogun (将軍)—came to exist alongside the emperor’s religious authority as a separate line of governance. From this period onward, the linkage between military power and religious authority appears, at least in relative terms, to have been loosened. In contemporary Japan (as of 2026), the Constitution designates the emperor as a “symbol” who “does not possess powers related to government,” which I understand as a cultural and institutional continuation of that historical trajectory[20].

Incidentally, Himiko herself frequently appears in Japanese anime and games. For example, the character Himiko (ヒミコ) in Mashin Hero Wataru seems clearly to evoke the historical queen 卑弥呼. In such contexts, the katakana form ヒミコ—rather than the kanji 卑弥呼—may function as a more neutral or generalized rendering of the name.

Returning to the spatial concept of ichi (市): its prototype can be traced back at least to the Yayoi period. However, it is said that rows of retail shops lining roads became common in the Heian (平安) period.

As for za (座), historical sources suggest that such guild-like organizations emerged in the medieval era, particularly around the Heian period (roughly the 10th century)[21,22]. These za developed as groups holding commercial privileges. Yet they are said to have declined under Sengoku-period policies such as rakuichi-rakuza (楽市・楽座)[23,24], by which Sengoku daimyō (戦国大名—regional military lords) sought to liberalize markets within their domains in order to promote economic development.

A kabunakama (株仲間) was a group formed by those who held kabu (株), a form of officially granted commercial privilege, and who gathered together on that basis[25]. It is worth noting that, despite the modern resonance of the word kabu (“share” or “stock”), this refers to a different concept and should not be confused with modern corporate shares. Kabunakama appear to have taken shape during the Edo (江戸) period under the Tokugawa (徳川) shogunate.

In the 1938 volume Kabunakama no Kenkyū (株仲間の研究—A Study of Kabunakama)—an admittedly somewhat dated study—it is written that kabunakama developed from za, and that za in turn had roots in earlier groupings known as be (部). The term be (部) refers to groupings said to have existed within the Yamato court (大和朝廷), associated with what is called the bemin-sei (部民制), a system of occupational assignment, often described as hereditary in nature. This, too, would require a lengthy digression, so I will limit myself to noting that names of the form “〇部” (with the first character indicating a specific occupation) have, in some cases, survived into the present as Japanese surnames—though their modern readings do not always preserve the original “–be” pronunciation—so that even today one may encounter, in such names, a trace of that earlier system.

In the context of shōtengai, it seems plausible that both the spatial concept of ichi and the organizational forms of za and kabunakama constitute part of their historical background.

Modern and Contemporary Shōtengai and the Development of Arcade Forms

Modern and contemporary shōtengai appear to have taken shape within the context of legal reforms beginning in the early Shōwa (昭和) era and the postwar reconstruction following the Second World War, likely inheriting currents from the Edo and Meiji (明治) periods.

In the early stages of legal reform, the Shōgyō Kumiai-hō (商業組合法) of 1932 (Shōwa 7)—a law recognizing the establishment of commercial associations—was enacted[26,27]. At that time, the primary focus appears to have been the adjustment of relations between small and medium-sized merchants and the newly emerging presence of department stores, which were perceived as a significant threat. In 1937 (Shōwa 12), the Hyakkaten-hō (百貨店法), often referred to as the First Department Store Act, was enacted[28,29].

After the war, while certain prewar structures were carried over, supermarkets appeared as a new kind of competitor. Under the Daikibo Kōri Tenpo-hō (大規模小売店舗法), commonly abbreviated as Daiten-hō (大店法), formally titled in English the Act for the Adjustment of Retail Business Operations in Large-Scale Retail Stores, efforts appear to have been made to coordinate large-scale retailers and small and medium-sized businesses[30].

Seen in this light, it may not be surprising that the motif of large stores versus small shops appears in works of fiction—even if I cannot clearly recall which specific titles.

Parallel to these developments, arcade-type shōtengai also expanded. Here, the term “arcade” refers to “日よけ、雨よけ、又は雪よけのため、路面上に相当の区間連続して設けられる公益上必要な建築物、工作物その他の施設,” that is, structures, installations, or other facilities deemed necessary for public benefit, installed continuously over a substantial stretch above the roadway for the purpose of providing protection from sun, rain, or snow[31].

The historical development of arcade forms within shōtengai has been organized in detail in papers by Tsujihara (including reproductions of older photographs)[32-34]. According to these studies, a structure known as hiooi (日覆い), literally a “sun cover,” appears to be regarded as a prototype of what later became the arcade form in shōtengai. Overhanging eaves extending into the roadway—known as odare (おだれ)—were already observable in the Edo period (though they were reportedly subject to regulation because they narrowed the road), and full coverings over the front of streets are said to have appeared by the Meiji (明治) period.

Over time, such hiooi increased in number. During the Second World War, however, some were dismantled, and the steel used in their construction was reportedly redirected for military purposes.

Because arcades extend beyond the scope of individual shops and are constructed at the scale of the shōtengai as a spatial unit, the need for consensus among multiple stores arises in their construction; it has been suggested that this may in turn have contributed to the organizational consolidation of shōtengai.

As time progressed further, the development of shōtengai—including arcade-type forms—gradually converged with broader frameworks of urban planning and came to be regarded as part of machizukuri (街づくり), often rendered in English as comprehensive town development, with this shift in some cases supported by public subsidies[35]. Once incorporated into urban policy, shōtengai came to be expected to fulfill additional roles, such as crime prevention, the maintenance of public order, and engagement with environmental issues.

In this way, what is referred to in Japan as an “(arcade-type) shōtengai” appears to have been deliberately shaped—particularly in urban areas—as part of the planned fabric of ordinary life.

As a more recent example of urban development in Japan, one might note governmental initiatives such as the “Super City” concept[36], as well as Toyota’s “Woven City,” a planned urban project advancing within a mobility-centered framework[37].

Looking Back at Tamako Market

Let me now return to Tamako Market.

What follows remains simply an extension of personal reflection. Yet in light of everything discussed so far, I find myself newly aware of how thoroughly the (arcade-type) shōtengai has blended into what might be called “ordinary (urban) life.” If that is the case, then the presence of a shōtengai in slice-of-life narratives may function as one symbol of the everyday. In that sense, it becomes somewhat easier—perhaps a little forcibly so—to accept why the series did not leave a particularly sharp imprint on my memory. With that slightly self-conscious reconciliation, let me move toward a kind of epilogue.

And yet, within the world of Tamako Market, the shōtengai that embodies the ordinary is also a site where the extraordinary can emerge.

Have you ever read or watched the Harry Potter series? In that story, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters serves as a boundary between the ordinary and the extraordinary. If we look to works that have also been adapted into anime—this is something I would like to write about separately—one might think of the “NerveGear” in Sword Art Online as belonging to a similar category.

Of course, I cannot know whether the creators intended such a reading. Still, it seems to me that in Tamako Market, the (arcade-type) shōtengai functions effectively as a boundary: a space that symbolizes the ordinary while allowing the extraordinary to slip into it. With that slightly self-conscious reconciliation, I will move toward a brief epilogue.