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Photographer is racing against time to capture Japan’s vanishing Shōwa-era vestiges

Ellsworth Toohey
Dec 02, 2025
∙ Paid

Photo: Mark Frauenfelder

The Shōwa era (1926-1989) gave Japan its postwar identity — cramped mom-and-pop shops, hand-painted signs in beautiful decay, grease-stained eel bars, and octogenarian proprietors who’ve been slinging coffee or pickles from the same spot for half a century. Photographer Lee Chapman has been documenting these disappearing spaces b…

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