Magazine for City Boys
Although my chest houses the heart of a digital minimalist and light-footed traveler who thinks in bits and bytes and has gradually moved the baggage of his not-so-young life into the cloud, I have nonetheless kept a soft spot for printed media. Whether books, magazines, or newspapers, something happens to me when I hold these riotously colorful works of art in my hands and can not only look at them but also feel them, smell them and, to a certain extent, even hear them. I buy them sometimes fresh off the press at the kiosk or happily second-hand, always knowing that I will take their secrets into myself and then release them back into the world before someone else can fall in love with them.
One of my favorite magazines is the Japanese Popeye. It’s a monthly fashion and men’s magazine based in Tokyo, addressing clothes, sports, and everyday culture from a young male perspective. Popeye was founded in 1976 by Yoshihisa Kinameri, who saw Japan at the time in a state of drift and wanted to encourage the country’s youth toward a healthier lifestyle. In the meantime it has grown into one of the nation’s most influential cultural publications. The magazine is widely known for introducing American youth culture to Japanese readers. In his book Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style, W. David Marx described Popeye’s debut issue as a sunny take on life in California, where youth were carving out the future for the rest of civilization.
Each issue tackles a specific theme that it introduces to its readers. Sometimes it is about trips to the small and big metropolises of the world, New York, Seoul, London, Taipei, Paris, about the freshest films, books, and fashion trends, about cool restaurants with which city boys can impress their girlfriend - if they even have one. But most interesting to me is the Japanese gaze on the world and the selection of stories Popeye correspondents bring back to readers in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, and also from the farthest corners of Okinawa, Hokkaido, or Kyushu. I dig the style, the interviews, the photo features, especially the Girls in the City series. Popeye is a beautifully designed declaration of love to mindful consumption and one reason print must never die.