The district of Yanaka has remained miraculously untouched by natural and man-made disasters. Filmmakers come here to shoot footage of an idealised version of urban Japan, a pleasant flashback to a past with fewer cars and buildings. The promenade runs past low-lying houses, some wooden, clumps of wild grass, and family-run, friendly shops. Its nonchalance is doubtless the result of its history, but also of the romantic Yanaka Cemetery and the impossibly peaceful Rikugi-en Garden.