Tokyo Lucky Hole is not a good book.
Printed badly, full of crappy photographs,
most of them just like all those other pornographic images
you can look at, if you want to.

I guess Araki just didn’t care
about the quality of his images.
He artlessly
documented some of the action in Tokyo’s red light district.
Araki, and he shows that, was part of scene.
He is being quite exhibitionistic here.
No visible strategies to hide himself.
I am fascinated by his obsessiveness and lack of caution.
Araki shows a world that is strange to me.
Starting out with these postings about sex in photography
I now realize, that I won’t come any closer to this topic as with these images.

Art photography always puts distance between so called reality and its image.
In his artlessness Araki stays very close to his topic.
I find his photographs irritating, and I like to be irritated.
Crossing borders puts your mind to work.
Reacting, observing and thinking.

The happiest moments,
and there aren’t many of them,
Arakis photographs depict a burlesque and exalted scenery.
This sort of happiness is like the happiness of an alcoholic being drunk.
Overall, his stronger images are basically sad
and show a drab and often pitiful scenery.

Arakis roughness is very different to all other approaches I know.