What makes a place feel like home?
For photographer Soga Tomoru ( @gaso_0131 ), the answer has always been the Japanese snack.
Found in cities and small towns across Japan, snack bars are unlike ordinary bars. They are intimate places where regulars gather night after night, where strangers are welcomed without hesitation, and where the "Mama", the woman who runs the bar, becomes something between a bartender, a host, and a mother figure.
Even if it's your first visit, you are rarely treated like a stranger.
For a few hours, loneliness fades.
Then the night ends.
You walk home alone, and the loneliness quietly returns.
Over several years, Soga traveled across Tokyo and throughout Japan, photographing these remarkable places and the people who keep them alive. Alongside intimate scenes from inside the bars, the book features portraits of unforgettable Mama-san, each with a personality and appearance as distinctive as the snack they call home.
The Nights That Chase Away Loneliness Only Bring It Back is both a document of one of Japan's most unique social spaces and a meditation on the fragile comfort we seek in the company of others.
A journey into the warmth, humor, and quiet melancholy of Japan's snack culture.
Book Details
- Photographs by Soga Tomoru
- 150 pages
- 182 × 257mm (B5)
- Perfect Bound
- Printed in Japan
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