New York City was frequently touted as the fifth character in the hit HBO television show "Sex and the City" and, in much the same way, Tokyo plays a starring role in new Netflix series "Followers" (stylized as "FOLLOWERS").
Directed by Mika Ninagawa, whose taste for the bright and beautiful is fully on display, the show focuses on women working and living in the Japanese capital.
It is a heightened, glitzy version of the city, however, that's more like an Instagram influencer's fantasy world. Everyone has a bold sense of fashion (wearing cut-off shorts and denim chaps while delivering for Uber Eats? Showing up in a crop top to a meeting with a potential employer?) and everything from the bursting cherry blossom trees to the eye-popping red-carpet events is bathed in a lush, fairy tale glow. Sure, the characters drink cheap canned cocktails and eat nattō (fermented soybean) rolls like the rest of us, but they also hang out in tourist hot spots like the teamLab digital art exhibition in Odaiba and the Kawaii Monster Cafe in Harajuku, and interact with a glittering roster of celebrities, who are personal friends of the director and make frequent cameos.