Jesse McFaddin strolls around Togoshi Ginza shōtengai (shopping district) on a recent chilly December afternoon.

Everywhere he goes, people call out to him and his dog, Bambi, offering a quick salutation or two. He walks by a bookstore from which he bought his first comic book, a public bathhouse that welcomes people with tattoos and Togoshi Hachiman Shrine, which he visits on a daily basis to pray for the health of his family.

McFaddin is the lead vocalist and guitarist of Rize and the son of famed musician Char. But that's not why everybody in Togoshi Ginza knows him. The Takenaka clan, McFaddin's Japanese family name, has been in the area for four generations.