When I first went to Japan in March 2002, I was passed on a street in Shinjuku by what I thought was some lowered, blacked-out 
Yakuzamobile. I was pretty blown away by the box-like styling, seemingly putting a foot in the ass of the aerodynamic turds on the road at the time. A few days later I saw another Toyota bB (this one was not so bosozoku looking) parked along Kappabashi and snapped this photo.
What goes around comes around, and after returning to the states and telling everyone about this strange Japanese car, I read that it would soon be available in the US. And as we later found, in the rather dumbed-down form of the Scion xB. Alas,the honeymoon was over, as they say.
During my second visit to Japan in November 2004, I spotted another oddball Japanese creation that set my heart aflutter yet again: The Nissan Cube. Standing before Ginza’s Wako department store one day, a Cube drove by and made the corner, just the angle for me to catch sight of the asymmetric rear window, wrapping around one side of the car like a middle finger in the wind of conventional design.
Just like the first time around, I spotted another one a few days later in Asakusa. this time, Sharon snapped a photo of me with the car, in a pose I learned many years earlier from my friend, Rodrigo Peréz Nebel: Standing next to the car as if I were unlocking the door and preparing to drive away. A photo of two starry-eyed lovers, enjoying the sheer novelty of first touch.
Time-warp forward to 2009, and we see how history repeats itself. Nissan has released the Cube in the US, but radically redesigned. My former lover is not the same—She has given way to fake tits and Botox injection. I do not recognize her. Only the rear window remains untouched, but in concept alone. Her formerly angular lines have been rounded. Me no like.
A client brought in his new Cube this week, wishing to have his advertising graphics applied. I explained to him that I first saw the Cube in Japan in ’04, and in his best all-knowing manner (after all, he did just pay good green money for this car, so he oughtta know, right?), he looked me in the eye and said:
“No, this one is new. You’re thinking of the Scion.”
I politely explained to him that Nissan was producing the Cube in Japan as far back as 1998. He looked confused, as if the local Nissan dealer hadn’t divulged the whole history to him. Or maybe he was shocked that the design was not of good old ’merican bloodlines. At any rate, when we were back inside later, I dropped the photo of myself and my former love on him. His response (like seeing his new bride happily posing with an old boyfriend): “Oh.”
I decided the world would be a much better place if we all had some nice Spam Musubi merchandise. So, a few weeks back, I flew to San Francisco and hired a crack photographer (okay, he was actually a photographer on crack whom I met stumbling along Fillmore late one night) and headed over to May’s Coffee Shop in Japan Center’s Kintetsu Mall for our shoot. After hours of searching for the right omusubi, we finally happened upon this one, and got a few shots of it before the temptation became too much and I ate it.
