is a Japanese manga by Maekawa Tsukasa, originally published in the mid-1980s. The title roughly translates to "Greater Tokyo Poverty Living Manual", and is an apt description of the comic's premise. The story The protagonist of Dai-Tokyo is Kōsuke, a college graduate who decides to live a simple 'no frills' lifestyle on little money in the Greater Tokyo Area. He has no full-time employment, and instead works only part-time jobs and does chores around the neighborhood in exchange for goods and services. He spends his free time enjoying life's simple pleasures, reading, conversing with neighbors, and going out with his girlfriend. In this way Kōsuke breaks many traditions of Japanese society, such as not taking on the role of salaryman and striving for personal economic betterment. Despite this, Kōsuke is well respected and liked by his neighbors and friends, even if they do find him and his philosophy a bit peculiar. In the end, Kōsuke's philosophy of mixing 'poor' living with intellect and traditional Japanese values affirms much of Japanese culture and its traditions, rather than tears them down. Use of the word binbō In the title of, and throughout the manga, Maekawa chose to spell the Japanese word for poverty, binbō, using katakana instead of the usual kanji for two reasons. First, using katakana instead of a more traditional spelling gives a word a stronger emphasis (similar to italicizing or bolding a word in English). Second, using katakana can indicate that a word's usage does not fall into the traditional meaning or sense of the word. The katakana lends emphasis since the manga revolves around Kōsuke's 'poor lifestyle', and it differentiates his lifestyle (which he explicitly chose for himself) from the usual definition of poverty. So despite there being a common and easily recognizable kanji compound for binbō (貧乏), a katakana spelling is used instead (ビンボー). 'Binbō' as a philosophy The very first page of the manga declares its philosophy: an army of characters from the manga holding up miniature Japanese flags yelling, "Extravagance is the enemy!" (ゼイタクは敵だ!! Zeitaku wa teki da!!). Two banners are held up in the background exclaiming, "Poverty is fashion" (ビンボーはファションだ Binbou wa fashon da) and, "Poverty is an ideology, it is life itself" (ビンボーは思想だ 人生そのものだ Binbou wa shisou da / Jinsei sono mono da). Maekawa's use of the Japanese flag is to show that the image most associated with Japan—that of the hardworking, self-sacrificing,