Tokyo hosts plenty of pint-size public sculptures, but none so "wee" as the brazen boy standing on the platform between lines 3 and 4 at Hamamatsucho Station in Minato Ward. Just back from a trip to Brussels, I am stunned to glimpse there a bronze replica of the Belgian capital's most cheeky landmark, the Mannekin Pis (Peeing Boy). I hop off the Yamanote Line train to investigate.
This whiz kid is a dandy, in both senses of the word, being dressed in Japanese New Year's attire of patterned hakama (men's formal skirt) and kimono, and carrying a hobbyhorse toy — a nod to 2014's zodiac animal.
Like the boy in Brussels, this tyke relieves himself nonstop, into a recycling pool, and enjoys the attention of volunteers who change his costumes with the seasons and for celebrations. A stone nearby explains that the sculpture was donated in 1952 by Hikaru Kobayashi, a dentist commissioned to treat employees of then-Japan National Railways, to mark the company's 80th year of operations.
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