 In 2011, after the tsunami in Tōhoku and the explosions and nuclear meltdown in Fukushima caused an acute energy shortage in Japan, one of many responses was a dramatic reduction of lighting in public places, and especially in subway stations with extensive underground restaurant and shopping precincts. Tanizaki cites a prescient remark from the late 1920s to the effect that “perhaps no two countries waste more electricity than America and Japan” (Tanizaki, 35). He would be delighted now to see Japanese cities reducing the ubiquitous glare of neon lighting and all-night electric illumination, in a dimming of unnecessary lights which thereby reintroduces some of the shadows he so eloquently praises.