Tokyo Ghost Busters by Yoshiyuki Uchibori, 2023

Tokyo Ghost Busters is a disquieting visual exorcism by Yoshiyuki Uchibori—an artist turning the photographic lens onto the haunted textures of urban Japan. Published in December 2023 by Kinkan Publishing, the book merges street photography, performance, and blurred dream states into a dark psychogeography of Tokyo’s shadows.

Uchibori moves through the city with an almost mediumistic instinct, capturing anonymous figures, mirror reflections, distorted gestures, and ghostlike doubles that seem to hover between the living and the dead. The work is not spectral in the gothic sense—it’s gritty, smeared, and corporeal, as if the ghosts are burned directly into the paper. Printed in high-contrast black and white with strong editorial direction, the book balances visual intensity with eerie restraint.

While the title nods playfully to pop culture, Uchibori’s project is closer to Daido Moriyama by way of Georges Bataille—obsessed with the invisible, the ephemeral, and the socially repressed. The book is published in a refined yet raw format by Kinkan, a Tokyo-based imprint specialising in contemporary Japanese photography with subcultural bite. In Darwin, it stands as a newly emergent object from Tokyo’s photographic underground—restless, anxious, and alive with ghosts.

Technical Sheet
Title: Tokyo Ghost Busters
Artist / Author: Yoshiyuki Uchibori
Date: 2023
Technique / Printing Method: Offset
Medium / Materials: Softcover
Dimensions (cm): approx. 22 × 30
Language: English / Japanese
Pages: Not stated
Publisher / Editor: Kinkan Publishing
ISBN: 978-8-9913407-0-3
Condition: NEW