Edward Seidensticker writes: "The Asakusa of Meiji may have been the noisiest pleasure center of Tokyo, but it had rivals in other cities. The Asakusa of the music halls, middle and late Taishô and into the present reign [Shôwa], was without rivals, the place where Tokyo outdid itself and the rest of the nation at the fine old art of viewing things" (Low City, High City, p. 267). So-called "Asakusa Opera" was one of the primary things to be viewed (and heard) during the late 1910s and 1920s in Asakusa. Not "Opera" in a high tradtional western sense, the term "Asakusa Opera" referred to musicals that included foreign and Japanese light opera, musical skits, song-and dance routines, chorus-line revues, and just about everything in between. These collector postcards feature scenes and songs from the popular shows of the time.