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Wanting to look cool, we think, is nothing to be ashamed of.
In front of someone you like, your back straightens a little.
Meeting a friend after a long time, you hope they’ll like who you are today, just a little.
On a holiday out with family, you pause in front of the mirror without quite knowing why — that feeling breathes quietly in all of us.
But the essence of style, we feel, does not lie in appearance alone.
Class seeps through
Picture someone in a suit.
Even in the same suit, some people wear it entirely differently.
Where the knot of the tie sits, how the jacket falls from the shoulder, where the weight rests as they walk — what’s different is hard to put into words.
But it is different.
That difference, we believe, is a difference of time — the time it takes for knowledge and experience to soak into the body.
Someone who loves wine deeply reveals something in the way they tilt a glass.
Someone who knows the history of cars carries a certain air as they take the wheel.
Perhaps intelligence is something you cannot hide.
And the reverse is true as well — people who are truly cool are often not trying to look cool.
They simply know what they love, deeply, and enjoy it purely.
👉 A grown-up’s pastime. Intelligence becomes allure. — On the game of pool.
A word about the city of Yokohama
Have you ever walked through Minato Mirai at night?
Looking out over the harbor from Yamashita Park, a thought arrives — since when has this city worn so rich a face?
Since its port opened in 1859, Yokohama was the first window through which Japan took in Western culture.
Ice cream, beer, gas lamps, railways — much of what spread across Japan began in this city.
From Yokohama, which became a great hub for raw silk, Japanese silk set out for the world.
In time that silk came back to Yokohama as scarves, and “Yokohama scarves” grew to hold 80% of the world’s export share.
Yokohama is not a city that chases trends; it is a city that has created culture.
And pool, too, has a deep bond with the city of Yokohama.
After the port opened, this game, enjoyed by foreigners living in the settlement, spread from this city across Japan.
Like silk, the doorway for the culture of pool was Yokohama.
Walking the back alleys of Noge, passing under the gas lamps of Bashamichi — this city carries the scent of history.
The gaze of someone holding a cue
There are nights at the table, side by side with someone you love.
A profile, intent on the aim.
Fingertips slowly chalking the tip.
The quiet breath before the shot — in moments like these, you find yourself captivated.
There are nights with friends, loud and happy, when a ball drops and everyone bursts out laughing.
And nights alone, facing the table in silence, playing on until you realize it’s nearly closing time.
Some people think, “You just knock balls in, right?”
But once you actually stand at the table —
Where do you leave the 8 to pot the 9?
Every single shot rests on a design worked back from the goal.
The spin on the cue ball, the separation angle from the object ball, the rebound off the cushion — judge it all in an instant, and reproduce it with the tool called a cue.
The quiet satisfaction when it works.
The frustration you can’t tell anyone about when it doesn’t.
Repeating that, you sink deeper, little by little.
Before you know it, you’re falling asleep thinking about balls.
That accumulated time slowly changes the gaze of someone who holds a cue.
👉 Thinking back from the 9-ball can change your life.
That is where the essence of style lies
Back to the first question.
What is style?
Not appearance alone, we think.
Knowing something deeply.
Being honest about what you love.
That accumulation shapes a person’s bearing.
“Oh, by the way — I played pool in Yokohama today.”
How much context is packed into that one line?
With someone you love, with friends, with family, or alone — enjoying an intelligent pastime in a city layered with history.
That is entirely different from showing off.
It’s simply knowing deeply what you love, and enjoying it.
Perhaps that is what style really is.
👉 See the Yokohama Billiard Hall Guide
👉 Billiards resources from Japan and around the world, organized by purpose: Billiards in Depth (latest updated hourly)
