Cosplayers in Harajuku, street art in Shinjuku and the multitudes of people at the famous Shibuya crossing. The streets of Japan are an interesting artistic spectacle and as photographer S. Morita has discovered, this extends to manhole covers. In Japan, there are currently about 6000 artistic manhole covers, each more detailed, intricate and artistic than the next featuring designs of landscape, nature and people. This strange preoccupation with designing manhole covers started with a political agenda. It originated as a means to “raise awareness for costly sewage projects and to make them more palatable for taxpayers”. This effort included design contests which resulted in different municipalities competing to come up with the best designs, resulting in the artistic manhole covers we see today. (Via Colossal)

All photo credits to S. Morita