‘Yoko’ Helps Them Go From Here to There

In this teeming metropolis where the tiny labyrinthine streets often have no names, and addresses are so difficult to decipher that taxi drivers often demand a map before they will take a fare, Shingo Okamoto took to the streets in search of adventure on a recent night.

The unabashed 27-year-old gear-head--whose Subaru Legacy was littered with gadgets--challenged his passengers.

Name a place. Anywhere. He was ready for a joy ride.

German Culture Center? No problem.

But truth be told, Okamoto was clueless as to where it might be in the warrens of this huge, lively capital.

He was cool, though, because she would tell him how to get there. In her high, sexy voice she would guide him where he wanted to go. She calls herself Yoko Okochi. She speaks all Japanese dialects. But Okamoto, being a hip urban sophisticate, gets her to talk Tokyo to him. (Of course, she also can play an American chick, calling herself Mary Jones.)

On this night, she escorted him via a night-black screen on his dashboard, a map with flashing areas of purple, yellow, green, pink, red, yellow, electric blue. Okamoto’s car slid across the neon grid lines--a pulsing dot.

Yoko took over. “Turn left in 700 meters, please; get in the left lane,” she sweetly advised. “We’re almost there; get ready to turn.”

“I’ve gotten to like her voice, but sometimes she talks too much,” Okamoto said.

Deliberately he ignored her. He was testing her. He cruised through the intersection. The map repositioned, charted a new route. Accommodating, never bossy, Yoko picked up the new route.

“She never tells you you made a mistake--she’s more gentle,” Okamoto said of Yoko. “She respects human sensitivities.”

In just eight minutes flat, after charting a clear path through a maze of narrow one-way streets and twisting, unmemorable alleys, Okamoto’s car pulled up at its destination. Passengers gasped in disbelief.

Okamoto leaned back, proud. His kaa-nabi, “probably the most expensive toy I have,” he said, had again proved its power.

Sure, in-car computer- and satellite-aided navigation systems--based on technology derived from the Pentagon’s Global Positioning System--are available from Maine to Southern California. But in gadget-crazed Japan, they are the key to unlocking the cryptic crisscrossing arteries of Tokyo’s street network.

Sales have been so good that many car companies, such as Nissan and Toyota, are now marketing the devices as an option in new cars. Japan recently announced it will launch six new satellites to handle massive civilian use, mostly by car-navigation fans.

The Japanese have embraced the technology to help confused drivers--especially lonely, affluent young bachelors such as Okamoto--prowl Tokyo’s byways.

“It started out as a sort of funky thing to have in your car,” said Mika Ishida of Sony, which manufactures a navigational device. “But it’s turned out be popular among people besides the fanatics because it has a real practical application.”

Hideo Nomo, the Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, appears in a popular television advertisement driving across an endless bridge in the Florida Keys. “Straight ahead, straight ahead, straight ahead,” chants the car-navigator.

This, of course, is a touch of Japanese irony: Who has ever seen a horizon-meeting road in crowded, mountainous Japan?

As for Okamoto, he said his $2,500 navigator has changed his attitude toward the city. He used to venture out on the town tentatively. Now, with Yoko’s support, he has gained confidence. As his passengers climbed out of the car, Okamoto pushed in a preprogrammed button for “home” and he and Yoko shot off into the night, a blipping vector on his screen.