Tourists, even locals of the right persuasion, often invoke the movie Blade Runner when talking about Tokyo. Director Ridley Scott’s 1982 science fiction film is full of evocative images, some of them clearly Japan-inspired, like that of a geisha popping pills on a giant advertising screen above a rain-drenched neon metropolis. Our first introduction to Rick Deckard, the film’s main character, played by Harrison Ford, comes outside a noodle bar, whose elderly counterman beckons him with Japanese greetings, like “Irasshai,” and “Dozo.” But to what extent, really, did Tokyo inspire the look of Blade Runner?