Naito Rune

Shot Naito Rune's show, curated by 6%DOKIDOKI's Masuda. While Naito is known for being the 60s illustrator of doe-eyed, bambi faces girl characters (as well as panda and fruit) there were many of his darker works on display. It is easy to see roots of Japan's gothic lolita culture in his creepy sketches.

Maid Cafe

Either you secretly love maids, or you are too embarrassed to say so. Completely too cute for words, docile and loves to make bear shaped parfaits, what's not to love? 

We go to Heaven's Gate to shoot the most popular maid cafe chain (they house a total of 300 maids).  

GLOOMY

Went to the mindbogglingly swanky Gloomy HQ in Akihabara, to interview designer Mori Chack. Gloomy is one of our favorite characters: pink and cute but has homicidal tendencies and is really quite morbid.  

Faline

fafi needs no introduction to fans of street art--shot the French queen of sexy pin-ups at the Harajuku faline boutique.

Yayoi Museum

Curator Ms Tamura connects the dots between character design, Japan's post war economy, industrial production, women's social roles, shojo manga and cute culture in this incredible
exhibition that looks at 100 years of kawaii culture since the Taisho era.

John Hathway

Went to John Hathaway's hi-tech Akihabara lair. John is something like a cross between a CGI artist, manga-ka, and mad scientist -- he has a masters degree from the Department of Applied Physics, Graduate School of Engineering from Tokyo University, and is a researcher for the Society for the Promotion of Science.  His 3-D work is multi-layered and incredibly detailed, check some of it out here: http://mots.jp/english.htm

Design Festa

Design Festa is a bit of a mixed bag -- ranging from horrendously crappy to the (occasionally) sublime.
Pix:
Kumamiki, a designer and  organizer of Harajuku street walk.
Ijiwaru's hunting prizes.