Macoto Takahashi

Macoto Takahashi is a highly influential shojo-ga ka (girls illustrator), and one of the pioneers of the sparkly, doe-eyed look that is employed in much contemporary shojo manga. It is unbelievable that a 78 year old man creates these fancy, lovely, lacy, dreamy portraits of coquettish girls sitting in flower fields, in front of castles and lakes filled with swans. He will be celebrating 60 years as the king of excruciatingly pretty shojo-ga next year. His exhibition was inundated with Ginza ladies waiting to get his signature...I must add that he (as a person) is absolutely adorable!

Asakusa shoot

Back with team Risa, MUA ninjette who we collab with for all the fashion spreads in our books...our shoots have become a yearly tradition. This time is we took foxy model Takako back to the Showa era with and spoilt her with retro toys. Tooooo cute! Thank you guys!

Yosuke Ueno

I found Yosuke Ueno's work on Juztapoz a while back, and fell in love with his gorgeous characters, and his elegant use of color. Had great shoot in Yoyogi park -- you can really tell his personality from looking at his work, actually! Check it out: http://www.spaceegg77.com/
Great guy and a very fun shoot.

Fish Cakes

Food design and aesthetics has always been a integral part of Japanese food, especially kaiseki ryori. This is what happens when you mix this sensibility with all things cute. We will have an ENTIRE section in the book devoted to ridiculously cute food and the people who make/ serve them.

Kyoto Manga Museum

Went to the fabulous Kyoto Manga Museum for the Kyoto Magic show, a collaboration between artists Junichi Nakahara and Macoto Takahashi, and Kyoto fashion designers sousou and verona. Deputy Director Toshio Kosaka was extremely informative, and the museum is definitely worth a visit -- an incredible selection of titles plus a great lawn to chill out on.

Florentijn Hofman

Ran into the inimitable work of the brilliant Florentijn Hofman on top of the Tadao Ando designed Hyogo Museum today. Hofman needs no introduction to the people of Osaka -- his gorgeous rubber duck has made two appearances in the canals of Kansai for the Osaka Canvas Project.
I feel that a lot of inflatable art seems to be more about artist megalomania than anything else, (and ends up looking like a cheap bouncy castle at a redneck county fair) but Hofman really brings a new dimension to his work by challenging the notion of public space and how we perceive it. I was fortunate to be working on the Canvas project, and was able to see his work and the people's reaction to it -- it was a huge success.  Another interesting aspect of his work is that it travels, but the design of the duck is subtly different according to the country. The duck in Osaka is perfectly kawaii, even though I presume the specs are the same. Check out his work:www.florentijnhofman.nl

Attending a brilliant Kobe University symposium on manga culture, pic: Ian Condry from MIT.

From the conference outline: The aim of this conference, titled “Manga Worlds”, is creating a platform where a variety of discourses and theories on manga and anime cultures can meet for an opportunity to deepen academic discussion. The conference will encompass talks by world-renowned scholars and professionals working not only in established disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, aesthetics and Japanology but also within subculture, visual culture and manga / comics studies.
Today, the debate on the globalization of manga / anime culture is increasing, as is the demand for academic research, such as Japanology. As part of this trend, we often see the tendency to regard the phenomenon as an expansion of homogeneous subculture derived from Japanese culture. But is this true? It seems that what is really happening around the world might be a multi-layered development of popular culture in each region, a phenomenon called “glocalization”. We need to reevaluate the assumptions concerning the relation between manga / anime culture and “Japaneseness.”