We’ve heard that you originally studied literature. How did you come to enter the art world?

I got accepted into an art college but then I thought long and hard about it, and I didn’t really feel like I wanted to become an artist or even show artworks to people. I like drawing pictures but I wasn’t interested in exhibiting. My parents were also against it so in the end I went to a regular university. I like reading and felt like I could keep doing that for a while, so I chose literature.

Then after graduating I was working at a place and my senior colleague was asked to make some postcards. He told me he’d buy me a meal if I designed them, so I did — and by chance they were sent off to someone in the art world. They were then seen by a gallery person who was impressed and wanted to exhibit my work. But I’d heard from friends at art college that to do a solo show costs lots of money and I didn’t understand the difference at the time between rental galleries and regular exhibitions. I thought I would have to take a part-time job and really struggle financially if I had a solo show. That was a bit scary and I guess I saw gallery people as like people who sold bric-a-brac, so at first I turned them down. [Laughs]

But then they told me that the gallery would be exhibiting the work at its own risk and didn’t need any money from me. They just wanted me to paint around twenty pictures. So I simply took it on and this kind of led to where I am now.

Many of your artworks show a kind of traditional Japanese side. Has anything changed from when you first started?

Yes. Fundamentally there is no change in the things that I find beautiful or what I like. I’m Japanese and believe there are things that only Japanese can have, such as a way of seeing something, being sensitive to certain objects. This is inevitably influenced by Japanese arts and the environment.

In the Japanese arts people make art to order. For example, when you are deciding the measurements of a kakejuku hanging scroll, there is the size of the alcove. It’s not ordered art where the client just tells the artist what to make, but — and I call this “spontaneous order art” — the artist considers how he or she wants to make an artwork, and reconciles this with the space.

Rather than just making something and sticking it in a white space, I start by considering what I want to hang in a certain place or season. Whenever I’m asked to make or exhibit something, I first look at the space and then link that with the seasons and the concept of what I want to do. The size of the space and the individuality of the space influence the elements and size of the artwork. It assimilates with the environment, the space and the seasons.

The things that are my concepts can ultimately only come from what I experience and comprehend. The artwork can be found in between the internalized concept and the external environment, the factors and limitations. I always feel that this is similar to language. The language I use comes from who I am and my life, and the language of others is similarly derived from their experiences and bodies. Conversation is born in the intermediation of this, and likewise my artworks are the same, located midway between myself and the environment and things around me.

You make a lot of kakejuku hanging scroll artworks. Compared to an ordinary frame, the scroll itself is something very special and seems to play a large role in your work. When did you first encounter scrolls?

It was twelve years ago, just by coincidence. The exhibits at my first solo show all sold and the gallery was very happy. They told me to do whatever I wanted next year. When I was young it was my job to take care of changing the hanging scroll whenever guests came to our house. Though I liked old scrolls, I wasn’t so interested in the ones sold or in people’s homes today. I had made a bit of money now, so I thought I’d try to make twelve scrolls.

When I think about it today, the production costs went way beyond what I earned! [Laughs] But anyway, my second exhibition was just scrolls. At the time, no one was making hanging scrolls. Fundamentally, the scroll has to be in complete accord with the picture — if they don’t form a co-ordinated microcosm, then it’s pointless. But usually the painter would do just the picture, and the scroll would then be left to the gallery or the paperhanger shop. There was no direction connecting the scroll with the picture, so hanging scrolls had become boring. That’s why I decided to do the whole thing myself. And it was for this second solo exhibition that I wanted to make something where you can see straightaway how interesting paperhanging can be.

In our lives recently we don’t tend to see kakejuku, do we? And even in art regular frames are the norm. Taking a proper look now, there really is something very nice about scrolls as a means for decorating pictures. And they’re convenient, right?

Yes, you can roll them up and take them around with you. The seasons in Japan are very delicate and we change our clothes, our crockery and food every month — so it’s not good to leave pictures just hanging on the wall. In summer one should hang something summery, in autumn something autumnal. When a certain person comes over, hang something for them. This kind of lifestyle rhythm needs something light like scrolls. With frames it’s a real hassle to get them out and put them away. And with living spaces so small, this kind of thing is the most appropriate.

And there’s another function to it. It’s like our television today — it plays the role of facilitating conversation between guests and the host. If someone just turns up and asks you how you are, it makes you nervous, right? So you talk about sport or something. Well, the hanging scroll was like that because Japanese people are good at indirect communication. The conversation starts like this: “Oh, that’s by so-and-so, isn’t it?” or “That’s really good for the season.” It was a communication tool for learning things like how the other person like a certain someone’s paintings or they hate the heat and so on, and then the conversation proceeds smoothly.

The hanging scrolls in your current exhibition are really nice. Did you do something special this time?

The paper used here is very special lining paper that only artisans usually see. Lining paper is very beautiful and I thought it was a shame that people never see it, so I made this design using it on the top and bottom.

I sometimes make things in this way after encountering materials that regular people can never see through my work with craftsmen.

When you work with artisans, how do things proceed?

I learn a lot from craftsmen so when we work together, it’s mostly about absorbing what they teach me. Our temperaments are similar; I find it very easy to work with them. They let me study and get interested in my ideas, try them out for me, and though many of the things don’t turn out well, there are some that do. Then I ask them to make that. Well, we take our time.

The artwork in the entrance was made in a ceramics kiln at Mikawachi in Nagasaki. I’ve known them for two years and wanted to work with them because the quality of their technique is very high, and the materials are interesting. They looked at my work and felt there was some kinship between what we were doing. Originally the Senju Kannon (Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara) is represented by forty-two arms but in this work, there are only forty arms. It’s an interactive artwork. When the viewer stands in front of it, then it becomes forty-two arms and thus the “thousand” arms. It took two years to do this. It was tough because Nagasaki is so far from Tokyo.

Is it not tough also just to work with artisans? They have their traditions that they have been doing up till now and there must be many who oppose making new things.

Well, when someone comes along completely out of the blue, it like throws craftsmen a bit. I ask to see their studio and watch them work, and then come back a few days later and ask them to make something in a certain way.

I always work with an architect on the layout of the venue. I also don’t categorize things as product, art, crafts, and so on. It’s really interesting to share information with people I know and make things together. Many media are separated for convenience’s sake but in my world there are just two kinds of people — people who are doing a good job and those who don’t like their job. People doing a good job work with everyone, regardless of the medium. Everyone’s interests and direction and way of doing things is different, but the core is the same.

For example, if I was by myself it would just be the output I could do from thirty years of life experience — but then if another person comes in, then we also have their thirty years of experience. Add this to the sixty years of experience that an artisan may have and we have an artwork with around 120 years of know-how behind it. The viewer can sense this. It comes out, the accumulating, the layering up of techniques, the appeal in the artwork that is created by joining together.

You cannot do everything by yourself. For example, if I wanted to do something with metal, I’d have to start studying it from scratch and that would take some ten years, and you’d have to be taught by someone who was trained. My medium changes depending on what I want to do at the time — paper, porcelain, metal, glass. It’s impossible to study them all from scratch so I work with a specialist in that field who can teach me. This is fun.

There are lots of interesting motifs in your work. Sometimes it feels very contemporary, other times it’s more Buddhist. The combination of motifs, assigning meaning to different elements, is fun. Sometimes it’s cute on the surface but then more complex when you look closer.

My artworks are devices for renewing people’s awareness of what is happening in society today. Today we can only digest things that we can understand straightaway. Our ability to digest culture has weakened. There’s just so much now; there’s less careful and instinctive picking out, less picking up what’s been missed. I like things that are layered, the more you bite the more you find. Art is communication, so it’s important to have lots of layers so anyone — from novices to experts — can find something. My artwork is structured in layers, like mille-feuille. I like layers!

Thank you, Mai Miyake.

Mai Miyake ‘Little Lily-White Lie’
May 25 to June 30, 2013
11:00-20:00 (Last entry: 19:30)
Venue: Pola Museum Annex
Entrance: Free
http://www.po-holdings.co.jp/m-annex/exhibition

As soon as you come inside you notice how humid it is. The humidity is important for orchids, then?

Yes, it’s important and so is the timing. Higher humidity in the morning and evening is the most effective. So when I open up in the morning I raise the humidity, and again in the evening. Right now it’s down to 76% [We were at Placer Workshop around one o’clock in the afternoon], but in the morning it’s up at around 90% so the store is super sweaty.

Lots of these orchids I’ve never seen before. Are they foreign species?

Almost all are foreign orchids. There are only a few Japanese ones. And lots of people think that orchids usually grow on the ground — but that’s wrong.

They don’t? So are they parasites, then?

What’s special about orchids is that they aren’t parasitic but epiphytic. Unlike parasites they don’t take anything from the plant. Parasites are completely dependent on something but epiphytes are just renting a spot, so to speak. They attain their nutrition and food all by themselves.

Orchid seedlings proliferate like flowers such as dandelions, carried away by the wind to germinate where they fall. But in the case of orchids, pollen mass becomes a cluster and this is carried by a pollinator. These are usually insects, so “Orchid A” will always have a reciprocal relationship with “Pollinator A”.

The reason why orchid flowers are called erotic or grotesque is because the flowers imitate the backs of female pollinators and mimic them. When they want to mate, the pollinators mistake the orchids for the backs of their females and fly into them. For example, there is the moth orchid, whose name comes from how the flower is similar to a moth.

Why do orchids grow on another plant, rather than out of the ground?

It is said that orchids were the last plant to appear on the earth. When the descendants of the orchid first came about, the earth was almost covered in greenery so there was nowhere for the orchids to live. The places it found to escape and survive were trees and rocks.

Thanks to its unique evolution in this way, orchids have the most species among flowering plants today. There are said to be 26,000-28,000 species. Orchid horticulture began in the 1700’s and people started cross-fertilizing, collecting the best groups and then making more hybrids from these. This continues today so if we include crossbreeds there are over 100,000 species.

Many people think of orchids as something you give as a gift, but actually we are eating them without knowing it. I also eat them.

What? You eat orchids? When?

Vanilla. Vanilla is an old species of orchid. Like coelacanth for fish, it’s just never changed. It’s also the only orchid that is like an ivy. It also flowers but only for a short time — between two hours and two weeks, or two days on average. It is seeded during this short time and afterwards you take the seeds and dry them, and then you can smell vanilla’s distinctive aroma. But in fact, when the plant is flowering there is no smell at all, which even science today does not understand why.

In other words, unless you seed vanilla during the short time in which it flowers, there would be no vanilla beans. I’ve tried this many times but have never succeeded. It’s a really old species so it’s a bit different in form to contemporary orchids, and it doesn’t work if you do it in the same way. In places like Mexico and Egypt where they produce a lot of vanilla beans, there are craftsman just for pollinating. It’s done on commission so if you’re good at it, your salary is high.

Orchids are… complicated. There’s just so much you don’t know about them. Well, you’ve told us a lot about orchids but why did you start a shop just selling them? Because you liked them?

No, I didn’t know anything about them at first. Originally an Itoshima farmer was searching in Fukuoka for a place where he could sell orchids, so we rented him the ground floor of my family house — what is Placer Workshop today. Then the Bubble burst and business got bad, so he shut up shop. But there were already customers and so my family continued the shop from our house. Afterwards, the store staff left and this was just when I got back from studying abroad in America, and I was told to work here since I had nothing to do. So at first I was reluctant and didn’t like it at all. I was quite bitter about having to do it.

So at first you were reluctant but now you seem completely taken in by orchids. When did the attraction hit you?

I got an order for an orchid as a gift and went to the farm in Itoshima to buy it, and there at the farm there was this kind of grotesque orchid like the ones in the shop now. I really like it. “What’s this?!” I asked and they gave me one. In the end it never flowered, but I looked at the picture book we had at the store and there were lots of ones I had never seen before. I was surprised that all these different plants were orchids and that’s when I started to think they were interesting. From when the farm starting producing the orchids I liked that I really got into them.

For a while I searched for strains of orchid that were interesting and as a hobby bought and cultivated them. When I decided to really make a go of it with these kinds of orchids I changed the whole of the store. That was about eight years ago. I thought that orchids like this are more attractive and fun that the ones that everyone knows.

Yes, I see what you mean — all of the orchids here are attractive. And not just the orchids themselves, but the way the shop interior and the typographical decorated is matched with the plants is really novel.

When I changed everything up, I stopped selling orchid bouquets that are given as gifts in theatres, so sales dropped. I was worried about making ends meet and I found it refreshing to write on the walls. [Laughs] That’s how I started writing.

Have you ever studied art or design?

No, never. I just write what I like.

How do you choose what to write?

When I got back from studying in Boston I lost a lot of my English, but sometimes things would just come into my head and I’d write this, or phrases that I read in books and liked. It’s just how it comes.

When I was studying in America I drove four hours to New York from Boston. In the morning I was just walking around drinking coffee, and I saw there was lots of graffiti in the city. I really like the way Americans write so I wanted to copy this.

And the shop name, Placer Workshop, suggests you do workshops here?

Originally the name was “Western Orchids Specialty Store Placer” but I added “workshop” when I started running it. You can’t really come into contact with orchids so easily, so by calling my shop a “workshop” I thought it would communicate that’s what I do here. When people ask me about the workshops, then I organize one.

Orchids are something you cultivate after buying them, so having a workshop where you first learn and then can buy a plant is a nice idea.

Yes. Many of the orchids available today need a lot of fertilizer. You can’t give so much fertilizer when you cultivate them at home, so there is quite a rebound. The orchids are forced to flower a lot so if you suddenly stop giving them the fertilizer, they are unable to get nutrition, and don’t flower the next year.

I want to deal in orchids that aren’t beyond your control — ones you can have fun growing at home. So as much as possible I don’t use fertilizer. This means that my customers also shouldn’t need to use any. For example, if a moth orchid flowered with ten clusters, then the next year it may only flower with six when you look after it by yourself — but this is normal. The other four only grew because of the fertilizer. My method is for making flowers bloom more casually, and I reduce the use of fertilizer in order to retain a relationship between plants and people that isn’t forced.

As I just said, almost all orchids grow on trees, so at the right time any you buy in a pot can be transferred to a wood block and you can make it grow on that. Right now I’m experimenting with trying to grow orchids on other things too, not just pieces of wood or trees. For example, on shoes, LP player needles, tube containers and so on. It’s a new attempt to examine what is a “vessel”? What is “support”? In this way you can learn all the things an orchid can grow on and you can get to know what orchids are like, and it’s fun even if you’re young.

Do you have any future plans for the shop?

Right now it’s really tough for farmers. In orchid horticulture [in Japan] there are two types of orchid — orchids grown as original strains and those as gifts. For economic reasons, neither is selling well. I know people who are shutting down or quitting orchids in favor of strawberries. If this keeps up, orchids will go the way of the dodo, so we have to make it easy and fun to grow and maintain orchids in order for the farmers growing the good plants to survive. Orchid culture has been around since the eighteenth century and I’d like it to keep going into our children’s generation too.

After thinking it was just a rather eccentric place, the more I heard, the more I saw what an impressive shop Placer Workshop was. Anyone who wants to learn about orchids or just listen to the ever enthusiastic Yoichiro Uchida, be sure to apply for a workshop!

Placer Workshop
http://www.placer-workshop.com/

Shop No.1
1F 18-8 Tamagawa Machi, Minami-ku, Fukuoka 8150037

Shop No.2
1F 1-1-3 Daimyo, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka 8100032

Telephone: 092 511 3729
Fax: 092 541 2067
E-mail: placer@placer-workshop.com

1: Kata-burera (Shoulder-brella)

Umbrellas can be a real hassle when you’ve got lots of bags to carry as well. That’s where this item comes in. With this holder you can open up your umbrella without having to have it in your hand. A revolution for the rain!

2: Shoes Wrap Label

When it’s been raining all day, not only do your shoes get wet, they get wet right down to your socks. The solution? Keep these mobile shoe covers in your bag and then you’ll always be ready for dark clouds.

3: Nikku (Meat) Towel

Saying that, no matter how you fortify yourself, you’re still gonna get wet during the rainy season. Coming home, you need a towel to dry yourself off. But don’t settle for an ordinary towel. We recommend this one which, as the name suggests, has a “meat” pattern to revive your spirits and amuse you!

4: Edo Furin

What we hate about rainy season is not just the rain. Actually, the biggest enemy is the humidity. Japan has long possessed the know-how for — excuse the pun — weathering the heat. Glass wind chimes (furin) are first of all very cooling on the eyes with their classically chic transparent look. Then there’s the pleasant sounds, which will refresh your ears too. All in all, this is an indispensable item for cooling down your senses on sticky days.

5: Edo Sensu

We’ve previously written about Hirocoledge and here are some fantastic uchiwa (fans) from the designers. Easy to carry around with you and keep you cool, fans are essential whatever the era. But if it’s something you take around with you, we want to be discerning in our choice of design, and that’s where a stylish Hirocoledge fan comes in.

6: Rain Pop

There’s very little crime in Japan… except if you’ve got an umbrella. Go into a convenience store for two minutes on a rainy day, and when you come out your brolly will likely be gone from the umbrella stand outside. But the reason isn’t that average citizens possess a criminal mindset when it comes to protecting themselves from wet weather — it’s that most umbrellas just look the same! Stand out from all the other transparent vinyl umbrellas with this Rain Pop, a colorful accessory that will help you identity yours by the handle — and also stops your umbrella slipping off your desk or wherever you hang it. Simple but brilliant!

7: Magnetized Umbrella Holder

The forecast says rain later in the day but the one thing you’re bound to forget is your umbrella. Well, use this holder to store your brolly on the wall by the door, and with its bold colors and design you are unlikely to miss it.

8: Microworks Tail

We interviewed the designer behind the fantastic Tail umbrella earlier this year but couldn’t resist including it here. As the name suggests, you tie up the canopy using the “tail” of the animal who decorates the umbrella. A super cute and fun way to brighten up gloomy wet days.

9: Dog Rain Boats

We love dog raincoats so much we included them in a previous rainy season products round-up. But this pet rainwear goes that one step further: Feet! After all, when your little pooch has been pattering around outside in the rain all day, you don’t want its dirty feet spoiling your clean floor. So this year be fully prepared for Mother Nature with rain boots for your dog.

10: Cat Terrace

Your cat may not be luck enough to have a raincoat, but it’s unfair if you only treat your canine pet. We all know that cats like to look out the window on a rainy day. How about building a mini terrace by your window so your cat can really enjoy the rain (or any weather for that matter) in style?

Hang on — what river? Shibuya today is synonymous with larger than life video screens, lurid fashions, boozy nights and love hotels. It’s a confluence of youthful hedonism and crass consumption. There isn’t river in sight. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone wandering the streets of Shibuya who even knows that one existed. (A quick polling of Japanese friends suggests this is generally true). Yet it does exist: the Shibuya-gawa.

The Shibuya-gawa runs from Shinjuku-gyoen all the way to Tokyo Bay, though its name changes a few times along the way. You can see it in Ebisu, a small trickle hemmed in by concrete walls, running alongside Meiji-dori. However, the section that runs from Shinjuku to Shibuya is now entirely underground. Ever walk down Cat Street, the curiously meandering boutique-lined lane that connects Shibuya and Harajuku? The river (here called the Onden-gawa) is underneath.

Another river, the Uda-gawa, is now Center-gai, Shibuya’s main drag. The Uda-gawa and Shibuya-gawa converge right around where Shibuya’s famous crossing — where thousands are said to cross with every light change — now stands. It is crazy to think: this icon of modern Tokyo, where there is now a parade of platform shoes, was once water.

To understand the fate of Shibuya’s rivers is to understand the trajectory of twentieth century Tokyo. At the turn of the last century, Shibuya was a village in Tokyo prefecture known for its tea fields and water wheels (powered by the rivers, naturally). It had recently gained status as the southwestern terminus of the city’s new streetcar network.

When the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake left more than half the city homeless (mostly due to the fires that leveled the densely packed eastern neighborhoods — then “downtown”), tens of thousands of people moved westward, many ending up in Shibuya. For centuries, farmers had purchased and carted away the contents of Tokyo chamber pots, but the reorganization of people and the reduction of agricultural land caused the system to break down. The Shibuya-gawa (and others) became a convenient alternative. Naturally, the rivers got pretty stinky; typhoid levels rose. Most likely, the man I met in the bar should not have been fishing in these waters.

The decision to cover the rivers in concrete was part of the citywide clean up effort leading up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The Shibuya-gawa has been under concrete for about half a century now, which means in two generations its existence has been almost entirely forgotten. That’s hard to believe — but then again, how many times have you walked by a new construction in Tokyo and thought to yourself: “Wait a minute. What was here before?”

“Things changed very fast in Japan, especially in Shibuya. During the post-war redevelopment, things had to change fast. Suddenly there was so much concrete. And I think it is time to readjust how we perceive that concrete,” says Gen Ide, director of the Boat People Association.

The Boat People Association is a collective of professionals from fields such as art, architecture, and urban planning. They’ve mapped out Tokyo’s rivers and canals (visible and invisible) and organize events that draw attention to these overlooked waterways. I learned all of the above about the history of the Shibuya-gawa during the opening night reception for their latest project, ‘Shibuya Underground Streams’, organized in collaboration with Spatial Dialogues.

Spatial Dialogues is a project based at RMIT University in Melbourne that is examining the role of water in three urban spaces — Melbourne, Shanghai, and Tokyo — and creating public art events to encourage contemplation and dialogue concerning our relationship to the water around us. ‘Shibuya Underground Streams’ is the Tokyo leg of the project, a month-long study and celebration of the waterways that snake beneath the streets of Shibuya through art, activities, storytelling, and symposiums.

Yet Tokyo has some well-known rivers, like the Sumida-gawa in eastern Tokyo, a wide stretch of water plied by tourist boats and crisscrossed by bridges. Why not focus on one of these rivers that remain part of the identity of contemporary Tokyo?

“Gen [Ide] drove us around and showed us different rivers. We liked these hidden rivers because they make you think about Tokyo in a different way — all the different layers of transport and mobility. Place is not just geography. It’s also history,” explains Larissa Hjorth, an artist and professor at RMIT University working with Spatial Dialogues.

The project headquarters, a shipping container at Jingu-dori Park, will function as an open studio for Spatial Dialogues’ artists. (A sandbag installation by Melbourne-based British sculptor Simon Perry promises to be a highlight). Already a treasure hunt has taken place. Over three days, participants hunted for small artworks strewn around the park with their camera phones. The goal: To capture images of only Tokyo-native sea creatures, and post them to the project Twitter account.

There will also be river walks (and night-time jogs!), hosted by Shibuya-gawa Renaissance and Shibuya Rivers — two organizations seeking appreciation for the long-lost river. (As it turns out, this river that no one has heard of has some serious fans!) And for those who really want to get intimate with the river, the Boat People Association is leading a boating exhibition up the (above ground) Furukawa-gawa (the name for the Shibuya-gawa once it hits Minato ward).

‘Shibuya Underground Streams’ runs June 2nd-23rd. For a complete list of events see:

http://spatialdialogues-shibuya.tumblr.com http://spatialdialogues.net/tokyo/live-in-tokyo

Boat People Association:

http://boatpeopleassociation.org

Thank you to Gen Ide and Tadashi Iwamoto of the Boat People Association, Kenzo Ishi from Shibuya-gawa Renaissance, and Rei Shirao.

Well, if we follow this train of thought, then here’s something guaranteed to give you your fill of “Japanese culture”. Manga Night, the unit who organize events and who wrote our ‘Dragon Ball’ article recently, also produced an event that combines sushi and manga. You can’t get more Japanese than that! PingMag went along to check it out.

The event this time was held at a gallery in Edogawabashi in Tokyo. The gallery is part of the same venue as a sushi restaurant called Sumeshiya, a combo of raw fish and art which must be pretty unique, even for Japan. Manga Night held an event called ‘manga-esque exhibition’ at the space, collecting together products connected to comic books.

‘manga-esque exhibition’

One of the exhibits was Manga Night’s new brand Mangata. This textile seems at first glance to be completely unrelated to manga but actually it’s designed with patterns of the kakeami brush technique which is used in comic books. Kakeami is frequently employed in horror comics, detailed line work for expressing characters’ emotions.

“When we talk about manga-themed design, we tend to end up using typical elements like speech bubbles and the characters. This time I wanted to try it from a different approach,” says Manga Night’s Yasuhiro Yamauchi. “Actually the basic part of this textile pattern is all drawn by hand. It almost killed me!” [Laughs]

And for sure, it really does look like tough work!

‘Comic Leaf’, Manga Night’s new product, was also on display — a postcard for sending someone your recommended manga. You write dialogue from the manga on the speech bubble-shaped card and then on the pocket on the other side, you put book tokens and a piece of paper with the manga’s ISBN number. This is then a great present for someone. The receiver can buy the manga straightaway with the ISBN number.

“If you send a manga to someone, they can feel this pressure like they have to read the book. So this product was born out of wondering if there was a more laid-back and fun way to give someone a manga as a present,” says Yamauchi.

Sushi Manga Night

It’s time for ‘Sushi Manga Night’ to start! What is the event? Well, basically, it’s eating the sushi that appears in manga. First, everyone takes their seat and reads manga. The manga on the table are examples that highlight sushi. For tonight’s event they were ‘Shota no sushi’ (Shota’s Sushi) and ‘Kirara no shigoto’ (Kirara’s Job). It’s a new way to enjoy a comic as it gets you wondering if you can actually make what you read about. Okay, so now it’s time to get cooking! Tonight we will be preparing fifteen different types of sushi, including “original” ones.

Ta-da! Here they are, folks.

Steamed Bream (‘Shota no sushi’ )

Our protagonist Shota does battle in a sushi competition with his spiteful superior. His weapon is… bream! However, due to a bad haul, the market only has one top bream on offer, which his superior snaps up. Shota is then left with a lesser quality bream that his friend manages to get for him. Grateful for his friend’s efforts and hoping somehow to win even with the bream, Shota creates this sushi. The most tasty part is the body and skin, though it is slightly tough. Shota lightly boils the skin, bringing out its tastiness and making it easier to eat as well.

Red Cornetfish Kobujime (‘Kirara no shigoto’ )

Our protagonist Kirara is forced into a sushi duel in order to oppose the aggressive headhunting of a top chef and big chain restaurant owner. After her enemy produces a seemingly perfect olive flounder sushi, Kirara cooks up this red cornetfish, a incredible specimen rarely seen in ordinary restaurants. With the kobujime technique (putting fish on top of konbu seaweed, transferring the taste of the konbu without excess moisture on the fish) she wins over the palates of the judges.

Well, that’s a quick run-down of the basic storylines but no doubt there are readers already familiar with them. So enough with the waffle — let’s take a look at the delicious results of the evening!

Japanese Tiger Prawn & Miso (‘Shota no sushi’) Shrimp miso along the bottom of the prawn rather than wasabi really brings out the flavor.

Bream Fry (‘Shota no sushi’ ) This one was made by Shota’s antagonist, a bream fry.

Pickled Tuna & Steamed Pickled Tuna (‘Kirara no shigoto’ )

Two kinds of pickled tuna. One is pickled for a short time, the other over a long period.

Raw Mushroom Hamburger (original) This sushi was created especially by the event venue, Sumeshiya. Inside is the slowly pickled tuna from the previous picture.

Bonito with Mustard (‘Shota no sushi’ ) Usually you put ginger on bonito but this sushi has mustard instead.

Tuna Head Meat (‘Shota no sushi’ ) You can’t beat tuna head for that tasty fatty tuna experience!

Alfonsino Kasuzuke (original) Another original sushi. Usually kasuzuke is grilled and eaten, but here it becomes sushi. Is it possible for raw kasuzuke to be this delicious?!

Smoked Saury (original) An original dish by Sumeshiya. You can’t beat the smell of cured saury!

Horse Mackerel (‘Kirara no shigoto’ ) A really typical horse mackerel. The manager of Sumeshiya, Mr. Okada, tells us how the sushi re-thinks the significance of seasoning. “Originally seasoning was for getting rid of bad odors, but fish today don’t smell so bad. So what is seasoning for? It’s for setting off the taste, of course.”

Golden Mackerel (‘Shota no sushi’ ) This fish is the one that it almost killed Shota to get his hands on. Well, is that edible or what?!

Conger (‘Shota no sushi’, ‘Kirara no shigoto’) This eel appears in both manga.

Tekkamaki (Seaweed and tuna rolled rice ball) (‘Tekka no makihei’) In this case it’s a whole manga, ‘Tekka no makihei’, that’s a kind of sushi!

If we’re honest, we weren’t expecting much in terms of taste from sushi that appear in manga. But actually they were all delicious! At one point during the event there were calls to make “noodle sushi”, the cup noodle-cum-sushi that appears in the manga ‘Oh My God’. Thankfully, it wasn’t added to the menu! This writer was also really impressed by the level of manga research that went into the event to make the sushi taste so good — a testament to the culinary skills of Sumeshiya, no doubt.

All in all, it was a chance to discover the sensation of eating sushi while reading manga, and how interesting this can be. We hope they hold a follow-up event because the entire PingMag editorial team will definitely be attending with chopsticks at the ready!

Sumeshiya

This is my first time to visit and I was struck by the harmony of the modern interior with a Japanese house. And the kimono you’ve got on now is a little unusual, isn’t it?

This kimono resembles the clothes of a kuroko (the stagehands in kabuki). Leather is used for the collar and obi. Ten years ago I got the idea from people I know to make kimono in a playful way. I dressed my son in the costume of a kabuki actor, and adding a cowl and mannifer to the kimono it became a kuroko.

I didn’t used to wear kimono when I was young, but I thought I’d try to make a business out of wearing kimono when I started my company, so I bought yuki-tsumugi kimono and nobakama in Asakusa. But I didn’t know how to tie up the skirt so I looked online and discovered there was this casual kimono contest. I made alterations to the kimono and put on high-cut boots, and came second place. From then on I used to go out a lot in kimono and started playing around with making them. Around this time, I made a summer kimono with mosquito embroidery and a “watermelon” kimono. 

The watermelon kimono is the color of the fruit’s skin on the outside, and then orange on the inside. On the back there is a watermelon motif for a seal. The obi (belt) is plain hemp that I bought from Tokyu Hands, folded over each other and with lappets sewed into it. I played around like this for half a year. For the kimono contest in 2001 I made a denim kimono and this won. Around this time, I created the kimono brand Wai, and a few of my products were displayed in United Arrows shop windows. After that I started to sell t-shirts with kamon and Swarovski wallets.

It all sort of spread from wearing a customized kimono, then?

Yes. This was from when I was fifty years old. I was wondering if I would just keep on going as an artisan. I thought about doing contemporary versions of the framed kamon my father made. I made the ‘Kamon Komon’ series with kamon crests drawn onto komon (kimono with intricate patterns) fabric, and then through an aquaintance I got introduced to someone from the Austrian embassy. In 2007, I had a solo exhibition at a museum next to the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.

From around this time, you continued to work as a craftsman, but also as an artist.

Yes, that’s right. I’m continuing the ‘Kamon Komon’ series even now. In 2011, I made something with a crest stencil motif. Today you don’t come into contact with kamon so much, so I want people to get in touch with them, even if it’s just in a playful way. Playing with pattern cutting was something that children did at elementary school up till the war. By folding paper up and cutting it out as patterns, you can make kamon. Watch TV drama from the early Showa period and then you can see holes in sliding doors stopped up with paper cut into the shape of cherry blossoms, right? Everyone learnt that in elementary school.

I took those pattern sheets and drew them on a computer to make a kit where you could play around with the sheets easily. By drawing things on Illustrator you can understand the graphic design behind kamon. It’s really interesting. You can make all kinds of things by computer. I took photos of Chinese bellflowers and cosmos plants, and then took the silhouettes from the photos and made kamon crests. By looking at actual photographs you can make new discoveries about the shape of the petals and the valves.



The lines are overlapped in a complex but beautiful way.

A kamon is a plane designed using circles. An image made using Illustrator can then overlay hundreds of individual circles. This ‘Peony’ kamon uses 638 circles.

Are all the kamon lines created from circles?

Yes. All the curved parts are circles. From this I developed the ‘Mon-Mandala’ series. Based on the kamon drawing technique, the circles are picked out and then the kamon is etched out by the kirazuri technique.

It’s interesting that someone who used to draw crests by hand now uses a computer to do it.

I like it! [Laughs] Actually the number of people using computers is increasing more than those who draw by hand. It’s interesting.

Young people today aren’t conscious of possessing a family emblem, and many people don’t even know their own crest. What is a kamon in the first place?

Yes, today many people just first select their emblem when told to “choose the one they like” from a moncho insignia book for their family grave.

You can use the emblem that you like? It’s surprisingly informal.

Oh, yes. We tend to think of emblems as formal but actually they’re not. For example, it’s not one crest per family — some households have several emblems.

Do you then use different ones for different occasions?

Yes, you can. A long time ago your emblem expressed who you were. This means, though, that you put on the crest and people know who you are. So, when you want to hide your identity, you would use a different emblem. The phrase “leaving by the back gate” could also be called the “under crest”.

That’s interesting. What about emblems in Europe?

In Europe, only the aristocracy had insignia and I don’t think you could just change your crest so easily. It started with the symbols on knights’ shields around the tenth century and these then became the family crest, so there were lots of martial ones like eagles and tigers. And that’s why many car emblems today are also in the shape of shields.

If we look back at the roots of Japanese crests, the motifs are fundamentally plants. Among the old ones, there is a kashiwa (oak) in one around AD 70. About that time there were different crests for the different functions serving the Emperor. Chefs had a kashiwa emblem, which was derived from how food was offered to the gods on an oak leaf. This then eventually became the crest of shrines. From this the culture of giving insignia to professions began and with the Heian period we enter a world of court nobility, and elegant (miyabi) things from the Asian mainland were favored. This led to plovers and cranes being used a lot in design.

Emblems expressing place names came after the concept of the “house” (ie, or ka or ke) appeared, like the Fujiwara family. Before the ka there was only uji (or shi), as in the Fujiwara-uji, to show a tribe or clan. But the Imperial court was totally dominated by the Fujiwara clan, so uji were divided into households with the name of the place where they lived. The concept of the household spread through the Five Regent houses (Go-seike) of Konoe, Takatsukawa, Kujo, Ichijo and Nijo.

Until the Heian period, emblems were only used by the aristocracy and warrior families, but from the Edo era (1603-1868) ordinary people also started to use them. So in Japan all families have insignia. That’s very special compared to the rest of the world. Japan emblem culture is very particular.

Today the custom of using an emblem hasn’t been carried on, has it?

Well, today there still exists the custom of dressing new-born babies up in noshime with kamon crests when taking them to a shrine. The kimonos worn during Shichi-Go-San and coming-of-age ceremonies also feature crests.

And your son is the current fourth-generation emblem artist in your family. You seem to have this incredible skill to interpret just about anything through design in your own style. I guess that’s what a real artisan can do!

Well, in my circle right now there aren’t so many people creating as well as designing. I guess I’m a bit strange! [Laughs] I just like creating things. If I’m asked, I’ll do it! Recently my design work has increased, so I do more work digitally than actually drawing kamon. For example, making crests for kimono for a specific project or crests for the packaging for a Japanese confectionary store. And for work for individuals, I’ve previously made a crest for a cat.

You really can make a crest for anything!

Yes. We say “emblem” but it’s really more like having your own icon.

Right, a Japanese “icon”! Do you have any future plans?

It’s important lots of people know about kamon. I want more people to be aware of crests. I have an exhibition at Mitsukoshi in June. I plan to exhibit the ‘Mon-Mandala’ series using Japanese paper by Living National Treasure Ichibe Iwano, as well as the ‘Kamon Komon’ series, and vases and chests of drawers made in collaboration with a designer. I want people to come into contact with kamon crests, even just with their playful elements.

Shoryu Hatoba

With this in mind, PingMag has collected together some magazines from the past that blazed a path through Japanese media history. Magazines come in all shapes and sizes, so this time we’ve narrowed it down to just women’s magazines. It goes without saying that women are very sensitive to fashions. What were they looking for back when magazines first came about? We tried to find out.

Meiji: The Dawn of Magazines

To unravel the history of magazines in Japan we have to go back to the Meiji period (1868-1912). At first the idea of the magazine was to be educational material for intellectual readers, sharing theories and doctrines on lofty topics. This led to the birth of magazines that dealt with literature, such as philosophical and political novels. Magazines in the early period were restricted to more learned readers, and weren’t bought by regular consumers like today. In the same way, women’s magazines were initially tools for “enlightening” women, who were yet to receive the right to vote. Later the format came to be accepted by mainstream society, and with this came an evolution of the content from not only political or philosophical subjects, to lifestyle and fashion as well.

Covers

A large number of the ratherly serene covers feature illustrations, and perhaps we can see here how at the time a magazine was something for the upper classes. Certain publications also liked to make use of Roman alphabet and English lettering.

Content

Articles were high-brow, philosophical and thought-provoking. Fujingaho was slightly lighter, with news-like articles that used photographs. Refinement meant not only learning and knowledge: With fashion and the latest trends you could also be a real “lady”.

Taisho: Becoming a Media for the Masses

As Meiji gave way to the Taisho period (1912-1926), magazines became less something with lofty discourse for an elite and more focused on worldly topics for larger numbers of ordinary readers.

Covers

Now we start to see lots of magazines with design to pique readers with more informal tastes. Putting aside the use of illustration in place of photography, we can actually already see the foundations of today’s magazine design emerging. However, article copy as we know it was yet to develop fully and the magazines still retained a sense of the highbrow.

Content

Rather than erudite topics, now there are articles useful for everyday life, along with gossip-style pieces. There is also a notable increase in pages with photographs and color, looking to create a publication that was interesting and fun for average people to read.

Specialist Magazines

Magazines and journals specializing in certain topics, like fashion, also start to appear around now, beginning the war of the magazines!

Early Showa to Pre-War

As we enter the Showa period (1926-1989), women’s magazines had become such an element of everyday life that they could be purchased easily at convenience stores. And as magazines began to become viable in a business sense, so too did advertising in them then also become standard, along with photography and other elements that made magazines fun and enjoyable forms of entertainment. From around this time we also start to see calendars and booklets included with issues as giveaways to increase sales.

Covers

There aren’t such big changes to the cover itself. From around this time it had become the norm for the magazine title to be placed over a full-sheet illustration.

Content

The majority of the content is made up of advertisements, serialized novels and gossip-style articles. By this point, the fundamental form of the magazine had become fixed. The content of the articles also compares not too badly with contemporary publications.

Well, that was a whirlwind tour — but we hope you’ll agree that magazines from the past actually already resemble today’s magazines from a surprisingly early stage. And there’s not a world of difference between the topics and themes they deal with and those featured in publications today. While naturally reflecting the background of their respective eras, nonetheless the information that readers want in a magazine seems essentially to always be mostly the same. We haven’t answered the question of what magazines should now do in order to survive the media crisis, but at PingMag we still keep up our own efforts in the media!

PingMag’s Tom Vincent recently sat down with graphic designer Taku Satoh, art director for ‘Design Ah!’, and interface designer Yugo Nakamura, for a sprawling two-hour discussion. Here are the highlights!

“Ah” Song

Tom Vincent (TV): I was searching on YouTube this morning for ‘Design Ah!’ videos and I found an interesting one. There’s a father filming ‘Design Ah!’ on TV with a handheld camera. His small child is watching it with him.As the show starts, the child starts saying “Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah…” along with the intro song.It was so loud. I thought, I can’t watch this!The child kept on repeating the intro, “Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah… Mama! Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah…” And then, after the intro had died down, all went quiet. For the next fifteen minutes, the child watched in silence.

Taku Satoh (TS): That’s interesting!

Yugo Nakamura (YN): At the first meeting we had with Keigo Oyamada (Cornelius), the song was going to be a kind of theme song.

TS: Right, that came from NHK.

YN: But Taku was pulling a “not this!” kind of face. Keigo Oyamada suggested since it was “Ah” that we make the whole song just out of “Ah” sounds.

TS: And then instantly I said that was interesting. I thought that would definitely be interesting.

YN: Right, that’s what it was like.

Rhythm and Respect

TV: Yes, the sounds of the show are very strong. Even just the counting part — one, two, three — is really addictive. You just kind of have to watch it. What is that about?

YN: It’s edited quite graphically, isn’t it? Web and graphic design are fairly similar — it doesn’t matter when you start watching or when you stop. For a time, big movies were the “in” thing in web design, such as BMW Films, where a big name director would make a two-hour online film.

With web design there is this rhythm, a loop, where you can kind of close your eyes, like a spell. “Looook! Looook!” It’s edited hypnotically, to make you want to look at it. And there is also this kind of thing in graphic design.

TS: Listening to that, I just thought about this again: Are we doing graphic design? But with graphic design, actually you kind of entrust the way of looking to the viewer, and you can’t enforce what you made.

TV drama and films show you something unilaterally. They are saying, “Stay here for a while. Keep watching.” If you think about it, both Keigo Oyamada, Yugo and myself entrust things to people. We could call it a kind of respecting. And then, normally in our work we think about how much people will watch what we do. That’s probably something we all share.

YN: Yes.

TS: It’s completely different to “Look now!” It’s more: “Would you care to take a look?”

Clarifying

TV: What you share in your work is your focus on simple elements. No, “simple” is wrong. It’s a way of thinking where you narrow down on the fundamental, the basic things. Taku, you’ve made dissecting one of your axes, right? Yugo also first designed things with very simple concepts — just three red circles, for example. And then you experiment with what to do next, what happens when you put two things over each other, and so on. This seems very similar to me.

TS: I want to clarify things. It’s not about the emotional or ambiguous, or shrouding things in fog — but making things clear. If there’s a question about something, I want to make it clear. Doing this always leads to further questions, which I then also want to make clear. I want to make things clear. I always end up getting right into things. Yugo, you have this rather emotional side, right? Do you want to make things clear as well?

YN: I want to make things clear, yes. I add things together, add colors. It’s kind of like escaping.

TS: Yes, me too. Perhaps that’s a Japanese thing?

YN: iPhone buttons and so on have a very three-dimensional feel to them, don’t they? That too is clearer when there’s nothing there. When you have to include contexts, then it feels like losing. Those kinds of things feel a bit like losing.

TS: That’s losing.

YN: Well, you haven’t lost to anyone. It’s like sitting on the fence.

TS: That makes sense.

YN: It’s like even though you could have made something flat or rather more primitive, but you just couldn’t do it.

TS: Is it that you should then do it with just the bare minimum of elements?

YN: Yes.

TS: So it’s not about something you can’t understand, but that even just a circle is enough. You can make something with circles. Why do you have to meander around and around? I don’t make words with my feeling. I hate it when it’s just a vague feeling. I hate it when it’s not clear why something is like this or that. I think Yugo’s the same here. I can answer straightaway if I’m asked a question, like why did I do something. Yugo gets embarrassed and doesn’t talk much, but I’m sure you’re like that. If you’re asked, you say: “Well, it’s because I thought in this way…” That’s a bit similar to me.

TV: Sure, it’s similar. Earlier you said something was “perhaps a Japanese thing”. I don’t know if that’s true but I think Japanese are perhaps better at it. It’s one of their fortes or ways of thinking.

TS: But there are also very sentimental Japanese people as well.

YN: Well, there’s all kinds of people. But keeping on going is a standard, right? That kind of approach is Japanese.

TV: Then there’s even older Japanese things, like calligraphy. It just starts from simply writing words with black ink onto plain white paper. Calligraphy is about how to make the universe from this. In a certain sense, it’s incredibly simple.

Rebroadcasting

YN: ‘Design Ah!’ teaches you a lot. That’s why it gets rebroadcast so, so much on NHK. Ones that were made two or three years ago are even now always on TV. It comes from it being on film. You get sucked into it really quickly. When I thought a lot about it, there are things I thought would be embarrassing three years down the line. Even something that’s the norm, the bare minimum, something that has no excessive parts, later it becomes embarrassing to watch. With something on video it can get exposed by the flow of time. This is most of all with NHK.

TS: Yes, that’s true. Programs from about ten years ago like ‘Nihongo de asobo’, they get broadcast a lot. Sometimes it surprises you. You feel like you don’t want them to be shown now. Of course, you can say that you can’t see that far ahead, but there’s also merit in making something in preparation for that.

Art Directors

TV: You were just talking about ‘Nihongo de asobo’. Of course, this is also true about designers but NHK educational programs at some point — perhaps after ‘PythagoraSwitch’ — suddenly became extremely sophisticated and smart. In the old days, they were more like kids’ shows.

TS: That’s because at NHK there was a change in the way some people thought — they realized that an art director was needed for children’s programs. About that time, to start with they called in Masahiko Sato for ‘PythagoraSwitch’ and then me for ‘Nihongo de asobo’. They also called in the illustrator Ryuji Fujieda. They started to invite art directors to take part in programs. So it was around this time that at NHK there was this change in thinking that for making kids’ programs, it was best to have an art director there.

YN: I also started to work at ‘PythagoraSwitch’ at that time and I really remember. Before there had been lots of programs that looked down at children. But from ‘PythagoraSwitch’ the approach suddenly changed. There was no looking down, rather it was about expanding things so that even kids too could understand.

TS: Yes. This looking down at children was a feeling that I had, that the grown-ups were just looking down at what they thought was child-like. With children, you don’t know if they are “grown-up” or “children”, so this is just adults enforcing what they think is “child-like”. I said we’ll stop all this at ‘Nihongo de asobo’. So, it’s the same. What seems to be looking at kids “at their level” is actually just adults forcing it on them.

What is simple?

TV: To go back to what we were saying before, Yugo was saying about explaining everything, when every detail is highly sophisticated, it becomes really cold.

TS: Yes, it’s cold. It just tends to become explanatory.

TV: How do you then make something that is highly simple and with no excess, but not impersonal — like the iPhone’s sense of the three-dimensional you mentioned.

YN: Well, it can work out by lots of coincidences. Keigo Oyamada’s music was really good, so that really helped me out and we could get a good balance. There was a surprising amount of self-indulgent efforts by the creative people involved. We filmed lots with Katto-chan and listened carefully when we talked about how to show something. It felt very dense.

TS: Due to this, it seemed to become something with texture. Humans can only hear up to 20khz. But we can feel high-frequency waves above that on our bodies. There are people researching this “hyper” whatiscalled. Sound has this, as does video. Take the show with the numbers, 1, 2, 3… The words shake, right? There’s a clink and they shake. That sense of the shaking is not a slipshod one. It has this unique texture along with the sound.

That can be communicated regardless of whether you’re a child or an adult. You feel it. You have to have texture to reach the place where you feel it.

YN: Simple things have the most texture, right? Like a desk, a desk with a woodgrain or one that’s solid wood — they’re totally different, right? We could say it’s this feeling.

Japanese Design

TV: There is a relationship between design and TV in Japan today. Both of you are engaged with television and other designers like Kashiwa Sato also appear on NHK, as designers and as art directors. The design industry must be very grateful for this, no?

In comparison, Japanese electronic appliance makers are not so impressive. Why is that?

TS: The marketing is no good. Marketing only prioritizes economics. It’s rampant. It puts economics first and just looks at the distant future. They then will say that this will turn out to be an economic loss. But pioneering is not about interpreting things economically. That comes later. The skill to make the ambition to create something innovative a reality. This innovation is not being prioritized. Economics always spreads its net over everything. And then you are bound hand and foot.

What do you think?

YN: Yes, I’m also distorted by client requests. It’s retail logic. Like with nobile phones or smartphones. When you consider it, all designers think about rebooting the basic mobile phone and creating something that’s super minimal. Until now there were lots and lots of these block-like things built up from zero. They were really successful. It’s like nothing else sells in mobile phone shops. Even the ones that are really cool just don’t sell. This retail logic is too strong. We’ve become unable to do things minimally, to cut down and truncate.

Money kept on coming to a certain extent. People couldn’t risk it dropping. Once you’ve had a certain amount of success, there is a lot of money flowing so you can’t then scale back. Everyone understands the merits of going back to something minimal like the iPhone. But everyone always thinks that their own company just couldn’t make something like that.

Unless the people at the very top have the bravery to throw that out, then things don’t move on.

TS: Yes, and on top of this world we live in where economics is always prioritized, there is also the adverse effects of democracy. You have to listen to everyone’s opinion.

Someone has to make a decision. That’s not now but for the future. But no one knows what they will do in the future or what it will actually be like. There are no people who can decide what do for five or ten years’ from now. No one who can just say, “Shut up, this is what we’ll do!”

When people like Soichiro Honda and Konosuke Matsushita were around, they founded their own corporations. In a good sense of the word, they then had the power to say, “No, shut up. We’re doing it how I say.” That generation has now gone and we’ve become “democratic”.

But design decisions cannot be democratic. They cannot be decided by the largest number of votes. But that’s how it’s actually being done. They do a marketing survey and then say that this is what everyone wants. But that’s just right now. One second from now it won’t be like that.

YN: But even then, to succeed with a phone redesign, success with an actual redesign is really rare in the world. Even with Apple, it’s just two or three products. Samsung is basically just copying. It’s incredibly difficult to look at things globally and take what you’ve cultivated till now, write it off and re-do the design.

TS: Yes, in many ways. That’s why it’s so rare. It’s difficult to judge.

Thirty Years From Now

TV: Okay, now I want to ask about making a fifteen-minute TV show about design for small children. Why did you make the program?

TS: For over thirty years from now.

A design mentality is necessary for everyone. There’s nothing in the world that doesn’t relate to design. It’s also like this in politics, economics, medicine and science. Numbers and words are also design. Arranging things, structures and organizations are all design. Town-building and urban planning too. And if design is connected to everything, then everyone needs a design mentality, not just the people aiming to create design.

So, learning it from university onwards is then too late. We have to hand it on when they are children, no matter how the seeds then grow up. There will be some who don’t really take advantage of it and some who do, but at the least we have to set up an opportunity for children to come into contact with design.

That’s why we did this experiment. We did it under this assumption.

Actually, I want to interview people thirty years from now who watched ‘Design Ah!’ and can just about remember it. I don’t know if we will still be alive, though! Then we’ll see whether the show was useful to people thirty years on. Maybe it won’t be useful. I don’t know! [Laughs]

Thank you, Taku Satoh and Yugo Nakamura!

Taku Satoh Design Office

tha, ltd.

‘Design Ah!’ Exhibition
Venue: 21_21 Design Sight
Until June 2nd

PingMag sat down for lunch with Judith Clancy to talk food, machiya and Japan’s most elegant city.

Judith Clancy, you’ve been in Kyoto since 1970 and you have previously authored ‘Kyoto City of Zen’ (2013) and ‘Exploring Kyoto: On Foot in the Ancient Capital’ (1997). Now you are looking at machiya townhouses and affordable food culture in Kyoto. For the uninitiated, in brief, what are machiya?
​​ Machiya are the houses where commoners lived. They are often row houses and wooden structures. They became codified in about the seventeen, eighteenth century. There are certain identifying features, like the lattice frontage and of course the raised tatami floors, but they are basically people’s homes.

There were large fires so they had to be rebuilt fast. There was no time for distinguishing features. The carpenters had to rebuild large swathes so a lot of it became really uniform. They were just city homes that started to look alike because they had to be rebuilt after fires. The air needed to be ventilated so the floors were raised. The toilet and the bath were outside, if there was a bath. And next to the bath or the toilet was a little garden space. Sometimes there was a nakaniwa (courtyard) and this was an opportunity for lighting, because the rooms were dark. If there was no garden at all, they would be considered hovels or shacks. You needed air so almost every machiya had a garden. The structure needed it.

And is there anything specific or idiosyncratic about the machiya in Kyoto?
​​ There are different lattices. Dealing with natural pigments for dyes, in Kyoto they needed natural light. And that’s where the lattices came in. They didn’t work under lamps. In the Nishijin district, where they all have skylights, the lattice fronts in Kyoto allowed them to design as they please. So it is a little different, a little more codified. ​

​Kyoto is special because it wasn’t bombed in the war. So there are pockets of houses that go back two hundred years, most go back between eighty and a hundred years. Not a lot more because of fires. Architecturally wise this place was saved, but not only did they save the structures but the families were saved, so you can go back fifteen or sixteen generations. All of the instruments and utensils that feed into that society and that business, those families are still here, whether they are iron makers or bamboo scoop makers or tea producers, which adds another layer of sophistication to the city besides the architecture.

Something we’re always conscious of at PingMag is the danger of presenting “Japan” in this exotic and alien way. Were you worried about writing the guide with “foreign eyes”?
​​ Actually, having been here forty-two years I don’t feel so American!

That’s fair enough! But are there things that overseas residents or visitors to Kyoto may find tough to understand? Of course, we don’t just mean the obvious differences in taste that they will encounter.
​​ The “Today’s Lunch” — this is a hard thing for foreigners who are picky. In Japan they trust. If you’re vegetarian, some places will accommodate you. There are two places recommended in the book. But most people just go in and order “Today’s Lunch”. They can’t alter things on the menu. They ask now if you have food allergies, which is nice, but there aren’t a lot of food allergies here like the States. The reason why the server might not even know exactly what’s in a dish on the menu is because it’s arrived that day. It just came that morning. You have to educate foreign people how to eat in Japan. It’s fun but not if you’re a real picky eater.

Well, you certainly try to be as helpful as possible, organising your recommendations by area, and giving addresses in Japanese to show taxi drivers. Plus you include a “top twenty” list for people with less time. Your subtitle is “affordable dining in traditional townhouse spaces” and the emphasis is on modest budgets and lunches. It’s a very functional book.
​​ I hope my book serves visiting foreigners better than fast food. There may be a chalkboard outside. Often it says “lunch” in English and then under it, you can’t decipher anything. This is one of the things I hope my book demystifies. It identifies which places are cafes or restaurants.

Yes, you even include pictures of the entrances so people can find what they are looking for. The history of the Kyoto machiya is really interesting in terms of the geography of the city too. You can learn a lot by looking at which zones which machiya are in.
​​ Right downtown it’s business. Between Oike and Gojo, and Horikawa and Kawaramachi, there are about eighty-four restaurants in the book. There are a lot of places right down here and there have to be out of necessity. Historically, Kyoto City went to the Kamo River. So I have in the book very few places in south Kyoto on the other side of the river, outside of Gion and the Maruyama Park area. Miko and Very Berry Cafe were lumber shops because of the area: Marutamachi — “maruta” means a log. The logs are brought from Kitayama, and over the bridge and down the canal. So lots of lumber shops congregated around there and Kiyamachi, which is “wood street”. So that kind of background is also in the book.

They are unique environments to enjoy a lunch or dinner. There is something very special here with the relationship between the architecture and the cuisine culture, no?
​​ Machiya seat fifteen to thirty people. There is a nice intimacy about it. Most of places are tiny. The food is not frozen, it’s freshly prepared. There’s a big emphasis on Kyoyasai, Kyoto vegetables grown locally. Since it’s small you have a kind of playfulness with the menu. Bigger places might change their menu once a month, because nobody’s going to go every day. But the smaller places will change it on a much more frequent basis. There are not only food tastes to distinguish in Japanese cuisine, there are texture tastes. This is a big part of Japanese food, even if it’s just “Today’s Lunch”. It goes into the architecture as well.

And the photography by Ben Simmons is great. How did the collaboration with him come about?
​​ He called me and wanted to do a book with me. I said, “If I do ‘Kyoto City of Zen’ with you, will you do pictures for this?”

We’re glad he did! The choice of places in the guide is broad and sometimes surprising too, with the cuisine ranging from Japanese, of course, to Italian, French, Chinese and even American food. Plus some of the places themselves are not what you might expect. Are they all “machiya“?
​​ I have retro buildings in there as well, mainly banks and the NTT building. They were never people’s homes, they were places of business. I go up to Taisho (1912–1926). It was all wood but at one point in Meiji (1868-1912), bricks started to be used. They couldn’t make arches out of wood so other materials were necessary. I also have in the book ochaya (tea rooms) and yashiki-tei, old estates, one farmhouse, and then we have the banks, the retro buildings. There’s 144 restaurants in this guide, and 136 or 137 are wooden structures.

​ How does the future look for machiya?
​​ Machiya are disappearing. Now you see a lot more preservation taking place. There’s a big site called the Machiya Machizukuri Fund. Most people who are contacting the center are childless couples who have no one to leave their really beautiful houses to.

Let’s hope they stay around for more generations to come! Thank you, Judith Clancy.

‘Kyoto Machiya Restaurant Guide’

Ben Simmons

Before you open up another can of something, here’s an entrée: Canned food packaging design in Japan.

Design with a Sense of the Traditional

Just by virtue of having been around for a while, many cans conjure up a sense of tradition in their design. But perhaps because the makers are hoping to export one day, there’s also a lot of English in the label design, creating a curious hybrid of the Japanese and the western.

Nihonbashizuke

Even Japanese people may not be too familiar with this product — it’s fukujinzuke, a type of pickle that goes with curry. It first went on sale in 1913 and the label design does a good job of conveying this. The background is the eponymous Tokyo bridge, Nihonbashi.

Akebono Salmon It is said that canned salmon came about when canned food started to be fully produced in Japan. Akebono Salmon was the first canned salmon, and its design is classic canned food rather than specifically “Japanese”. If you’re wondering why there is “pink” written on the belly of the fish, it’s because it’s a pink salmon.

Labels with Photos

They say that can label design is not something you change a lot. No doubt as a result of using a design that was popular at the time it was first released, canned food seems today somehow to have this nostalgic atmosphere. Especially when the design features photos there is this faded feel, like the images you might have found on the pages of an old recipe book — not so much something that makes you say “Looks delicious!” as one suggesting the food inside has a unique and intriguing taste.

Hagoromo Sea Chicken When the Japanese think of canned food, this is what they think of. The Japanese product name, “sea chicken” (tuna), has permeated into popular culture so much that it’s become a generic term. The name is said to derive from how the mild taste is like chicken breast.

Hamanako Unagi Kabayaki While kabayaki-style grilled unagi (eel) may well be a traditional Japanese food, the design for this can is rather pop. Perhaps that was how people thought kabayaki was like when it first went on sale?

Sunyo White Peaches What’s so good about this photo is how it really shows you what’s inside down to a tee. This is “courteous” design for consumers who won’t be let down by any disparity between the label photo and the actual contents of the can.

SSK White Peaches Peaches aren’t fruit that say “Japan”. But while they might not have a long history in the country, this can nonetheless gives an impression of something tradition, with its washi Japanese paper-style label, an image of a peach flower that looks like cherry blossom or Japanese plum (ume), topped off by the Kanji font. But in spite of the Japanese trimmings, for some reason “White Peaches” has to be written in English in the middle. What’s that all about?!

Sembikiya Fruit Cocktail This can from venerable fruit store Sembikiya has a real Eighties feel.

Aohata Pork and Beans Pork and beans is not a can food that Japanese people know well. We are guessing that “BEANS” is emphasized because there’s more of it in the can than the meat. The design is modern, with photography and clean typography.

Seijo Ishii Sweetcorn With its boast that it’s “made in USA” in large letters and the photo of the corn sprouting in the wild, the design here feels really American.

Design with Illustrations

Can design frequently uses illustrations, though many seem to have been taken from images used in museum displays. Others seem like the kind of illustrations used to demonstrate ingredients in cooking.

Hokkaido Nemuro Boiled Baby Clam When you try to depict something accurately and to just the right proportions, you can at times end up with something slightly grotesque. This can has a western design feel but, perhaps due to how the English lettering is partly hidden behind the picture, it also radiates this rather peculiar, ambiguous aura where you’re not sure what country it comes from.

Seijo Ishii Asparagus White It might well say it’s grown in Hokkaido but in design terms this just shouts “import”. It’s perhaps also connected to how in Japan it’s rare to eat canned vegetables.

Nozaki Corned Beef This classic corned beef product by Nozaki has a great logo in a cursive script. The retro beef illustration hasn’t changed since the cans first went on sale in 1948.

Pankan (Anpan) When it comes to cans, you want something with a gentle taste. Especially if it’s something you will eat in an emergency, that very gentleness will help you relax for a moment. And the name here, Pankan (“bread can”), is just brilliant.

Typographical Design

Sometimes words can communicate the feel of a product better than photos or illustrations. And especially with Japanese Kanji characters, the type itself is like a picture.

Benizake Nakabone Mizu-ni (Boiled Sockeye Salmon Bone) This one is REALLY simple, just the name of the product. So simple it doesn’t even feel designed; everything unnecessary has been cut out, which actually makes you trust in the product more.

Tai-miso (Sea Bream in Miso) This is a condiment made from sweet miso with sea bream. Having a condiment in a can is rare in itself, but this can also has vibrant orange coloring, rather solemn lettering, and a cute fish picture on the top — a rather curious mixture of the luxury with the cheap.

Saba miso-ni (Mackerel Boiled in Miso) Here the character for saba (mackerel) is written boldly on the front of the can. The food may well be a humble dish that anyone has eaten at some point, but with the gold coloring it takes on a rather high-class look.

Saba mizuni (Boiled Mackerel) This one is also embossed with a large character for saba. We love the rich elements here: the Kanji, the washi Japanese paper-style label, and the gold, black and red coloring all combine to create a real wa (Japanese) look.

Tsubutsubu Yude Azuki This can of sweet azuki beans just feels so rural and “handmade”. Check out the typography, like it’s been dashed off on the label with a calligraphy brush.

Cans with Characters

It’s no surprise that Japan, which has a well-known mania for mascots, also uses characters in canned food design, although actually there aren’t so many as you might think. Saying that, recently there have been some designs on the shelves featuring famous ones.

hokka Canned Bread You know you’ve got a winner when you use Moomin characters in the design. The copy in the bubble even claims this is “the preservative food of Moominvalley”! This is so cute you will want to use the can as a penholder after you’ve eaten the snacks inside.

Every can we’ve introduced in this round-up can be purchased from a regular supermarket in Japan. So even if the world ends after the zombie invasion or some other calamity, at least we can be sure of a fun and varied diet.