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About a week ago, we were fortunate enough to receive an email from a Japanese designer Tetsuya Uenobe, introducing us to his shoe art pieces. For Tetsuya it all started when he met a lot of craftsmen and designers while working as a director for a men’s wear catalog. In 1999, he decided to quit his job and enrolled in London College of Fashion to study shoe design. In 2003 Tetsuya came back to Japan and started his own brand UENOBE. Since then Tetsuya has had a chance to showcase his work all over Japan. Personally I think these shoes are amazing, whether you want to wear them or not, you cannot deny that each shoe is a piece of art by it self. The craftsmanship and talent that goes into making such shoes can only come from years of experience, especially since each shoes is made by hand. To see more of his shoes and how he creates them check out his website.

When I think of pop art, a flutter of brightly colored images and Campbell soup cans flash through my mind.  I guess I have been jaded by the work of Andy Warhol. Tadaomi Shibuya creates his own pop art using distinct geographic shapes and shadowing.

“My art has many straight lines because the straight line is a uniquely human concept. I follow this concept as a basic rule.”  It’s almost an underlying message.  How such straight lines can create such detailed and more than straight works of art.  Something so harmonized and meaningful stemming from something so defined.

Shibuya, currently residing in Japan, has a truly unique talent.   Many of his illustrations are musical icons or human faces.  He believes that music and expression dissect the inner workings of what a person is feeling.

via Fubiz

Nam is a design collective based in Japan. It currently features over ten different artists of varying backgrounds and was originally established by Takayuki Nagazawa (graphic designer) and Hiroshi Manaka (photographer). Together they work to explore the different possibilities inherent in visual art and are always expanding on their theme “a fantasy in life”.

The work of Nam is  often surreal and visually creates a world within a world where each participating artist uses their skills to stage a detailed moment in time to be captured by their resident photographer. I like their work, and I like the fact that it is created by a collective of artists as opposed to just one person. It think that kind of dynamic is very useful in the creative process and allows for the creation of art that would not have come to be otherwise.

And so it is now clear, or seems to be clear, that they’ll take any script that is based off of one of our Saturday morning delights. (  I hear Voltron and Thundercats are in the works, and sshhh… Don’t tell anybody, but I’m shoppin’ Jem and Captain Planet right now, so step off that! LOL) But to be truthful, I am not as excited as one might expect.  I should be thrilled really. I mean, this is what I do – not the movies , but the comics,animation, cartoons, and so forth- but I can’t help but think that the studio execs are banking on that nostalgia factor to cash some serious coin. Not that I  blame them though, but Hollywood seems to always cut corners in order to cut costs when making adaptations ( see live action Street Fighter- both of them, Inspector Gadget and Speed Racer)[ Note: Street Fighter, as we all know, is a video game and  most movies based on videogames end up terrible anyway, but that is really beside the point]

If the pictures don’t look familiar to you then, let me give you a brief (very brief) intro to one of the most famous action animes of the 1980’s. Gatchaman, sometimes referred to as G-force in the states, is an awesome Japanese import about a group of young teenager who become bird warriors, given special powers to fend off the villains who seek Earth’s destruction by stealing natural resources. It was basically a sci-fi action anime that was largely successful and spawned several spin-offs and video games. This team of teen do- gooders all had super powers or abilities that matched up with what ever bird costume they were given – super speed and flight are an example. The movie version will be in CGI ,and as always, looks impressive from afar.

So, will this movie, based on a cartoon with a sketchy plot, be able pull off an exciting stunner like Transformers, or will it crash and burn like the ill-advised Speed Racer?  Well,we’ll all find out soon enough as this movie is slated to be released sometime in 2010. Get ready for another trip, stumble or fumble down memory lane.

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I met this guy on Saturday. This is what he does. He talked about balance, and an artist’s development and what criticism might be incited when the favourable artist’s style changes. He wore a bow-tie and was really nice. His name was and I’m guessing still is, Sidney Pink. He was living in Japan for a while where he discovered Sidney Pink and started to draw just like him. Minimal, soft-coloured, and suspended in blank backdrops, his characters blow bubbles, shoot lasers, wear school uniforms, business or space suits (depending, I suppose, on the type of business); they walk tiny cosmonauts or assault looming threats or get assaulted by looming threats? The drawings don’t quite say, only suggest.

If you’re in NYC, you can catch some of it in person at Giant Robot NY while its still up.

As I look at these drawings I do wonder, both from where they developed and what will they later develop into.

Of all the Japanese manga I have encountered, Yuu Watase’s Sakura Gari is possibly the first that has intrigued me.

Before I go any further, do know that it is a work that evolves mostly around a gay relationship, so if that is somewhat distasteful for you, stop reading this post.First and foremost, Watase has always been an amazing artist whose meticulous attention to details of human anatomy and human expression never fails to enrapture me although Sakura Gari has definitely marked an evolution in her artistic ability.  Every single panel within the manga artwork is a spatial experience, and the extremely practiced style that she has for moving the eye from one scene to another is absolutely masterly.

What is so intriguing about this work is that the storyline is war, a war of human emotions with the flashing cannonfire of raging personalities in the mire of societal corruption.  Set in the Taishou era of Japanese history when westernization was just beginning to steep itself into Japanese culture, all the doings of the rich are condoned by their wealth, and the ingenuousness of a young student of past traditions is caught in the thick of it.  Some may call this work disgusting or sadistic, but when considering how completely veristic the human conscience is portrayed in Sakura Gari, you just can’t help appreciating the beauty of it all despite whatever havoc it wreaks on your moral code of ethics.

Oh, I had to jump on this.

I’ve never heard of Gigantor, but apparently it was a Japanese cartoon from the ’60’s whose popularity brought it state-side. The series focused on the hijinks of a twelve-year-old boy who controls an enormous robot named Gigantor, despite having a human character named Dick Strong, which is inherently more interesting. Since I’m unfamiliar with both the show and the character, I have to guess neither made a very large impact on American pop culture. Japan, of course, decided it would be prudent to celebrate the character by building a life-sized statue of him.

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It’s probably ignorant to look at this enormous statue and immediately have the urge to make a Godzilla joke, and frankly half the people reading this are probably thinking of their own anyway, so I won’t attempt it. I will say, however, that while this is a very cool statue in it’s own right, I don’t know if it’s necessary to build a 60-foot tribute to a TV show from 1963. It’s kind of like making a second Mount Rushmore, but instead of faces of influential presidents, you carve the cast of M*A*S*H into the mountainside. This still seemed interesting as a feat done for the sake of itself until I realized Korea built  364-foot Taekwan V for a theme park. Oh, well. Good effort, Japan.

Just when you thought you have seen all of the weird things out there, leave it to a Japanese photographer by the name of Daikichi Amano to wow you once more. His work seems to dabble on the line of porn and art photography, but allegedly due to strict Japanese censorship rules which prohibit genitalia shots, he was forced to use other methods to express him self…

Most of his work comes out of the studio he owns called Genki Genki which translates to “good feeling” in English. His work doesn’t just involve photography, he does films as well, all involving girls with frogs, bugs, goldfish, eel and other seafood animals that are to his liking. The way I see it, just another reason to visit Japan.

Oh yeah… Very important fact: He eats all the seafood he uses in his work to avoid wasteful animal cruelty.

via Don’t Panic