Hiroki Mafuyu, and Ayumi Again

Today we were invited to the school where Hiroki Mafuyu teaches, Tokyo Communication Arts seemed like a clone of SCAD, but in Japan, of course.

On the subject of Mafuyu, I didn’t recognize his name, but some of his work I had recognized. The cover to “Calling” was the image that struck the chord of familiarity with me.

He himself seemed a very poetic person. I felt most of what he said was lost in translation, and it was a pity, but nevertheless it was still a very good motivational speech. He left us with “Draw until your heart reaches the boiling point.”

After some Q/A over his prints and originals, he invited us to one of his classes. We were all pretty stunned, and rushed to the nearest convenience store to get some lunch beforehand.

Not that it’s very interesting, but I had Takoyaki for the first time, alongside a Final fantasy Dissidia potion, which apparently debuted on this very day. I bought many more later to sell on eBay to other unfortunate Americans. I have to reimburse myself for this trip somehow.

But they tasted really bad. The black ones at least.

The workshop was prety interesting, it was mostly on cross-hatching, but what I was more interested in was seeing the Manga students.

But, I had to leave early as I had plans to see Ayumi one more time.

It was pretty fun to show off who I’d just been with. I showed them photos of the originals for Calling and her mother muttered some awe in Japanese.

We just went around Ginza a bit, specifically to a paper store in he middle. Her mom knew quite a but about calligraphy so I learned a lot about sumi-e brushes and their specific uses.

Fungus, Dinosaurs, Mark Shultz, and Tentacles

This far too much of a fun day, I drove myself crazy with how much time I wasted taking pictures rather than having fun drawing. It was the

ANyway, Tokyo National Museum of Natural History. The traveling exhibit was about mushrooms and fungus, which was actually pretty cool, but in retrospect, I was bitter with how much time I wasted in there. At least I got some good reference pictures. I’m set for life if I ever need to refs for fungus. I'm not going to post any of it here now. Not worth wasting my time.

Also, a note on mascots. Everything has a mascot here. Absolutely everything. So even the fungus did. Actaully the fungus had multiple mascots. They're kinda cute, but I'm kinda seeing them everywhere. Even in vending machines on the street as cell phone keychains. It seems random cutesy things become very popular for no particular reason (other than cuteness, I suppose). I also heard that although Ponyo on a Cliff was pretty succesful, some of the hype was dulled due to the fact the theme song was made so popular.

Digression.

Something to be noted in retrospect- not being able to read anything actually helps a lot ot get through the museum with out wasting any time. I was really interested in everything but all I could read was the Latin describing scientific names. The history of man exhibit looked painfully informative, but I couldn’t catch a word. All I could see was that the wax Neanderthals were creepily lifelike, to the point I kept looking over my shoulder to see if its eyes were following me.

The event of the day is drawing dinos with Mark Shultz. I didn’t know his work too well before the trip. I knew a little because of Sara’s love of his work (I’m still trying to muster up the courage to ask for an autograph for her), but there’s little that can prepare you for drawing with an receiving tips from someone so mightily talented. He helped me flesh out the stegosaurus skeleton as I looked over his shoulder at his own example. (I'll show drawings later, when i'm home with a scanner.)

Something must also be said about his lack of ego. I’ve never met such an amazingly nice and inspirational person.

On that note, we got on the topic of dinosaur artists, and I mentioned my favorite, James Gurney. To which he replied “Oh yeah, he invited me over to lunch not too long ago.” (or something along the lines.) Yeah. Wow.

Anyway, before this, I spent waaay too much time photographing the taxidermy animals, which were incredible, and for once didn’t creep me out (except the birds. Taxidermy birds just don’t work due to the lack of preening). I keep kicking myself about not taking more time drawing. I only got a few lame sketches.

Akihabara was pretty interesting, I didn’t really get to experience it this night, but later really got into it and it’s officially my favorite part of urban Tokyo. (More on it later, obviously.)

First off, the stores close early, at around 7 or 8, which is odd since it’s the ‘electrical district’. I personally see it as the anime/giant robot/Gundam district, but the amount of lights make electric appropriate as well.

Tagged along with one of the professors, three of the artists and some other kids into a restaurant since we were falling over starving. What drew us in was the chef, placed at the window making some food on kebabs, which in the restaurant (alongside the extra ‘Engrish’ menu) were simply called ‘sticks’.

Mysteriously, before ordering we were given earthenware mugs filled halfway with...something, and in the center of it was a tentacle.
I was the first one to realize it was a tentacle, as it was raw, and otherwise looked like grey jelly. Mine had the ‘advantage’ of having a suction cup sticking out the side.

It took come bravery, but I had it, and it wasn’t too bad. There was some spice in it that distracted from the ‘wet’ texture. It took a lot of chewing.

The rest of the food took way too long to come, I think because we were obnoxious stupid Americans, but that’s not to say we were treated rudely. Rudeness is a rarity here. I kind of wish Americans could follow suit. It’s going to be hard coming back home.

Anyway the food took so long that by the time we got out, there was only half an hour to enjoy Akihabara, which was no time at all, really. I saw some tempting Ghibli stuff in one place, and messed with those keychain vending machines for myself and Christmas presents.

The Rest of Day 1- Japanese Food and Crane Games

Slow going since there's so litle free time on this trip! I have everything typed up for the rest of the week so I'm going to try to upload it tomorrow. After the trip is over I'm going to upload the better of the pictures, sketches, and videos (when i actually have a version of PS i can use. Stupid Elements.) For now here's the rest of day 1.

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Sketch-wise, I was really thrown off the day we went to the Meiji temple. Seeing a policeman come up and halt any progress in drawing was just really far too intimidating, and it stuck with me even in areas where drawing was allowed. I got a few sketches out, but nothing I really got in to or felt had any importance. I liked the Oni heads I found on one building though. The photos turned out better than the sketches.

After that was a short walk to Harajuku, somewhat of Japan’s equivalent of a fashion district. I split off from the group pretty fast though… It was where I was going to meet Ayumi, my long distant friend from middle school. I hate to admit it, but I was afraid I wouldn’t recognize her. I was early at our meeting spot (which I was relieved to find immediately after leaving the Meiji Shrine) and whittled the time away to draw a bit, after the small group that was entertaining my whim in helping me feel secure in such a busy street decided to pull out their sketchbooks. Before I knew it, she was sticking her nose below my sketchbook and I hadn’t even noticed. I recognized her, to say the least.

It was a strange feeling, seeing her after all this time (I’m estimating about four or five years since she last visited.) I can only remember a lecture given by C.S. Lewis talking about ‘true friendship’. He posed a theoretical scene, in which a group with common interests is brought together, and they may consider themselves friends, even after leaving each other‘s company for a while. True friends, he said, are the ones that when meeting each other again, act as if no time has passed at all. Ayumi and I left and returned to met each other quite a few times, but it’s always been the same feeling. No time has passed at all.

I hate how cheesy it sounds. But it makes me wonder what really makes a friend like that, psychologically or spiritually.

Anyway, she immediately led us down the main street of Harajuku, which I think myself and the others would have completely missed (at least for a little while) if she hadn’t presented it.
Lots of colors. It was pretty trendy looking. I saw a backpack that (three days later, as I procrastinate on journaling) I’m still thinking about and hoping to return for. Maybe it was a shame that I was too distracted about how happy I was to see Ayumi again to really check anything out, but we definitely made up for it.

She brought me to a very indie looking restaurant. It was in a strange back alley at the end of the street of Harajuku, behind an attractively graffiti-covered, abandoned apartment building covered in a strange structure of PVC pipes that were spray painted red.

She told me beforehand it was traditional Japanese food, looking a little concerned. Last we knew each other, I was much… pickier when it came to food. My attitudes have changed, but really I was just desperate to get my hands on something that would fit in with the whole experience. Contrary to the Japanese way, I jumped around a little and emphasized how much I really just wanted to do precisely what she was bringing me to. I don’t think she believed me, and her boyfriend who had tagged along seemed to be amused at the very least about my mannerisms. He didn’t speak a word of English, so he had no idea what we were talking about for most of the night.

The food was not good. It wasn’t even great. It was AMAZING. The restaurant specialized in a specific dish that I’ve completely forgotten the name of due to it being around seven syllables long. First of all, we had to cook it ourselves, which at first I didn’t know and gave me a bit of a scare when they brought around raw chicken. It was one of those skillet table tops and with the raw food, instructions on cooking it were taken. As far as I can remember what I was told, the dish is a mix of flour, egg, and water, and you can mix anything you want with it, as it seems to me most Japanese dishes are like. We had two entrees, the first with chicken and other curiosities, and the second I’m guessing had shrimp and squid.

They spent a while laughing at my inability to use chopsticks. Waitress brought a fork. Ouch.

We shopped around but the most exciting part must’ve been the crane games, which seem pretty popular here. The Japanese takes these things to the next level. There is no joystick with free movement, and the crane is not nearly as strong enough to pick up anything heavier than a cotton ball. The only movements are forward and sideways, and only pressed once. Since the point is not to pick up the object… You do everything you can to push it off.

There has to be an art to it, but I seriously spent 800 yen trying to get the strange snake keychain I now have on my camera. Ayumi managed to get probably $50 worth of candy from the candy machine, and her boyfriend got a stuffed animal, though with much toil and effort.

Learned how to ask ‘where’. “Doko” added to anything seems to help me get around.