Kaiyodo and Otaku Culture

When we think of contemporary Japan, some of the first things that comes to mind is the Japanese comic book industry, called manga, video games, anime animation, and tokusatsu, live action dramas. Currently, the Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei is featuring an exhibition focusing on the development of Kaiyodo and Otaku culture in Japan. Kaiyodo is the name of the manufacturer who developed along with the Otaku culture. Kaiyodo was originally a specialty store that sold models, but over the years, evolved into a center for pop culture and design. Kaiyodo is responsible for the shokugan industry of packaging toys in children's foods and for the development of individual assembly kits called, "Garage Kits." Otaku is the name given to the associated activities and artforms that developed in an area of Tokyo called, Akihabara. The Otaku culture is comprised of both the larger industries, but also includes the manufacture of many small figures, known as doujinshi, or self-published works. You can read more about the

museum at http://www.es199.com/eventsparties1.php?nid-1185

This fascinating exhibition is brought alive with interesting videos of the artists who created the work, plus clear historical information about how it all got started, how the products are made, and of course, the amazingly intricate figures themselves. I have visited the exhibition twice and each time have become a fan of some new set of characters. The halls are lined with small miniature figures that represent the characters we know from movies and storybooks. The characters are sculpted by a series of artists from different types of clay. Typically, the finished characters are then cut with a very fine blade into pieces from which individual molds are cast. Each cast piece is then reassembled and painted in hundreds of steps. All of the manufacturing is done in China where factory workers labor over the figures. Some of the paint jobs are so intricate that some 45 or more individual steps are made from start to finish. Japanese artists have final say on how accurate the casts and paintings are to the original. The artist and factory communicate, overnighting materials back and forth. There are many categories of figures. Some are transformers, some are female. There are military, robots, fantasy characters, dinosaurs, animals, monsters and even some larger figures made specifically for the museum. In particular, I was amazed at the series of Japanese warlords and the animals. The details and tiniest nuance were all perfectly executed.

One artist, Bome, who specializes in the bishoujo, female characterizations, has developed a larger line of characters that were so racy that they were placed in a separate room requiring an ID pass to enter! These figures were definitely suggestive! My favorite however, were the Japanese Shokugan characters created by the artist Shinobu

Matsumura. He worked for the company Furuta when they began placing animaltale figures into their chocolate products. Now that culture, of putting toys into food products, is everywhere. Two days ago, when I purchased a container of milk..a little figurine of a bear was contained in a small box attached to the milk carton. You can see him on the left.

My daughter, Rachael and son-in-law, Anthony Snead, are here for a visit. It is great to have them to explore Taiwan with. Their company is just wonderful! My next blog will feature our travels to Toroko, but here is a picture of Anthony putting together a garage kit! And another picture is of Rachael and Anthony on a mysterious hiking trail 

we discovered behind the famous Grand Hotel in          Taipei.