Gallery: Katsuhiro Otomo GENGA Exhibition
by Adrian Lozano & Egan Loo,
Acclaimed manga creator and anime director Steamboy) unveiled his Tokyo art exhibition and his latest anime short during a preview on Saturday.
Otomo is a native of chronicles his 39 years as a solo manga creator and as a collaborative anime filmmaker.
The exhibition devotes three rooms to his original manga art, ingeniously and elegantly arrayed on hundreds of thin wires as if the pages were part of a giant cutaway diagram. Most of Otomo's original art for his two massive Kaba artbook tomes were also on display, and they reveal his contemplative musings and his whimsical, if sometimes dark, sense of humor.
Many fellow manga and anime creators ed Otomo at preview night, including Monster). Throughout preview night, the artists filled one blank wall with tribute sketches to Otomo, and Otomo drew a few sketches himself.
The exhibition ends with a full-size replica of Kaneda's iconic motorcycle from the Akira manga and anime. Visitors are allowed to — in fact, encouraged to — put on a red leather jacket provided at the exhibition, sit on the motorcycle's low-slung seat, and relive childhood fantasies. A collection box stands near the motorcycle, silently nudging visitors to donate to a fund to fight autism.
Later in the evening, Otomo previewed "film with shorts by three other animators. Traditional Japanese performers surprised the audience after the screening with a high-energy dance, complete with taiko drums.
The exhibition will open to the public on Monday at Tokyo's 3331 Arts Chiyoda center, and it will run until May 30.
Images (c) MASHROOM 2012 (c) Kōsuke Kawamura 2012
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