Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival 2015: Inspired by Children's Books

A section of quilts based on popular children's books, such as Dick Bruna's Miffy series, above.

Frog and Toad.

Peter Rabbit.

A Japanese series I was not familiar with.

Elmer the Patchwork Elephant, which was incredibly ornate and detailed.

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival: Shizuko Kuroha Retrospective

This year's Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival featured a retrospective of quilter Shizuko Kuroha, who played a large role in popularizing quilting in Japan. (I freely admit I had no idea who she was.) However, (UPDATE) it turns out this lady is the aunt of an acquaintance!

She has been quilting since around 1975, which, if you think about it, means that the culture of quilting in Japan is still quite new.

 

The deep blues in her work are clearly brought out by the use of indigo dye, which has traditionally been used in Japan for dyeing.

The woman herself, with the blue crisscrossed apron. Clearly the star of this lot!

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival: Moomin Stories, Part 2

Works from the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival, continued.

Next to each quilt was a photo of the original drawing that the quilt was based on, as well as an excerpt from the story it came from.

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Needless to say, each was reproduced flawlessly.

A close-up, which allows you to see how each fine thread is contributing to the overall effect.

A close-up of only a tiny portion of the quilt.

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival: Moomin Stories, Part 1

The Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival, held in Tokyo Dome.

The major draw was the Moomin quilt exhibition, based on Tove Jansson's stories. Moomintroll and co. have been popular for decades in Japan.

Since 2014 is the 100th anniversary of creator Tove Jansson's birth, various events have been held all over the world to celebrate her work. This is Japan's contribution: around 50 quilt works that lovingly, painstakingly reproduce some of Jansson's drawings. One work was attributed to one quilter (I would say they were all female and Japanese), and the works as a whole were produced by Yoko Saito, a major figure in the quilt world.

It's almost a shame that they simply look like paintings from afar, because that means that the incredible attention to detail goes unnoticed. I recommend clicking on each photo to see them as magnified as possible.

A quilt that introduces all of the characters.

Some of the quilts had a trippy quality, as you can see above, and others, such as the one below, had a faintly sinister feel to them.

More will be shown in the next post.

Many Many Miffy Premium

About once a year, a Tokyo department store uses some reason or other to host a Miffy exhibit. I last went to one around 10 years ago which coincided with the 45th anniversary of the creation of Miffy. It tracked creator Dick Bruna's career, from his start in graphic design and creating covers for 007 books.

 

The latest exhibit (titled Many Many Miffy Premium), which was held in Seibu Ikebukuro from December 15 to 25, was much smaller in scale. The twist this time was a sneak peek of the upcoming Miffy the Movie, to be released in spring 2013 in Japan. The film was produced by production companies in the Netherlands. (Miffy is a Dutch creation.) 

You might be curious as to what a Miffy film would look like. Being familiar with only stationary 2D pictures of Miffy, I found the idea of a 2D Miffy film a bit unnerving. (Though in reality, a 2D TV series was produced in the early 1990s.)  A stop-motion series was produced in 2003, and the new Miffy film uses the same techniques, with stop-motion puppet animation carried out by an animation studio in Latvia. Trailers can be seen here.   

Unusual for an exhibit, photographs were allowed, which meant it was one huge photo op for the people that love Miffy -- not so much little kids but adult women.

 

Miffy rendered in various forms, for example, using Legos...

...a Miffy hat, interpreted by a Japanese artist...

...a Miffy Christmas tree...

  

 

...and the most impressive, a heavily marzipan-ed Miffy cake. Children always gripe about how difficult it is to draw Miffy (you can never seem to get the proportions of the face and the x mouth right), and I found it amusing that the decorator had gotten the trees, the house, and Miffy's friends right, but Miffy herself looked a bit too oval in the face.

 

The cake from the side. Even if you cannot work up any interest in Miffy, you have to appreciate the attention to detail.

The Pikachu Line

A Pokemon-themed car on the Tokyo Monorail.

Considering that ANA is the owner of the Pokemon planes flown domestically, it doesn't surprise me that Tokyo Monorail is owned in part (9%) by ANA. The Pokemon trains have been running since 2006.

I only saw the trains from the outside, so I wondered if the inside decor is also Pokemon-themed.

Introducing Chi-ba-kun

Chi-ba-kun, the official mascot for Chiba Prefecture. Originally conceived in 2010 as an "image character" for the 65th National Sports Festival/10th National Sports Festival for the Disabled, the little red dog proved so popular that Chiba Prefecture adopted it as their official mascot this January.

To coincide with the Sports Festival, Chi-ba-kun cell phone straps and pins were sold in municipal centers in Chiba. Since Urayasu hosted the karate meets, among others, Chi-ba-kun is wearing a karate uniform here. This pin cost a mere 160 yen (2 USD).

After becoming the mascot for Chiba, commercialization of the character began in earnest. Here, he is the face of a cookie sold around the Tokyo Bay area. The cookie contains peanuts, which Chiba is famous for. At the Chi-ba-kun Shop, you can find everything from stickers to neckties showing the character in its many incarnations.

By the way, the dog, when standing upright, resembles the shape of Chiba prefecture itself.

Another one of its responsibilities: promoting road safety. A pair of disgruntled policemen snapped photos for the handful of passers-by who couldn't resist asking for a photo.

Pikachu in the Sky

Since 1998, ANA (All Nippon Airways) has been using Pokemon-themed Boeings for domestic and international flights.

The plane I was on is the most recent model, unveiled in 2004. ANA was planning to release a new model this summer and have the public vote on the new design. However, this was halted after the March 11 earthquake, and plans to reveal the winning design on TV were scrapped.

While I missed out on the whole Pokemon craze that began in 1996, I appreciated the sense of fun that was projected onto the plane. I'd be curious to see how the plane looks when it's in the sky! 

If you're in the mood, you can make your own paper Pokemon plane! Just download, print, color, fold, and glue!
The link is here:
http://www.ana.co.jp/travel/topics/paper_airplane/vol2/index.html