Designer: Atelier Sento | Publisher: Miyakodori Publishing | Date: 2021

Paper size: 28cm by 20cm | Enlargement | Currency: $ / £ / €

Price: $ 180.00£ 140.00€ 170.00 [Reprinting]

Description: Notes from the designers: Some large carp streamers being displayed on Children's Day had been swept away by the wind and lost in the city. Ever since then, they have been wandering through the labyrinth of glass and concrete in search of a big river. In the moment when the rain ends and they take off again, they secretly watch the humans with their big eyes.

When we travel in Japan, we often think of yokai, monsters that no one can see, but we imagine they are still around us. We want to depict this strange world on the border between the visible and the invisible.

The first time I saw a carp banner was at the end of a long, hard winter in Niigata. Dozens of carp were floating in the sky along the Shinano River. They looked so alive, rippling like water in the wind. Their bright colors gave them a mysterious appearance.

Koi floating gently above the heads of busy office workers on their way to work, as if nothing was unusual. This was a scene we really liked, and that impression influenced this illustration.

Notes from art director Shinji Tsuchimochi: I am working with the publisher Miyakodori, attempting to help revive the historically defunct Ukiyo-e movement, with our current project - 'Reiwa Shin-hanga'.

Ukiyo-e, which flourished most in the Edo period (1603-1868), became popular in France at the end of the 19th century with the Japonism movement. It had a great influence on the works of the French painters - including the Impressionists - and the works of Van Gogh and Monet have long been popular in Japan. In this way, the East and the West have a history of fusing different cultures into one another. Our concept of 'Shin-Hanga' is also based on this history, created by incorporating Western painting techniques into the declining ukiyo-e.

In modern times, there is a continuing crossover in culture, including manga and animation. Moebius, the French master of colored manga Bandes Dessinées and Japan's leading cartoonists and animators, such as Osamu Tezuka, Katsuhiro Otomo, and Hayao Miyazaki. have all said that they were influenced by each other's works.

In order to symbolically summarize such a relationship, I decided to ask the artists of Bandes Dessinées to create Ukiyoe In order to symbolically summarize such a relationship. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Atelier Sento for accepting my sudden request and taking time out of their busy manga production to draw this wonderful ukiyo-e design.

I hope this project will be a success and further deepen the friendship between East and West.