[summary]In a first for New York City, the Japan Society explores the phenomenon of Japanese anime, comics and illustrated narratives (manga), and interactives video games migrating into the mainstream in KRAZY!: The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games from March 12 through June 14, 2009.[/summary]









New York, NY- Once considered the preserve of an insular youth culture, within the last decade Japanese animated cartoons (anime), comics and illustrated narratives (manga), and interactive video games have migrated into the mainstream, with reverberations both high and low. In a first for New York City, the Japan Society explores this phenomenon in KRAZY!: The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games from March 12 through June 14, 2009.

Displayed in a series of enveloping spaces designed to evoke Tokyo's clamorous cityscape by the Tokyo-based architectural firm Atelier Bow-Wow, KRAZY! will present simultaneous projections of anime films, accompanied by preparatory sketches and soundtracks; hundreds of comic books (including first editions and English translations), along with rare concept drawings and related action figures and other merchandise; and video excerpts and table console computer games that can be played by visitors.

Altogether, 200 works of art, objects, and ephemera will be assembled to illustrate the interconnected roots and themes of the three genres and to situate them within the context of Japanese art and life.

Focusing exclusively on the work and influence of Japanese writers, illustrators, and designers, Joe Earle, Director, Japan Society Gallery, has adapted KRAZY! from an exhibition of the same name organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada, originating there in Spring 2008. Co-curators are the Vancouver Art Gallery's Senior Curator Bruce Grenville; the world's foremost authority on manga, Kiyoshi Kusumi, the editor of the Japanese magazine Comickers, as well as an established art critic and cultural theorist; and the sociologist, media theorist, and critic Toshiya Ueno, who serves as Associate Professor in the Expressive Cultures Department at Wako University, Tokyo.

"In the 19th century, the Japanese master Hokusai incorporated aspects of European art into the traditional Japanese visual style, creating a revolutionary new art-which was then avidly absorbed by European painters as a purely 'Japanese art.' Such a give-and-take describes in part the dynamic nature of this new wave of art and popular culture as well," says Joe Earle, Director, Japan Society Gallery.

Seminal works by six influential anime artists, eight manga artists, one sound artist and two video game designers are featured in KRAZY!. Exhibition highlights include excerpts from the classic anime, Akira (1988) by Katsuhiro Otomo, which was set in the year 2019 in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo and introduced to Western audiences what would become the prototypical anime character-statuesque figure, heart-shaped face, and huge eyes-and a narrative that forecasted complexity and fantasy to come. "Girl" power surfaces in this section in the form of Paprika, a red-headed psychotherapist invented by the artist Satoshi Kon who has the ability to "jack in" to other people's dreams with nightmarish results that include a parade of Buddhist statues, Chinese fortune figures, Japanese dolls, the Statue of Liberty, and a myriad hi-tech gadgets. Other anime artists whose works are highlighted are Mamoru Ishii, Ichiro Itano, Masaaki Yuasa, Makoto Shinkai and Ushio Tazawa.

A sound room will allow visitors to savor anime soundtracks by Yoko Kanno that have achieved cult status around the world, with their fusion of jazz, hard rock, blues, hip hop, and ambient techno, devised for such anime film and television shows as Cowboy Bebop (1998) and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002), and the music for the slapstick mafia film Mind Game by animator Masaaki Yuasa, which was composed and performed by the infamous Osaka-based noise band, The Boredoms.

The manga section of KRAZY! illustrates how Japanese artists have taken the art of silk paintings and woodblock prints and combined them with the genre story and American-style punch to create something totally new. Taiyo Matsumoto's unique style of remixing a narrative and breaking up the frame on a page with slices of close-up expressions is featured here in drawings for and copies of Black & White, (1993-1994), her story of two orphans who defend a city named Takara-machi (Treasure Town) from evil adults. Also on view is a selection from Mamoru Nagano's Five Star Stories, a vast and incredibly complex saga, which, although completely described when the publication first began in 1986, has run for over two decades, and Junko Mizuno's Pure Trance, an elaborate narrative of exclusively female characters, played out in a decadent, post-apocalyptic Tokyo. Other prominent manga artists represented are Takashi Okazaki, Yuichi Yokoyama, Hitoshi Odajima, and Hisashi Eguchi.

In KRAZY!'s last section, the seminal role that Japanese designers have played in transforming the game genre into a veritable Esperanto of contemporary life is evident in excerpts from Toru Iwatani's Pac-Man (1980) and Shigeru Miyamoto's landmark Super Mario World (1990), and his more recent and evolved role-playing game, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002).

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima, the principals of Atelier Bow-Wow renowned for transforming small and difficult spaces into playful and innovative structures, have designed consoles to allow visitors to play through key sections of the computer games in an environment as cacophonous and excessive as the games themselves.



Takashi Okazaki
Afro Samurai [cover]
Published in NOU NOU HAU vol.00, 1998
© TAKASHI OKAZAKI
Exhibition Catalogue


KRAZY!: The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue titled KRAZY!: The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art, published by the Vancouver Art Gallery, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver/Toronto, and University of California Press, Berkeley. The catalogue addresses an international spectrum of writers, illustrators, and programmers in the fields of comics, graphic novels, and art from around the world. With commentary devoted to such illustrators and designers as Seth Spiegelman, the creator of Maus, and Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, the volume complements the Japan Society's focus on Japanese practitioners. ($34.95, soft-cover, retail)


Anime Film Screenings
The anime films that are featured in KRAZY! will be shown in full-length in the recently upgraded-with digital projectors and 5.1 surround sound-auditorium at the Japan Society. The films that will be shown are:

Katsuhiro Otomo's classic, Akira (1988); Satoshi Kon's, Paprika (2006); Patlabor 2: The Movie, by Mamoru Oshii (1993); The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004), by Mamoru Oshii; and Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Episode 9 and 27 (1982-83), designed by Ichiro Itano.

Screenings will begin Saturday, March 14 and will continue till June 14, 2009. Viewing times are all-day Friday: 3:00 to 9:00 pm; Saturday and Sunday: 11:00 to 5:00 pm. For a full schedule visit www.japansociety.org.

Selected Public Programs
Konnichiwa Friends Family Tours of KRAZY!
Saturday, March 14, April 11, May 9 and June 13, 2009 at 2-3pm
Slated for the second Saturday of every month between March and June, this series of tours engages young children ages 2 to 4 and their families in fun, interactive learning experiences. Using games, puzzles, storytelling, and other techniques for discussing art and culture, tours explore exhibition themes and include Japanese vocabulary and language acquisition activity-building skills. FREE with adult admission to the exhibition. No reservation required. For more information, the public may call (212) 715-1224.

Art Cart: KRAZY!
Sunday March 29, 2009 2-4pm
Led by a Japan Society educator, children and their families receive an introduction to KRAZY! by exploring the galleries through sketching, movement, and discussion. Working with an artist and educator, children learn about a range of media in the exhibition, including, manga (graphic novels), anime (Japanese animation), and video games in a fine art context and make their own manga pages. Recommended for ages 7-12 years old. $15 per family (up to 5 people)/$10 per family, including at least one Japan Society member. The public may purchase tickets online or call the Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. - Fri. 11 am - 6 pm, Weekends 11 am - 5 pm.

KRAZY! Anime
Beginning in March 2009. (Schedule to come.)
Special anime-related Family & Student Programs on weekends.

About Japan Society Gallery
Japan Society Gallery is among the premier institutions in the U.S. for the exhibition of Japanese art. Extending in scope from prehistory to the present, the Gallery's exhibitions since 1971 have covered topics as diverse as classical Buddhist sculpture and calligraphy, contemporary photography and ceramics, samurai swords, export porcelain, and masterpieces of painting from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. Each exhibition, with its related catalogue and public programs, is a unique cultural event that illuminates familiar and unfamiliar fields of art. From 2008 the Gallery has expanded its annual schedule, adding a shorter, small-scale exhibition each summer to the existing program of major three-month exhibitions each spring and fall.

About Japan Society
Established in 1907, Japan Society has evolved into North America's single major producer of high-quality content on Japan for an English-speaking audience. Presenting over 100 events annually through well established Corporate, Education, Film, Gallery, Language, Lectures, Performing Arts and Innovators Network programs, the Society is an internationally recognized nonprofit, nonpolitical organization that provides access to information on Japan, offers opportunities to experience Japanese culture, and fosters sustained and open dialogue on issues important to the U.S., Japan, and East Asia.

Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street between First and Second Avenues (accessible by the 4/5/6 and 7 subway at Grand Central or the E and V subway at Lexington Avenue). The public may call 212-832-1155 or visit www.japansociety.org for more information.

Japan Society Gallery hours: Tuesday through Thursday, 11:00 am-6:00 pm; Friday, 11:00 am-9:00 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 am-5:00 pm; the Gallery is closed on Mondays and major holidays (Nov. 27, Dec. 25 & 26, Jan. 1). Admission: $12/$10 students and seniors/free Japan Society members and children under 16. Admission is free to all on Friday nights, 6:00-9:00 pm.

Man I can tell that this going to be a very interseting trip ti see what japan has in store for us