Forever Young - Popculture Bazaar for the child inside

Written by: Sascha Faustka on September 11, 2008 at 5:24 pm | In Fashion & Lifestyle Trends |

Kitty wears a gas mask and a Zombieteddie kills its owner - Japanese Artists playing with their culture

From August 22nd until today (hurry!) Japans ambitious young artists are given the chance to broaden their name recognition at the “Popculture Bazaar”, produced by Fewmany. Located on the first floor of one of Shibuya’s biggest department stores, Loft, 27 artists are presenting and selling their work arranged in boxes.

The idea to sell homemade products in Hakko Shops (Box Shops) is quite common in Japan. Anyone can sell their homemade work in compact boxes arranged in the stores. The customer can buy the items at the counter of the box shop, and the maker receives the payment minus a percentage taken by the store.

The theme of Tokyu Hand’s first temporary Popculture Bazaar is “Popbox Matsuri” (festival). All of the artists are presenting their interpretation of matsuri in the one square meter boxes, arranged like booths at a fair around a plaza. Throughout the two weeks of the festival the different artists can be watched here creating their goods.

The line-up of artists is quite impressive: Touma (monster designer for Bandai and Capcom), Yuki Koishikawa (Anna Sui, Sanrio, NTT Docomo), Mushroom Café ( Perrier, Kewpie, Lipton), and many more.

Looking at the products presented, someone from the West may think that the artist’s target group is children, just starting elementary school or even younger. You can clearly see in which culture the young artists grew up in, and what kind of figures and models they have around them day by day walking through Tokyo or switching on the television.

What seems to western people to be some kind of pop art, garish. and childish toy for primary school kids is nothing else than the reflection of the younger Japanese cultural background - a culture beyond Otaku and beyond Hello Kitty or Jump Magazine. Japanese young people in the twenties and thirties have grown up with these influences, so robots and monsters have become part of their everyday life.

Living out one’s addiction to cartoon characters or pink teddy bears is nothing unusual in Japan. Having tons of little Kitties and Kumas on their pink mobile phones is as usual for girls and boys as salarymen playing Nintendo DS or PSP on the train.

Keeping all this in mind, it is less surprising that Japanese fans are willing to pay up to 70,000 yen ($650) for a sculpture of their favorite artist, in form of a little pink pirate mushroom with a skull on its hat and a little girl standing on its blue tongue (see below).

If you don’t have the chance to go to the Popculture Bazaar you can see and buy nearly all of the designer’s products at Fewmany in Shinjuku.

Tags: anime, Art, design, manga, Pop culture
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends