One of the things I enjoy the most during my annual trips to Tokyo are the meet-ups with like-minded individuals who are into animation/manga/movies and in this particular occasion it is our common shared interest and passion for all things created by AKIRA director Otomo Katsuhiro.

Unofficially calling themselves the ‘Otomo Model Kit Hobby Club’, many of the members are themselves professional artists and/or creatives, including Satoshi Takabatake, who was Otomo’s manga assistance on AKIRA, and Asano-san, who works at Shirogumi, the VFX studio behind Godzilla : Minus One.

This year we met at a bar/restaurant called FLUX located near Kanda JR station, and many members also bought along their model kits and 3D-printed figures for all to appreciate. Fans of Otomo would likely recognize many of them; characters from Robot Carnival, Farewell To Weapons, and of course AKIRA.

(above & below) Ridiculously detailed paper-cut art pieces by the incredibly aforementioned Asano-san.

(above) I’m not usually one to request for selfies, but I absolutely had to take a photo with these two fine gentlemen, both who are members of Geinoh Yamashirogumi, the musical group behind the original soundtrack of AKIRA. I managed to pick up the vinyl for the REMIX edition at Shibuya Tower Records last year ( image below ).

A delightful evening filled with plenty of stories and nerdy conversations revolving around animation, comics and movies. I hope to see them again during my next visit !

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Ambedo is a luxurious hardcover book that collects the very best paintings and drawings by Tran Nguyen completed from 2009 to 2018. It showcases her sensuous and personal work that was done for gallery exhibitions, as well as her advertising, book and editorial illustration projects completed as a freelance artist. Over 120 paintings are featured along with nearly a dozen preliminary sketches. An introduction by Tran opens the book, followed by her brief intimate commentary for each of her solo and group show chapters.

Tran’s paintings are created with a soft, delicate quality using colored pencil and acrylic on paper. She’s most known for her paintings of whimsical women and melancholic landscapes, which often possess an air of fantasy and surrealism.

Ambedo is a collection of all of the sweat and tears that Nguyen shed into the first decade of her career. It’s a recording of her progression as an artist in terms of style, technique and personal narrative. The book includes gold gilt edges, gold foil for the Ambedo title on the front cover, and a gold spot color used for interior text.

This book is one of my chance discoveries while browsing through the always excellent Kinokuniya bookstore in Shinjuku during my recent trip. I also have to thank the artist for introducing me to a new word –

ambedo n. a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—which leads to a dawning awareness of the haunting fragility of life.

I’m particularly delighted by Tran Nguyen’s love for Neo-classical poses, by which she also infuses with Surrealistic visual motifs, creating genre sensibilities that are both contemporary and antiquated. A quick flip-through of the book at the bookstore quickly convinced me that I like the artist’s work, and this is an easy recommendation.

I would also recommend Hieu Nguyen’s ( Kelogsloop ) art book, which I feel share certain stylistic similarities.

“Ambedo: The Art of Tran Nguyen” book details :

– Dimensions – 9 x 2 x 12 inches
– Hard cover
– 192 pages, full color

Buy From Amazon CA | Amazon JP | Amazon UK

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Warning : The following post contains nudity/adult content.

Famed for his iconic creature and character designs utilizing skeletal and skull motifs, Yasushi Nirasawa ( 韮沢靖 ) was a prolific artist that contributed to many Tokusatsu titles like Kamen Rider, Garo, Devilman, Godzilla, Ultraman and more. Even if you’re not intimately familiar with his name or work, you probably would have come across some of his excellent character/creature designs previously. For example, he was the creature designer for the asymmetrically shaped aliens in Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within (2000).

The artist passed away in 2016 at a relatively young age of 52, and as a result his work received great posthumous attention, with many of his art books selling out and becoming unavailable.

This particular art book Creature Core ( クリーチャー・コア ), first released way back in 1992, has finally been republished after been out of print for a very long time. The first half of the book showcases intricately detailed physical model/figures of characters and creatures designed by the artist, and then 2nd half covers some of the concept art drawings and illustrations from which the figures are created from.

(above) A fascinating ‘Failed Guyver’ figure. A fellow Twitter user in Japan was kind enough to inform me that it was actually on display at the Guyver 40th anniversary exhibition held earlier this year-

???????????????3???????????????????? 40???????????????????? pic.twitter.com/C872x7NhoU

— guinnessbook (@guinnessbook) May 31, 2026

(above) Guest artist illustrations by Katsuya Terada based on character designs by Nirasawa.

Yasushi Nirasawa’s creature creations are singularly striking in design and grotesquely wonderful; it is a real pity that he passed on early and that his books are rather hard to get hold of. As such, this reprinted edition of a long out of print title is just splendid news for Nirasawa fans. Highly recommended.

“Creature Core – Yasushi Nirasawa Art Book 韮沢靖作品集 クリーチャー・コア details :

– Dimensions – 11.69 x 8.27 x 0.53 inches
– Hardcover, 128 pages
– Full color, in Japanese

  
Buy From Amazon.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | CDJapan

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Warning : The following post contains nudity/adult content.

One of the first art exhibitions that I visited during my one short week in Tokyo is renowned Japanese illustrator Sorayama Hajime’s ‘Light, Reflection, Transparency’ held at the Creative Museum Tokyo ( Mar 13th – May 31st 2026 ), a short walk from Tokyo station.

I’ve been follow Sorayama’s work for almost 30 years but this is actually the first ever solo exhibition of his that I’ve ever had the chance to visit in person, so I was quite excited.

The exhibition pulls no punches and straight as the visitor is ushered into the first room they are awed by spectacular, larger than life pieces of his art work. While it has been conveyed to me that some of these are enlarged versions of his work ( which kinda tracks because Sorayama’s primary medium is air-brush and they are usually more suited for desktop sized pieces of work as far as I know ) and not the original, the visceral impact of seeing his pieces in such massive format is still magnificent.

(above) After the main paintings gallery, there are also sculptural showcases of his shiny chromy robots. (below) A detailed replicate of the artist’s workspace, dressed with lots of interesting art work, toys and trinkets.

In conjunction with the exhibition there is also a new art book ‘Sorayama – The Gynoids Sublime’ which will be widely released on June 19th. I’ll be reviewing it in the coming weeks, in the meantime you can pre-order a copy of the book here.

This is actually the first of two Sorayama exhibitions that I got to see, the other is the joint exhibition with his fellow erotic/adult art illustrators Katsuya Terada and Rockin’ Jellybean called Ex Machina Galactica which I will also be writing about soon. Stay tuned !

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It’s been a pretty hectic 2 weeks of travel, first to my hometown of Singapore and then Tokyo, before finally returning to Vancouver yesterday. This time round it is a much shorter trip because I’m still busy working on the VFX for an upcoming film and could ill afford to take an extended vacation.

That said, I did managed to line up my limited time in Tokyo with many cool art exhibitions and also got to meet up with some old and new friends. I did not of course forget to pick up quite a few new art books along the way and will be posting reviews in the coming weeks, as well as write-ups on my visits to the art exhibitions.

It’s going to take about a week or so to shake off my usual jet-lag, but I’m looking forward to edit all the photos I’ve taken on the trip, so stay tuned for more to come soon. In the meantime, check out some highlights of my trip in these twitter posts below –

Finally back in Vancouver after my Tokyo trip. Super beat and jet-lagged but still gotta head back to work tomorrow ?
Anyway, I gotta a good number of photos to edit and art book reviews to get to, so look out for them in the coming week/s. pic.twitter.com/8C5vsOlHe6

— blauereiter (@blauereiter) May 24, 2026

Achievement unlocked – pilgrimage to Otomo’s ‘Procession Spin’ bas-relief sculpture at Ginza station ( near exit B1 of Hibiya line ). Took like a hundred pictures from every hoomanly possible angle. Not even kidding ? pic.twitter.com/s77QarKrjD

— blauereiter (@blauereiter) May 22, 2026

Some of the amazing art on display at the Otomo figure/model kit meet-up I attended earlier today. Thank you @nemuridino again for inviting me ! ?? pic.twitter.com/z3EUKRZG7F

— blauereiter (@blauereiter) May 21, 2026

Accidentally Square Enix

Was just exploring the area around my hotel located in Shinjuku and stumbled upon the legendary game studio. ? pic.twitter.com/4DZYvRUFHu

— blauereiter (@blauereiter) May 19, 2026

Tekkon Kinkreet director Michael Arias was kind enough to meet me for a coffee in Kichijoji and shared some work in progress pictures of his upcoming ‘Sunny’ stop-motion animation film based on Taiyo Matsumoto’s manga. It looks AMAZING. Fans are going to go wild. pic.twitter.com/OvNjDFI28v

— blauereiter (@blauereiter) May 21, 2026

Just visited the Sorayama Hajime exhibition in Tokyo and I’m positively stunned by just how massive some of his paintings are. I always assumed they were like desktop sized. ? pic.twitter.com/jO5gq3o7xU

— blauereiter (@blauereiter) May 19, 2026

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