Artist Shinro Ohtake, Ms. Kazuko Koike, and myself at the retrospective of the artist currently on-going to rave reviews. More than 30 years ago, at the art university I belonged to the dullest section in the department, called Nihonga, where I studied the genre of painting that existed amidst the dark dogma of human relationships riddled with factions and meant for distributions solely within Japan. That, however, had merely been my facade: in truth I was aiming for the world of animation, making my own anime with 8mm films. But in my generation there was an extraordinary genius called Hideaki Anno, who was also making 8mm film animation but at an entirely different level, making it obvious that there was no competition. Feeling defeated with nowhere to go, I was spending my days painting without any motivation to speak of. It was then that I found in the university cafeteria a small poster advertising Mr. Shinro Ohtake’s exhibition and went to see it with my friend one afternoon. The shock I experienced at the show was something similar in magnitude and sentiment to what I had felt watching the animated film, Galaxy Express 999, when I was a high school senior. The artist and his exhibition gave me the motivation to start over in contemporary art, the area with seemingly less competition, if I didn’t have the talent required for anime. With this photo I took with the very artist and the owner of the gallery that organized his aforementioned exhibition 30 some ears ago, my heart instantaneously returned to that day when I was 26, with my brain completely filling up with just dreams and hopes. Ms. Kazuko Koike, by the way, is the concept creator for MUJI @muji_global . photo: @chiaki_kasahara_