Blog - Komaneko
Komaneko
On Saturday, we got out [relatively] early to go to the 10th Japan Media Arts Festival, held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu. Actually the first priority was to get tickets to the free screening of Komaneko. The film was to start at 12:05 but they gave away tickets at 10:00. We got there a bit too late, but fortunately our friend Sakiko had been there on time and grabbed tickets for us too!
Since we still had some time, we visited the 2nd and 3rd floors where was being shown all sort of artwork of different media (as the festival name says): photography, video, interactive works, etc. We saw the video for Cornelius' "Fit Song", a pika pika film by Tochka, and I got to test play Elebits for Wii, a game I had been quite curious about.
What got most of my interest was Nakae Masaaki's "Rocket" photography, in which he has fun planting huge rockets downtown Shinjuku and Shibuya and nearby temples. I would have gladly bought a photo book if only one was available commercially, but all I could get my hands on was a free postcard. I really hope his works will be published sometime soon!
Back to the theater we went to watch Komaneko, a stop-motion animation film that was shown in theaters starting in December. I had only heard about it when it was about to close though and I hadn't been able to see it. This free screening at the festival was just what I needed!
The 1-hour film starts with the 5-minute short titled "komaneko: hajime no ippo" that was shown at Cinema Rise Shibuya one minute at a time during 2004 (I had mentioned it back then). This can be seen online for free at Excite Cinema.
The rest of the movie contains several stories in 3D stop-motion (like the short film) and 2D stop-motion, with some animated interludes. My biggest surprise was that Komaneko meows...! In the short film it was quiet most of the time, but in the other stories it keeps going "nya nya!". I'm not sure whether I'd have preferred for it to really speak or maybe to stay quiet instead, but anyway!
All in all, it was all very cute and well done with lots of detail work!
Out of there, we headed for lunch at Café Le Lion, a French café/restaurant in Ebisu. I had a pork roast set for ¥1000, and it was well worth it! On the wall in front of me at the café was a poster of Théâtre Guignol, which struck me with childhood memories. I then remembered that I used to watch this stick-puppet show on TV when I was very young. I dream of seeing it live in Lyon someday!
Then doing some more walking shopping in Ebisu, a sign directed us to Market, a small indoor flea-market held at rental space MmMmFC that's just like an apartment. I bought some cookies from a girl who speaks French and teaches baking under the name tiroir.
Last, here's a Space Invader found near Daikanyama station.
Guignol and invader in larger sizes at Flickr
Posted on March 5, 2007 at 12:45 | Tweet
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Are you sure that's a space invader and not just a bunch of tiles left stuck there?
Posted by Roy on March 6, 2007 at 11:51
Look at his eyes! There's no mistake.
Posted by Patrick on March 6, 2007 at 12:35
holy crap, just checked out komaneko clips on youtube. overwhelmed by cuteness right now, better pop in a horror flick when i get home.
Posted by alias pail on March 13, 2007 at 01:14
If you hadn't posted about this I would have thought the Nakae Masaaki rockets were just CG - they look too perfect to be real! Do you know how big they are?
Posted by Mr Phoenix on March 15, 2007 at 23:12
Sorry, they are definitely CG. :) It's more obvious in his other photos (you just can't put a building-high rocket in the middle of Shinjuku!). I just used the term "planting" for fun.
Nevertheless, his work is very realistic and stunning! Looks like he'll be doing a bit of an exhibition at Aoyama Spiral in May, I'll have to check that out.
Posted by Patrick on March 15, 2007 at 23:48
Ah, there are more of his photos here!
http://www.cgarts.or.jp/contest/scg/2006/prize/rocket/
Posted by Patrick on March 18, 2007 at 13:34