Made the trip to Ginza on Tuesday. I got off the wrong station so I had a bit of a hike to the gallery but it was a nice day so I wasn't complaining. Found the gallery pretty easily and, since no one else was there, got to take it all in pretty much by myself. Ahh, the benefits of not having a real job.

Anyway, the gallery isn't all that big but it's a nice clean and open space. There were about 60 pieces in total, all in nice frames and sized at around B4. They were lined up tight together in 2 parallel rows across all 4 walls. All pieces were priced at 105,000 yen which is equal to about a grand US or Canadian. A steal if you ask me. Oh, not all. A handful were not for sale. I went on the second day and a third were already taken so I'm sure by the end of the week they'll all be spoken for. I was tempted to purchase one but the subject matter was, well, not exactly user-friendly? I woulda jumped at the chance if any were from either his Blade or Ohikkoshi works. I was hoping they would have prints or some light items like that but nadda. They had the artbook though.

I'm pretty miminal in terms of mediums I use so seeing an entire gallery filled to the brim with nothing but pencil drawings was something quite special to me. I've had the fortune of seeing original pages from various artists over the last year but this stuff took detail and subtlety to the next level. Reproductions rarely do the actual work justice and this was an example, case and point. It's quite something seeing erased lines covered with the final strokes and the problem solving process all right there happening in front of my face. The faces were so crisp and figures so well defined. The work was B4 sized, yes, but they came across much much bigger. Pretty outstanding. I wish I could describe it better to you but there's just no way I'm afraid. I'm getting too emotional about this so I'll stop...

All I know is, I'll definitely be making another trip before the show ends.

TAK