One trap I often catch myself thinking about in fashion and art is “how could I make something that showcases my entire self?”

Whenever I start contemplating that question, I always spend a ton of time without coming up with anything good; and after some deliberation, I think it's because trying to represent all of myself is the wrong thing to do there.

I think the story of most people are quite complex, and not really possible to capture in something as simple as a single outfit or a single work of art. For one, there isn't really an overarching “designer of our life” that sculpts our life to have certain aesthetic qualities. For two, in different contexts we can be into completely different things.

For example, I enjoy both Japanese and Italian cuisine at times. However, it's impossible to capture a representation of how I enjoy both cuisines in a single dish. Since meals are usually considered one slice of immediate experience, a meal that tries to be both Japanese and Italian can only represent a meal of fusion cuisine, rather than the pleasure of eating each authentic cuisine individually, just like how an Italian sushi of shrimp wrapped in soft bread is likely delicious, but nobody would argue that it's authentic Japanese or authentic Italian food.

In this way, a single song, picture, or outfit fall very much short of having enough scope express our different likings fully. They only express a slice of our immediate experience, not a collection of them. While it is possible to combine two different likings to something entirely new, a part of the authenticity and directness of each component is lost in the process, and that can remove the effectiveness of the art itself as a whole.

It's no longer possible to convey the joy of pure Japanese food or pure Italian food in a fusion context. Conveying the liking of a single style within the scope of an immediate experience (a song, a picture, a meal, etc.) requires commitment to that style.

On a broader level, in order to authentically express a person's different likings (and most people have such different likings) fully, something of higher scope than an immediate experience. An artist needs an album or a menu, or beyond that, a discography or a set of restaurants, in order to fully express the idea that they can like things from different contexts at different times. Pinning it all on a single dish or a single outfit is, as I have found at numerous times, a purely futile endeavor.

What this means, luckily for me, is that I have license to make multiple pieces of art and to shop for a wardrobe instead. :)

— Categorized under: #fashion, #art, #communication, #identity

One thing I've been thinking on and off for the past few days is what really triggers how much I enjoy a piece of media. The answer that I consistently come back to seems to be a sense of aesthetics – the sense that everything in some sort of fictional world feels “just right”.

This type of “completeness” feels really difficult to find in media, and contributes a lot to my peculiar tastes. For example, I wouldn't consider Star Wars to have a good aesthetic, neither does a decent amount of Disney films. Magic the Gathering doesn't really get it right, and Pokemon doesn't either. But Serial Experiments Lain, NGE, and Revolutionary Girl Utena seem to hit it on the spot. And so does Eccentric Family, and that there are four out of five of my favorite TV animations.

JoJo seems to have it, though it's not something I could easily tap into. On the other hand, the Personal series seems to be very aware of it.

Touhou is one of the interesting examples of this. Almost every other Touhou game presents a self-contained, complete aesthetics. This sort of frequency feels unheard of among creators, and it feels like Touhou is in the business of aesthetics much more so than games, art, pretty patterns, or music.

I was thinking a lot about how to concisely convey the feeling of “having a complete aesthetic”, but it feels almost impossible to convey through words. At least currently, I feel like as soon as I define some kind of ruleset, I will find exceptions that slip under the radar.

Of course, the definition could end up being “just stuff that I really like”. But I don't really feel like that is the case. For example, Made in Abyss and Hotline Miami are example of artworks that have a ton of things I don't like, but still manages to fascinate me with its strong aesthetics. On the other hand, My High School Romance is a show that I really like, but doesn't really have aesthetics as it's strong suit (though it does have some of that).

I did eventually stumble upon something that makes the job of articulating what a “complete aesthetic” is to me easier. In China there's an artist named Rei who did a series of pieces for two collaborative music albums themed around mythologies from around the world. The English name of the project is Dream Catchers from Around the World, and almost every image has what feels like a “complete aesthetic”. The pieces probably required a prestigious amount of research, and as a result the pieces feel like they come alive.

This discovery of so many of what feels like “complete aesthetics” is astounding to me equal to Touhou's productivity around aesthetics, and I'm really surprised that I haven't seen the artist referenced at all in the West.

Here's an example of the said images, centered around the idea of the Adam & Eve creation myth:

And here are all the said images:

https://www.pcstore.com.tw/g77shop/M39209915.htm

Though I can't still quite articulate what makes an aesthetic feel “complete” to me, looking at these pieces, I feel like I'm starting to put together some initial ideas. Hopefully one day I can articulate it fully or even better, set out to create a bunch compelling ones of my own.

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Categorized under: #art, #aesthetics

The other day I was talking with an artist friend about the illustrator I referenced in the aesthetics article. And the friend pointed out something really interesting about this artist's journey.

In the link here (CW: some blood and nudity), you can get a sampling of the artist's works six years ago versus now. It's specifically really interesting to see that the early works are simple but actually quite evocative, while the later works usually expands the technical scope of the work while maintaining the same sensibilities. For example, below is one of their earlier works – very few characters, nearly completely monochromatic, but still interesting enough in the subject matter for someone to pause and take a look:

ナルキッソスとエコー

Here's an example of the most recent picture. The colors are now very varied, there are more characters and they tend to have more dynamic poses, and the idea of “having something kind of surreal going on in the picture” is there throughout.

まとめ18

This progression is impressive because one of the central challenges in pursuing art is the difficulty of making something you would consider “good” compared to all the other really good pieces of art you've already seen. On the other hand, working purely on artistic drills can be really demotivating because they tend to be quite boring, you haven't “finished” anything in a while, you lose a sense of social motivation, and you are prone to start doubting your abilities longer you've gone without making a “completed” piece you are satisfied with.

There's a delicate balance between skill, motivation, learning, and ambition that's challenging to navigate, and in my opinion this artist has navigated it really well. A lot of their early works, despite their simplicity, are something that someone with a trained eye can still find something interesting in. Having this kind of subjectively interesting, educational, and reasonably scoped pieces goes a long ways towards motivating someone to keep pursuing art.

Personally speaking, though some of the art felt a tad oppressive and gazey for my personal tastes, I find the sense of mystery/meaning this artist has in their work to be pretty strong – and this is something I hope to be able to achieve in my own works as well.

— Categorized under: #art, #learning

Went to a few art meetups in recent weeks to work on my pieces in an accountable way. Since I'm learning a lot of new concepts for a piece, the progress on the work has been painstakingly slow. For the past few weeks, the work has changed very little on the surface.

Naturally, this got me pretty self-conscious. Maybe I come off as slow, perfectionist, lazy, or bad? Like most people, I have a natural tendency to want to show myself as being “good” at something, so I definitely feel some internal conflicts during these sessions.

Thinking about it, I don't think there's any way to avoid coming off as inefficient when practicing. 99% of time I'm in the process of learning something, it had looked pretty bad out outside perspectives. It goes not only for creative endeavors, but banal things like biking, driving, and cooking as well.

I think the right way to practice on most things will by default look bad, so the choice is really to either:

• Hang out and learn, but look bad (ignore looking good)
• Hang out and not learn, but look good (ignore learning)
• Don't hang out (ignore social motivation)

When put that way, the correct choice is pretty obvious – swallow my pride, and start practicing ugly.

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Addendum: many people criticize media for romanticizing the idea of a genius who gets it right on the first try. While I think media is partly to blame for this, I can't help but feel that we are intrinsically drawn to the idea of a genius. It is the platonic ideal of “talent”, and just like all platonic ideals, it's something we are easily endeared to.

— Categorized under: #art, #learning

A few months ago, I saw a piece of fanart that I still think about every now and then.

The piece is a reimagined promotion material for a horror movie called Midsommar. I haven't seen the movie yet, and generally am not a fan of horror movies, however the poster made a strong impression that felt difficult to forget.

Here are the promotional pieces (trigger warning: stylized blood): link

From what I can see of other promotional materials, the movie combines a general flowery pastorical aesthetic with some sort of horror. It feels reminiscent of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring – the juxtaposition of flowery spring celebration with a brutal theme gives off a really strong sense of creepiness and contrast. It undeniably has a unique sense of aesthetics to it.

This makes me think – what about the juxtaposition really creates a sense of lasting appeal? In Blade Runner, the combination of high-tech holographic displays combined with dark, gritty neighborhoods created a classic aesthetic that's influential to this day, and spawned sub-genres of aesthetics like lo-fi. In Vaporwave, it is a juxtaposition of vintage computer graphics, Grecian busts, and mall/campy commercial icons. What lends these combinations enduring popularity, whilst just combining two unrelated things I can think of (say beach ball and the moon) doesn't seem to generate that sort of appeal?

To be sure, this is something that I don't know the answer to yet. If I did, I'm sure that I can make the things I make incredibly compelling. On the other hand, it's possible that the question is so complex (e.g. What makes certain music good? What makes certain books good?) that I won't reach a conclusive answer at all. Nevertheless, I feel the need to phrase the question clearly, if only to spell out an incredibly interesting question, and to serve as the beginning point of answering something like it.

— Categorized under: #film, #art

Had an unusual experience today where working on art recharged me more than playing games.

Specifically, I started playing a game to recharge before starting art, but had some frustrations that left me more drained.

Afterwards, I thought “what if I started drawing now, while I was drained?” and ended up having so much fun with it that I don't feel drained at all now.

It's a reversal of the usual trend, and something I quite like. It's a good reminder to not come to early conclusions about what you might not like.

— Categorized under: #irl, #art, #gaming

“Stars Falling on Tenma's Mountain”, theme from the 5th boss of Touhou 18 – Unconnected Marketeers.

Just cleared Touhou 18, and read up on the majority of the plot.

I had a blast with the game – that was probably the most fun I've had out of any Touhou game, the plot and the music are slightly less strong compared to 15-17, but strangely I'm finding myself caring less and less about these comparisons as new games come out.

I remember excited waiting for Touhou 10 to come out back in 2007, and over time I've become more and more amazed by ZUN (the creator)'s persistence in creating one game after another. It doesn't really matter much that one game had better music while another one had better story and gameplay – the very fact that a solo developer can continue a single series for so long is amazing to witness. I can't think of anything quite like it, not even an analogy. It just feels like watching some sort of miracle unfold in real time. This is something that I especially treasure since I don't expect ZUN's new Touhou games to be around in 20 years, at least not with the current frequency.

As a creator, it's really easy to get hung up on creating perfect things and make nothing for years. There's something really convincing about Touhou that says very convincingly, over 26 years, 18 games, and hundreds of characters and tracks, that the act of putting things out there is beautiful in its own right.

As someone who creates things, there's nothing quite as inspiring as that.

(Edit: just saw the following on Touhou Wiki, which made the character design quite neat)

Chimata seems to be based on Ichigami (市神), a god of marketplaces in japanese folklore. Ichigami was worshipped as the god who protect the commercial activities and security of marketplaces. when the old school traditional marketplaces go into a decline in Modern Japan, folk religion of Ichigami also declined.

Chimata is a god of marketplaces, defined here as physical marketplaces (such as a town square). Rather than a god of capitalism or something like the stock market, she is more akin to a god of barter and trade, or marketplaces as they were before the invention and proliferation of capitalism.

Specifically, she is the god of “special event” marketplaces (as opposed to something like a regular farmer's market), which in Unconnected Marketeers is signified by the lunar rainbow. Her powers and goals are aligned towards trade occurring in those marketplaces, and when ownership of an item is transferred from one person to another in a regulated way.

She may be based on a long-forgotten medieval Japanese custom of holding markets when there's a rainbow. It was believed, that the boundary between the human world and the world of Gods is beneath rainbows, so holding a market during a rainbow would please the Gods, because they temporarily receive everything that is being sold there.

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Categorized under: #gaming, #touhou, #art

Despite being an anime fan, I have a really strong aversion to harem type animes selling cutesy appeal. Because of this, I sometimes get questions on why I like the Touhou game series. After all, if you only look at the characters, it looks just like all of those franchises trying to sell as many cute female characters as possible.

I've always struggled to give a good answer when I hear that question. Touhou has a very specific appeal to my that's very difficult to articulate on the spot. For my sanity though, I'll attempt to answer it here.

To start out with some background, it's important to know that Touhou is a video game series. The game series started in 1997 and has a total of 24 official game entries that builds on the same world. As the series grew popular, Touhou branched into official light novels, comics, and CDs. However, the amount of official work pales in comparison to fan works (5,000+ CDs and 30,000+ comics). Most people hear about Touhou through fanworks, which can make things confusing. The original game looks something like this:

The games take place is a fictional village named Gensokyo. The world “Touhou” literally translates to “Eastern”, and true to its name populated by characters inspired by Japanese religion, culture, and folklore.

“Touhou” is really an apt name for the series, as I blieve the primary strength of the franchise is that it recreates the appeal of traditional Japanese culture much more successfully than any other media franchise.

Creating new works from historical source material is the modus operanti of creators worldwide. Take the magician:

The magician architype has been successfully utilized in some of the biggest media franchises today. But the magicians in pop media today look nothing like the tartot card depictions from the 15th centry. The card's art held some appeal for the people 600 years ago, but needs to be reinvented to have the same level of appeal to the audience today:

In the very same way, Touhou digs into historical Japan to find source material to inspire its games. Unlike the wizard architype that has always enjoyed some level of popularity, Touhou looks at source material that have lost the majority of their relevance to people today, finds their unique appeal, and reinvent them in a way that preserves their innate appeal.

In such a way, Touhou 7 rediscovered the appeal of the Saigyō Hōshi, Records of the Ancient Matters, Records of the Great Peace, Motojirō Kajii, and Tales of Tono. Touhou 14 rediscovered the appeal of Rokurokubi, Tsukumogami, Amanojaku, Inchlings, the concept of peasant rebellions. The list continues on.

Japan has no shortage of shows that reinvigorates its ancient culture. The Twelve Kingdoms, Natsume's Book of Friends, Mushishi, and The Eccentric Family are all great examples. But to my knowledge, few works have as much willingness to find beauty in old and dusty history as Touhou does, and no work compares with Touhou in its scale and accessibility of discovery.

That means that every time I visit a new Touhou game, I can expect to find something beautiful about a fascinating culture that most likely no other media has shown me before. That's among the best thing you can ask for from any piece of media.

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Categorized under: #gaming, #touhou, #art

Last year, I watched a little-known anime released in 2016 called Flip Flappers. The show is obscure for good reasons. There's an unusual amount of fanservice, the plot falls apart near the end, and most of the side characters come across as being very two-dimensional.

However, there was one aspect of the show that made a deep impression on me when I first saw it, and over the past few months, I have only come to appreciate that aspect of the show more and more. In this post, I want to capture this particular part of Flip Flappers that made it a special show for me.

(This post will by necessity include some mild spoilers, but I will keep it as light as possible.)
Flip Flappers centers around the story of Cocona, a middle school student who is unable to decide the high school that she wants to attend. To her, this decision seem to have the potential to decide the rest of her life. However, all around her, other students seem unconcerned about their decisions – they seem to have decided quickly play and chat during as usual, and appear not to have given much thought to the issue.

Among these students, the upperclassman Iroha Irodori is an exception. She spends her lunch break on painting, and after class can be found in the art prep room (of which she is the sole maintainer of) drinking tea and working on more art pieces. Unlike the rest of the students at the school, Iroha is thoughtful, calm, and caring. Moreover, she possesses a distinct individuality that few in the school seems to have, and Cocona finds herself drawn to her in order understand where that individuality come from.

Over the course of the show, Cocona eventually comes to understand Iroha deeply, but it is not through the way that the she would have initially envisioned.

In Flip Flappers, Cocona has the ability to travel into fantasy worlds called Pure Illusions. These fantasy worlds are whimsical and abstract, much like the world of Alice in Wonderland. And unbeknownst to Cocona initially, these worlds are deeply connected to the people around her.

In the world where she eventually realizes this connection, Cocona comes to experience the life of a child named Iro through Iro's eyes. In that world, she discovers a gaping wound forming in the child's unhappy life. Unable to bear seeing that scar, Cocona works up the courage to exert her will on that world, and in doing so resolves the trauma that opened up. Though Iro still has a relatively sad childhood, at least Cocona made sure that it wouldn't be a scarring one.

Of course, the child that Cocona helped turned out to be the past Iroha, and Cocona's excitement of helping the child became a rude awakening later on. When Cocona goes back to the art room after school, Iroha is no longer there. Looking around the school, Cocona finds the artist tossing out the old canvases that seem no longer need now. In their interactions, Iroha [no longer ]seem as thoughtful and reflective, but tends to projects her emotions spontaneously instead. Furthermore, she no longer spends her breaks painting, and has instead joined friends' conversations in the courtyard instead.

After Iroha's childhood trauma has been resolved, she has become a part of school's usual scenery of carefree students. It's scenery decidedly absent of that directedness and individuality that had once defined her and drawn Cocona to her.

And in what is unusual for a story like this, Iroha's character arc ends here. Flip Flappers does not comment on her character before or after the change, it does not attempt to have Cocona find and reclaim the old senpai. The Pure Illusion world is closed and gone, and there's no going back to the old Iroha. Cocona is left to consider the impact of her decisions on the world.

I feel that in this handling of Iroha's arc, the show demonstrates an understanding of art, trauma, and people that I have seldom seen in other media. It understands that art is sometimes born from a desire to cope with a traumatic past, rather than from the strokes of brilliance that media usually portrays it as.

It also understands that trauma can be solely responsible for a person's positive identity, yet the person could still develop other positive identities otherwise.

It understands that sometimes, as a consequence of personal growth, valuable personality traits could be lost.

It understands that the dichotomy of individuality and conformity is much, much more nuanced than most popular media would give it credit for.

Lastly, it understands that the value judgement between an artist and a student is outside the scope of the show itself to comment on, and that the audience must reach their own conclusions on this one.

Despite being written and directed by artists in various mediums, Iroha's arc understands and portrays so many bitter truths about artists that I can't help but admire the grace and conviction with which it does so. It is a rare example of a show being incredibly honest and incredibly insightful, complimented by a combination of elegant and beautifully-illustrated storytelling. Flip Flappers is a diamond in the rough, but what diamond is there shines truly brightly.

Looking back, although I have mixed feelings about Flip Flappers, the recentness and the depth of the show gives me a lot of hope that the show will be surpassed on day. Both the screenwriter Yuniko Ayana and the director Kiyotaka Oshiyama are still in some ways up-and-coming names in animation, and I look forward to what valuable things they will say about art, trauma, and life in the future.

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Categorized under: #animations, #psychology, #art, #essay