Besides toys, the other 95% of Design Festa is made up of just about every type of visual art you can think of. Well, alright, there was nothing with slabs of meat or live poultry - I'll give you that! But you've got your painting, drawing, clay, glass, mixed media, performance art, singing, and dancing. You've got your goth, your sloth, your mothman, plastic headgear fettish, people sleeping on public benches (very avant garde - it looked so real!), and on and on....
One thing that stood out is there was a slightly darker edge than in the other 2 DFs I've attended. And it wasn't just your Harajuku goth lolita costuming - more brooding, gory, and explicitly gloomy stuff. Of course there were still plenty of teddy bears, butterflies, and fish skeletons and insects suspended in little glass vials filled with a viscous liquid. So you know - balance.
Enough of the preramble! Here's the whole kit and kaboodle - mostly unscripted!
Dozens more pics after the jump!
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| This dude was so happy! |
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| You see what I mean? So natural! |
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| Take that Sinestro! (What? So I overgeeked the caption - it happens!) |
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| He's baaaaaack.... |
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| And ready to put you in a size M! |
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| This may have been my fav. performance artist. She was weaving a web cocooning her inside her own booth! |
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| There was a dude next to this booth with some major hi tech equipment. All I could make out on the case were the letters 5 and 9. What did it mean? |
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| Ah! Sinestro! |
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| These guys had some great digital art. |
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| Bought a postcard of this one. |
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| Row of tarot card readers. At 500 yen a pop, they were doing brisk business! |
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| Only thing I heard the dude on the left say was "Atsui!" (Hot!) |
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| Super cool sea diorama. |
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| In Japan, the run up to Christmas starts the day after Halloween! |
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| This booth smelled reaaally good! |
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| This one - not so much. (I'm kidding! Pandas are warm and cuddly, and their doo doo smells like rainbows!) |
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| These hand puppets were fantastic. I think the head and hands are made of wood. Very Dark Crystaly..) |
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| Represent! |
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| The escalator across the way is the one that collapsed a while ago and ushered in the era of Wonderfest being moved to Chiba. |
And there you have it! Well, there is just a bit more from Design Festa 32.... In the darkened section on the 2nd floor, the traveling Junx exhibition, featuring customs by Blobpus, Rockin Jelly Bean, T9G, and dozens of other artists, was on display for the last time. To give the exhibition its just due, I'll write it up separately, in a blog post or two.
So stay tuned for that as well as more updates to the Tokyo Toy Maps. Thanks for reading!
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