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Night restaurant / report

Added 2024-09-28 19:02:20 +0000 UTC

I did the cover illustration for the short story collection “Not to My Taste.” This work is also available online in Japanese only.

https://www.ohtabooks.com/publish/2024/10/25150307.html

https://ohtabookstand.com/list/series/not-delicious/

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Ever since I was a child, I have had a distrust of language. Language is a tool to arbitrarily label the senses and make life work. But language is by no means a panacea.

For example, a BMW for me and a BMW for you may be two very different entities. Concepts such as family, society, kindness, and culture will also mean slightly different things to each of us.

In this way, each of us builds our own language network, self-taught. There is no absolute language or perfect speaker in this world. Everyone is a self-taught learner of language, and the only way to learn is by questioning and sometimes rebelling against the language of others. This is also true of expression in general.

In this light, it seems to me that there is fundamentally not much difference between picture books for children, preachy philosophy books, esoteric surrealism, and the sweet talk of con artists. What I need is a lot of input and time to integrate it.

To that end, this month I read classic manga such as Osamu Tezuka's "Phoenix". The Heron Man in "Boy and Heron" may symbolize the man himself. He is a man with a big nose who invites Mahito into the hell of creation and creates a fictional mother. He is shot through with his own wings and flies away like an insect.

In between, I also played “FF8” for the first time in a long time. This game is the center of my neuro-nostalgia and the direct impetus that drew me into creative work. But this is not mere nostalgia. Rather, it is an invitation to the inner world.

For now, I am merely playing.

But I am spending the time I should be spending as a writer. I am convinced of that.

When I finish this period, I will try to do something big.

That is what I am thinking.

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These unfinished works were painted to recall the sensations of childhood.