Source: Haruko Ichikawa in the loud and visually enticing reproduction of TOKYO 20202 GOURMET/SPOT/HOTEL | © JAPAN Forward

‘Moshimo Tokyo’ Exhibition: Manga Capture Love and Sorrow in the Metropolis

The exhibition, curated by Big Comic Original magazine editor Yutaka Ishihara, runs until September 5 at the Tokyo Contemporary Museum of Art.

Arielle Busetto, JAPAN Forward

As a Tokyo resident, I have been asked many times: What is Tokyo like?

One of the largest capitals in the world with 13 million inhabitants, it’s also as multifaceted and varied as its population: cosmopolitan and divided in many small neighborhoods, a city to grow up in and one to move to for work.

How do you describe such a vast space, which is the home to so many different kinds of people?

This is what the exhibition Moshimo Tokyo (“What If Tokyo”) at the Tokyo Contemporary Museum of Art seeks to do.

Running from August 4 to September 5, the exhibition features the original works of 20 manga artists who were asked to illustrate their view of what Tokyo represents to them.

Edo x Tokyo Diorama Battle, Koichi Masahara, Photo courtesy of © JAPAN Forward

Various famous manga artists — such as Kazumi Yamashita, Minetaro Mochizuki, Taiyo Matsumoto, Io Sakisaka, Ioh Kuroda, Shinichi Ishizuka, and many more — are featured.

Even veteran Tokyo inhabitants might be surprised to see aspects of the city they had never thought about before.

This is true in the formats of the manga themselves: mainstream black-and-white comic strips, watercolor works, folding screens, life-size robot reproductions.

Yet the themes are just as multifaceted.

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