I've been wanting to check out Nakano Broadway for quite a while now, so I was glad that there's a reason to go. The next time I will be there is for James Jean's exhibition at the same gallery in November.
Hidari Zingaro is actually owned by the famous Japanese artist Takashi Murakami (not to be confused with the author). He's been known for his collaboration with Louis Vuitton, those "smiley colorful flowers" are by him. He owns several galleries and a cafe over there. I read an interview recently on Juxtapoz Magazine on why he chose to have his galleries, studio space and cafe at Nakano Broadway, so it was interesting for me to finally be there.
After meeting up with Laura, we just went straight to the exhibition because the gallery closes early. It was a small space but the Katsuya Terada's work is really impressive. I really loved all the details and lines in his work. The thing I love most is that the longer you look at a particular piece, the more things you will notice. Kind of like, "treasure hunting" because his work is that detailed. I really enjoyed his work for this exhibition.
This is not all his work, I took some pictures of the beasts he drew but I'm just going to post the ones I like because I am biased. After the exhibition, we walked around the building. It really reminded me of Lucky Plaza back in Singapore, the only difference is that Nakano Broadway sells vintage anime and manga related goods. Also, there were several shops that sold idol merchandise, games... basically think Akihabara but not that mainstream.
We stumbled upon a book store that I named it " my tumblr book store" now because most of the art I reblog on tumblr are sold there. I was really happy and excited like a kid in a candy store. The store had a lot of interesting finds that I've never seen anywhere else in Tokyo...yet. I bought 2 Takato Yamamoto posters (they are signed!) and some old origami paper to use for my art work. I also remember seeing a lot of goods by Trevor Brown. The other artists I have seen the work before and am a fan of them but I seriously don't know their name because tumblr users are assholes and don't credit the artist most of the time. =__=
I saw this weird sign board outside the book store, haha.
I really liked the Mandarake store over there as well but it was really difficult to take a photo of the cool entrance. It was kind of nostalgic looking at some really old toys that you used to play when you're a child. I will definitely spend more time the next time I am there.
When we were done looking at stuff, we decided to go to Bar Zingaro, the cafe owned by Takashi Murakami, for coffee. The cafe was decorated with his art on the walls and his character toy goods on the shelves. To my surprise, Katsuya Terada was just sitting next to us while we were having coffee. I didn't go up to say something because I didn't know what to say. It's harder to talk to artists I think, plus the language barrier does make the difficulty level even higher since it's art, you definitely want to talk in depth.
We didn't spend too long there and made our way to Shinjuku for dinner. We went to Analog cafe and just spent the rest of our time there until the last train. I had duck confit for dinner and Laura had some mushroom pasta thing that I can't remember the name of.
I also had dessert but my photo taking skills really suck, so nevermind.
On Wednesday, I met up with Laura again since we both needed to go to Pokemon Centre to get stuff for our siblings again. We did the usual, checked out the character shops, had udon for dinner and this time we spent time at the arcade playing games.
We played some Luigi Haunted House game where you had to use vacuum cleaners to capture ghosts but we failed miserably. Laura played Taiko no Tatsujin which is a drum game, I really suck at rhythm games so I didn't join her. After that, I played several shooting games and both of us were really surprised because there was a 3D one and the chairs would shake and air blown in your face when a monster pops up. It's called Dark Escape and it was so fun. I'm such a sucker for monster/zombie shooting games.
We went to look at the UFO catcher machines as well and there was an Adventure Time one!!! I managed to catch Marceline after 6 tries and Laura's lucky coin. I was really happy. After that, we went to some cafe again to hide from the rain until the last train home.
Today I stayed home even though I had a couple of things to do and people to meet but I'm really tired and just want to sleep in. The rain doesn't help either, it just makes me even more lazy to go out. I decided to decorate my place and do some work. My wall in the living room is almost done now. I love nesting.
Osaka tomorrow. I haven't been there in almost a year and I'm pretty excited. I hope for good weather when I'm in Osaka.
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