Present-day roads are paved with asphalt and riddled with symbols.
The remnants of the once-local festivals survive in the form of retro-style “Deco tora” (decorated trucks.)
There are many polished clothing stores, and the shopping there seems to bring happiness to people.
Mountains are hardened in mysterious anti-slide grids of concrete.
The sky, clouds, sea, and trees know that they can always rewind, and stay there waiting with boundless energy and charm.
To be able to live more closely with them, I think, would bring us true happiness.

Traveling along highways, one finds an endless array of familiar chain stores, whether ramen shops, sushi bars, or thrift stores, making it easy to lose any sense of geographic distinction. The minds of the people gazing at these scenes are filled with digital symbols.

Yet overhead, the sky remains visible—clouds shifting endlessly, the phases of the moon cycling around, and rainbows call out to us with its beauty.

I was taken to a chain restaurant—not my favorite type of place at all—where I was surprised to see a cat-faced robot delivering food!
I’ve always loved the robot Robita from Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix, and this one looked just like Robita, but with a cat’s face and even speaking with a “~nyan♡” at the end of each sentence. I couldn’t help but feel a special affection for it.
Each restaurant seems to give these robots their own names, taping labels on them, and seeing that made me feel strangely wistful at how kind people can be.
I want to show that same animistic spirit and extend some love to these cat-faced robots too.

Our country’s coastlines are lined with tetrapods and sea walls.
These girls live among these structures.
I find Japanese graffiti often mimics Western styles, which I find uninspired; it would be so much more interesting to see Japanese paintings or calligraphy adorning these places, so that’s what I depicted here.
Convenience store snacks are there alongside everything else, coexisting in a state neither good nor evil.

When I drive to a drugstore at night, the car’s headlights glare reflected against glass and makes me feel strange, the same I feel at convenience stores. Realizing I’m emitting this intense light while driving is a little scary and thrilling, and it makes me feel melancholic all at the same time.
The drugstore’s interior lights beam out from within, illuminating numerous signs that beckon to be seen form the outside.

Though I’m not a fan of plastic bottles, when I’m really thirsty, I end up drinking from them often.
When I’m in the city at night time and drink from a plastic bottle in my car, I often feel as if I’m drinking light, since the water inside catches so much glow.
It’s in those moments that both the plastic bottle and the city feels special, despite my usual dislike for both of those things.
The plastic bottle, city, and we ourselves are all living together in this shared space.

There was once a river in Shibuya, inspiring the beloved folk song “Haru no Ogawa (Spring Stream)”, which described the beauty of nature.
Yet this river is now buried underground in darkness beneath the scramble crossing.
I wish to bring all rivers back to the surface.
Japan was once a country of reeds, and I imagine people might have once traveled by grass boat.
I heard that growing cotton for fabric requires vast land areas. Clothes are overproduced through unreasonable methods, which poisons the soil of developing nations. I question if so many clothes are truly necessary, at the cost of poisoning a distant land.
I hope for a future where people freely design and build their own homes. On the left side of the painting, there is a mix of homes, such as a dome made solely from old glass, a house built with plywood and thatch, and traditional homes from the present day.
I drew with the hopes that, in the future, the rivers will flow openly, reed fields will be restored, and clothing will be made by repurposing previously manufactured fabrics. The fabric carries symbols of the bygone era of overconsumption.
Floating in the sky to the left is a chakra symbol, along with the primordial moment when a mitochondria and single-celled organism we all started as merged.
I hope that headloading, the flight path for butterflies and birds, and other living beings’ habitats all flourishing once again.

I think it would be wonderful if friends could freely practice acupuncture and moxibustion for one another outdoors—it would feel so refreshing and amazing.
Traditional medicine shouldn’t be restricted; instead, I believe it should be embraced as part of daily life.
I once visited an acupuncturist introduced to me by Takashi Murakami, and I was astonished by how quickly I recovered from something that was causing me significant trouble.
My Japanese dance teacher also managed to heal her knee without surgery.
It seems quite one-sided to revere only Western medicine when we have our own healing traditions.

She has a farm a little distance away from her home, and wears a yukata pieced together from various clothes inspired by old anime. She wears a yukata because it suits the climate well.
Living alongside many animals, she celebrates autumn in this scene with seasonal harvests and animal friends.
They all share a dragon fruit.
She also grows and harvests her own cotton, and she’s thinking whether she might be able to make fabric from it.

Scenes of pre-mechanized rice planting seem festive and joyous, with people in vibrant attire singing and dancing by the paddy fields.
When I read works by Tsuneichi Miyamoto, I sense how farm work once fostered camaraderie, with everyone chatting about and even elders making dirty jokes innocently.
For about two years now, I have been managing a small pesticide-free paddy field in Chiba, at a place called 50noen (they are a part of my curation exhibition!), and it has been so satisfying. I have been enjoying planting, harvesting, and visiting my field, with the company of an infinite number of creatures.
I also keep a small vegetable garden, though I tend to leave it mostly unattended while I’m painting…

There was once a time when an incredible number of people would play in the rivers of Japan.
I hope that the large rivers in the Kanto area can be cleaned up soon so that river leisure can make a comeback.
In this scene, the children are sharing a durian together in the river.

I feel that nature is eager to recover.
It seems like it is ready to burst forth at any moment, but the girls are trying to hold them back, telling them to keep their calm and go at a steady pace.
It feels as though something joyful is about to happen, and everyone is brimming with anticipation.

One day, I had a mystical experience with a white beluga at the zoo.
She kept meeting my gaze, swimming back and forth, and I felt as though she was communicating with me through all her senses.
We made a promise then, to see an end to zoos that take animals from their natural, happy lives in the wild.