I is for... Ikiru

Here is the latest entry in the A-Z of Awesome Japan, a series of 26 drawings I am doing to celebrate things I love about Japan. You can see the full set so far here. Some people have been kind enough to sponsor me in this endeavour, with proceeds going to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami relief fund. If you would like to so too, well god bless you. You can do so here.

Annotations:

• Ikiru is a 1952 film by Akira Kurosawa which tells the story of a painfully repressed and boring middle-aged government bureacrat who learns that he has stomach cancer and only a short time to live. I know, sounds like a laugh riot. But it's simply astonishing. I'd like to write a long piece about how much I loved this film and all the beautiful, hilarious, awkward, heartbreaking and uplifting moments and images it contains, but I'm a bit pushed for time so I'll simply advise you in the strongest possible terms to go and see it. Seriously, go and see it.

While I'm here: available to pre-order now is The Spirit of Hope, a comic containing work by loads of top creators, from which all proceeds will go towards charities supporting victims of the disaster in Japan. Read all about it here! I'm very sorry not to be in it myself - I was away the week stuff needed to be in for it, unfortunately - but the list of creators is extraordinary and the few peeks I've seen of work in it are really rather fantastic. So, y'know. Get on that.

Right, must dash! Off to 2D today to spend the next couple of days teaching children how to draw robots and such. Hopefully see some of you there!

H is for... Handy Hangover Hints from Hagakure

Phew! It's been too long, sorry. Anyway, here is H's pic in the A-Z of Awesome Japan!

Annotations:

• Hagakure or The Book of the Samurai is a practical guidebook on the Way of the Samurai written in the eighteenth century by ex-Samurai turned Buddhist monk Yamamoto Tsunetomo. It contains much moral guidance and information on honourable behaviour, preparedness for death, and the killing of one's enemies. It also advises samurai to always carry a little powdered rouge up their sleeves, for covering up the effects of a hangover. I read it several years ago, and that image has stayed with me. Hence this drawing!
• I wrote a review of Hagakure on our old blog Unified Review Theory, which you can read here.

Back soon with a pic for 'I' I'm thinking it might be (someone) Inebriated In an Izakaya. But WHO? Suggestions welcome!

Actually come to think of it, I was once inebriated in an Izakaya. Maybe I should just draw that.

G is for... Giant Robots Guarding over Geisha in Gion

Here is this week's* entry in the A-Z of Awesome Japan, a series of drawings I am doing on this blog to celebrate stuff that is awesome about Japan, and to help raise a little money for the ongoing disaster relief efforts in that country. (You can sponsor me here.)

Annotations:

• Giant Robots are, well, it's rather self-explanatory, isn't it? Needless to say, I quite like Giant Robots.
• Geisha are, well, it's rather complicated, isn't it? Entertainers? Performers? Hostesses? Go ask Wikipedia.
• Gion is an inordinately beautiful and atmospheric historic neighbourhood of Kyoto, famed for its long-standing associations as a Geisha district.

* yes, it's weekly rather than daily now. Been horribly busy, sorry. I am a Struggling Artist, remember, and have a fairly packed and punishing schedule of Struggling to get through each day. Also, I wanted to take a little more time over these pictures, so that they represented work I'm proud of rather than being just rushed, hurried and rather sucky. If I have any aspirations as an artist, I guess they could be summed up as "to produce work which is not sucky". Yes, I DARE TO DREAM.

More next week! And every week for like another five months, geez.

EXTRA FUN FOR PROCESS NERDS! Here is the process:

F is for... Foxes Feasting on Fukujinzuke (near Mt. Fuji)

Here is today's - or rather, this week's, sorry - entry in the A-Z of Awesome Japan!

• Foxes are a popular figure in Japanese mythology; principally the magical shape-shifting fox Kitsune, a messenger of the Shinto deity Oinari.
• Fukujinzuke is a mixture of pickled sweetened vegetables - aubergine, daikon, cucumber, radish and such - whcih is popular as an accompaniment to curries and other dishes. It is very possibly my favourite single thing to eat in the whole world, and every time all the shops in Oxford run out of it (which is distressingly often), I want to CRY.
• Mount Fuji is a big ol' mountain.

Another entry in the A-Z coming after Easter. You can if you wish please sponsor me to carry on doing these - all donations go to the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund and are hugely appreciated.

Happy Easter, everybody!

E is for... Extremely well-Educated Edamame

Here is today's entry in the A-Z of Awesome Japan, a sponsored charity drawathon I will be doing all month of Things About Japan, That Are Awesome! Check out the full set so far on Flickr!

Annotations:

• Edamame are soy beans, generally eaten simply boiled or steamed, and served in the pod, sprinkled with rock salt. They are the BEST.
• Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

So, some NEWS. This is a bit of a swerve, I know, but I'm going to be changing the way I do the A-Z. From now on will not be drawing any more copyrighted characters (that I did not create, anyway) as part of this kind of thing. I can't really go into the details of why, I'm afraid. Something crappy happened this week, and it left me with a very bad taste in my mouth, a massive dose of paranioa about blogging that kind of thing, and pretty much zero enthusiasm for it. And I'm afraid that's really all I can say about that.

Apologies to anyone who feels put out by this change, and in particular to @RusDady, whose excellent and highly entertaining suggestion for E - "Evangelion-01 Eating an Enchilada on an Elephant" I was very much looking forward to drawing.

I WILL however be carrying on with the A-Z, as lots of you have been awesome enough to sponsor me already. And you know what, I'm going to make it EVEN MORE AWESOME. I see it as a kind of "the best revenge is living well" response to the events of this week. After giving it some thought, I'm actually really excited to carry on; from hereon in I'm going to be seeing it more as me making my own personal love letter to all the things I adore about Japan, and I really don't think I should have any trouble finding subjects for the rest of the alphabet.

Readers are still welcome to chip in suggestions, but please note the 'no copyrighted characters' rule. As a rule of thumb: Ninjas= YES, Naruto=NO. Okay?

I will continue to update the A-Z as often as possible - it's not going to be every single day now, but I'll try and keep it at 2-3 times a week (more where possible). Also, as and when I get a chance I'll be going back through and redoing the drawings for A-D with new versions to fit the new rules. Because I didn't have enough to be getting on with.

Deep breaths.

Anyway! You are of course you are still very welcome to sponsor me! All donations go to the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund and are hugely appreciated - I keep wishing I was richer / famouser and could do more to help, but this is all I can think of to do, so this is what I am going to keep on doing.

I think that's everything. Thank you for your patience.

D is for... Digimon Ditching Doraemon

Here is today's frankly heartbreaking entry in the A-Z of Awesome Japan! Poor Doraemon! But to be fair, that guy is kind of a drag.

Today's picture was suggested by leeatard, many thanks! I'm drawing one of these every day, for every letter in the alphabet, and I'd very much appreciate it if you'd sponsor me in this effort. All proceeds go to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund.

No annotations today, sorry. Something kind of crappy happened to me today (halfway through drawing this picture), and I can't quite find it in me to try and make with the funny. I might need to take a day off from doing these pictures tomorrow, sorry.

C is for... Cute Cyborgs, Crying

Here is today's adorable entry in the A-Z of Awesome Japan! I'm drawing one of these every day, for every letter in the alphabet, and I'd very much appreciate it if you'd sponsor me in this effort. It's for rather a good cause.

Today's entry was a bit of a combination of suggestions from, if memory serves, Deirdre Ruane and K. D. Bryan - thanks chaps! To contribute an idea for future entries in the A-Z, please fire suggestions at me via Twitter, Facebook or right here in the comments on this blog.

Today's annotations: the crying cyborgs in question are, clockwise from top:

• 8-Man, a cyborg superhero created in 1963 by Kazumasa Hirai and manga artist Jiro Kuwata (who, hey, was also the artist on the 1960's Batman manga we touched on in Friday's entry). "He is considered Japan's earliest cyborg superhero".
• Motoko Kusanagi, the lead character in the anime series Ghost in the Shell, based on Matsumune Shirow's manga. She is a cyborg, right?
  
• Tetsuo, the antagonist (or if you look at it another way, the protagonist) from Katsuhiro Otomo's superlative-exhausting manga series Akira. Which is still the best-looking comic anyone anywhere has ever drawn, ever, and if you disagree I've got a book sat here on my desk that proves how terribly wrong you are. I can't actually remember if Tetuso was technically a cyborg, but he has a very cyborg-looking arm. So that's good enough for me.

C is also for Chibi, which is what this drawing is.

Another entry tomorrow! And EVERY DAY THIS WEEK, good lord.

B is for... Blanka and Batman Blissfully Bicycling through Beautiful Blossoms

Here is today's picture in the A-Z of Awesome Japan!

• Blanka is a character from Capcom's popular videogame fighting series Street Fighter.
  
• Batman is a masked vigilante crimefighter character created by Bob Kane and published by DC Comics. In 1966, he was the star of a series of manga produced by Jiro Kuwata to tie in with the launch of the Adam West Batman TV series. You can read more about that here. And also here.
  

Today's picture was a combination of a couple of suggestions from KDBryan on twitter. Only I threw in Batman. Because I wanted to draw Batman. I hope KDBryan does not have a problem with this.

(I think Batman is my yardstick for including western characters in this A-Z; where a character has appeared in a Japanese-orginated version, where they are are sufficiently popular in Japan or generally seem to be part of the Japanese pop-cultural universe, then they are fair game for inclusion. I realise this is not very precise, and I am by no means an authority on these things, but it seems like a good rule of thumb to me.)

'C's picture coming on Monday! If you would like to suggest a topic for future letters, you can do so via Facebook, Twitter, or right here in the comments on this blog. And you can of course sponsor me at my JustGiving page - all proceeds to the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund.

A is for... Astro Boy Attacking Ayanami. In Atlantis.

Here is the very first entry in Neill's A-Z of Awesome Japan!

• Astro Boy is a robotic star of manga and anime, created by the great Osamu Tezuka. He's kind of like a robot pinnochio, but with machine guns in his butt. He is awesome.
• Ayanami Rei is a character from Studio Gainax's classic anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which I am sad to say I've only seen about an hour of, and it was one of the more mind-meltingly confusing hours of my life. But I am going to give it another try, before you all shout at me.
• Ayanami was also the name of a battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which saw extensive deployment in WWII. If you look carefully you can see it's wreck there in the background.
• Atlantis is a legendary sunken island or underwater kingdom. Aquaman comes from there. He is not in this picture.

Today's picture was suggested by the marvellous @teamsmithy on Twitter, although I threw in the Atlantis bit for @pretzelsncheese.

Phew. Did I really say I was going to do one of these every day? What the hell was I thinking? Ah well, only 25 more to go. If you would like to suggest a topic for future letters, you can do so via Facebook, Twitter, or right here in the comments on this blog. And you can of course sponsor me at my JustGiving page - all proceeds to the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund.

EDIT: updated 04/04/11 with a redrawn and hopefully less rubbish version of this picture.

Neill's A-Z of Awesomeness 2: JAPAN

From Akira to Dragonball Z, and all manner of awesomeness in between.

I'm not going to go on about how shocked and saddened I've been by recent events in Japan; I don't really have the words. What I'm going to do instead is briefly outline what I'm going to try and do as my small bit to help.

Starting on March 31st, I will be drawing and posting a picture a day, one for every letter of the alphabet, of Things That Are Awesome. I did something like this once before and people seemed to like it, so I thought I'd try it again but with a couple of differences: 1) this time we'll be focussing on the insanely rich field of JAPANESE Things That Are Awesome, and 2) I will be asking people to sponsor me in this endeavour. I've set up a JustGiving page where you can go and support the project, at http://www.justgiving.com/neillcameron. All money raised will go to GlobalGiving's Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund, where it will be used to support organizations providing relief and aid to victims.

Please do chip in if you can! This is going to be rather a lot of work and if no-one sponsors me I'm, uh, going to feel totally stupid.

To join in, you can suggest things for me to draw in comments on this blog, at my twitter feed or on the A-Z of Awesomeness Facebook Group. Feel free to suggest anything you like from the worlds of Manga, Anime, Gaming, Movies, Music, and I will attempt to draw the best suggestions. Bonus points for alliteration, and it might be nice to get a bit of cross-cultural exchange going on in there - if, for example, for 'D' you were to suggest Doctor Who and Doraemon Dunking Donuts Daintily, well then I would probably have to draw that. You get the idea.

I'll be posting the first picture on Thursday 31st March, and then one a day every weekday till we're done (Bank Holidays excepting). That sound okay? You've got a few days to start thinking of awesome things, and then we're off!