Surprise! by Kuniyoshi: Ukiyo-e Paper Book (Surprise!, 2) (Japanese Edition)

Your browser does not support HTML5 video.  Truly, this bilingual kibyōshi lives up to Its namesake just as the editor, Kaneko Nobuhisa exclaims in the "introduction" section starting on the second page: this beautifully executed Japanese collector's item is filled with more than one "SUPRISE!" for the customer (Especially for us buyers outside of Japan – we are just NOT used to this level of high-quality anymore!). The exquisitely rich colored pages, the thick cardstock used for the information pages, the ease in which the details flow from Japanese to English – plus the sophisticated & classy way the notes are written, the awesome ability to take each seperate piece (some are 2-4 pages long) by page out of the book (the editor explains you can keep them in the book or take them out with ease, as it was made for both with the title of the artwork found on the back of the page alongside really neat patterns of each piece; the editor says you can hang them up, use them to wrap things, or write letters – whatever you wish to do😉). It's extremely well made, with much attention to detail and highlights some of Japan's absolute best folklore motifs with Kuniyoshi's yōkai drawings! I highly recommend you give this series a try; I know I'm going to get the first paper book of this series: Kuniyoshi's magnificent and purrfect kitty drawings! Imaginative, intriguing, intellectually stimulating – the positive aspects of this superbly intricate, satirically quirky, & phenomenally fun kusazōshi! If you love anything about yōkai, this book is for you!

Some Japanese artists seem to have an unequaled talent for the grotesque, as anyone who has looked at their traditional drawings of ghosts and spirits can testify. One of these clearly was Kuniyoshi, who lived in the Edo period (mid-nineteenth century). His works covered a variety of subjects popular at the time, the introduction explains, from cats to samurai, but among them were what the English translation of the text labels as “humorous monsters.” That seems a good description; the creatures shown here are certainly weird, but they’re more funny than scary. Think Bosch crossed with Arcimboldo.Many of Kuniyoshi’s creatures are hybrids of human and… well, almost anything else: animals, plants, and everyday objects such as eating and drinking utensils and instruments for applying cosmetics all appear, either as bodies with human faces or heads on human bodies. Sometimes the human is left out of the equation, as when Mt. Fuji develops a frog’s face, or doubles as both component and composition, as in faces made up of the bodies of nude acrobats in contorted poses (that’s the Arcimboldo element). “Surprise” is the understatement of the year for reactions to these beings!Each picture is presented on a separate page, with a backing of small monochrome sketches of part of the main picture, so that one could tear out individual pictures and put them up for decoration without losing anything on the back. That format has its uses, but it’s also rather frustrating because, when one flips through the book, the pages almost always open with the backs up, so a reader may at first wonder whether the sketches are all there is. The pictures are indeed there, full-page and in full color, but one needs to look for them. The English text (most of the text is in Japanese) consists of a brief introduction and short descriptions of what is going on in each picture; all of the latter are in the center of the book. The descriptions are useful for identifying objects that may not be familiar to Western eyes.This book is wonderful fun, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys the grotesque and/or wishes to broaden his or her cultural horizons.

内容も作りも、構成も良い。が、ページを外れるようにする必要はあったか？中には、お気に入りのページを飾る人もいるだろうが、少なくとも自分は本としてコレクションしたかった。丁寧に読んでいるつもりだが、何ページか外れてしまった。これでは本としては不十分。残念だ。

新品の本という認識で購入したが、中古品にしか見えない品。更に、代金も高かった。二度と購入しません。

もう少し解説が詳しいとより良かった。本の閉じる部分が見にくい。印刷は綺麗。

ねこなのかと思っていたら、オバケがいっぱいで、ねこはいませんでした〜。ちゃんと確認すればよかった。紙は上質な感じです。