Directed by Masaaki Yuasa in 2010 and based on the original novel by Noboru Morimi, the Four-and-a-Half Mythical Series was the first time that Yusuke Nakamura's character originally appeared on the screen. But for me when watching the anime, the name Masaaki Yuasa is far more familiar and attractive than Yusuke Nakamura. The second encounter with Yusuke Nakamura stemmed from a recent love affair with his illustrations.
As far as animation works are concerned, Masaaki Yuasa's "Four Stacks and a Half Mythical Series" and "Spring Is Short, Let's Go Forward!" " are all top-notch masterpieces. Unfortunately, however, the audience may be able to perceive Yusuke Nakamura's painting style from the human setting of the animation work, but they cannot appreciate Nakamura's monster-like painting talent and the romantic and magnificent visual beauty of his works.
In addition to some scattered commercial creations, Yusuke Nakamura's main works consist of two parts: a book cover for novelists such as Noboru Morimi and Tokuya Higashikawa, and an album cover for "Asian Kung-fu Generation".
Unfortunately, not many Japanese novels are read, and the only works that Morimi Noboruhiko has read are "Spring Is Short, Girls Go Forward!" 》。 "Four Stacks and a Half Myths" and "Spring Night" have the same roots, and the two books have a big similarity, that is, the heroines are the same unknown black-haired girl.
"Spring is short, the girl is moving forward!" "Girl" in "
"Akashi Gakumei" in the "Four-fold and Half Mythical Series"
Morimi's trick won my heart, and he did not tell a personal love story, but a youth poem called "Girl". This is a naturally romantic word, for a young girl, what kind of name and the word "girl" can better represent themselves?
Nakamura is undoubtedly deeply aware of the three senses. As the pages unfold, Nakamura depicts a young girl with a spring supper, drinking a cup of pseudo-electric white orchid, walking non-stop in the rose-colored night light of Kyoto, running towards her youth with a light and spiritual step, capturing her sweetheart with a red thread, and bursting out a confused rhapsody in the hearts of thousands of readers.
"Spring is short, the girl is moving forward!" The Romantic Engine starts
Besides Nakamura, who could portray Morimi's Spring Supper Girl so delicately and beautifully?
"Spring is short, the girl is moving forward!" cover
But to make Nakamura a literary youth, he was probably unwilling. Born in 1978, the mushroom-headed uncle has a free and rebellious rock blood flowing through him. In addition to painting and his love dog Shiba Inu, his favorite thing is music.
Nakamura's musical activity is not only as simple as painting the album cover, as if he has endless creative enthusiasm and inspiration, but also formed a band called "sils" with like-minded partners, in which he served as the lead singer and guitarist.
The members of the "sils" pose for a group, and the one standing in the c position is Yusuke Nakamura, the only female member in the band, Azusa Hasegawa, who later becomes Mrs. Nakamura
Cover of the "sils" album "You"
Lively, cheerful, playful, heavy electric guitar, crisp drum beats... If the style of music cannot be accurately summarized in professional language, it is advisable to summarize the deep impression that haunts your mind with a few distinct adjectives and the most distinctive imagery.
Sils Album "You"
Nakamura's voice is also as cute as his paintings, and listening to such songs is like standing on the south side of the Xiangnan Sea in the summer, blowing the wind, enjoying the sunshine and swaying freely.
Album cover drawn by Yusuke Nakamura for Akg
Nakamura, who played the band, became a 20-year-old musical boy, and it was hard to imagine that his brush could depict such a slender and beautiful girlish figure.
"Spring is short, the girl is moving forward!" screenshot
In fact, Nakamura originally dreamed of becoming a designer of fighting games like "Street Fighter", but when he graduated from Osaka University of the Arts and stepped into society, he found that the "beautiful girl love game" had become the mainstream, so he began to practice painting girls' postures, which made him unique today.
Nakamura's father was an architect and his mother was a fashion designer, and perhaps influenced by this family environment, Nakamura's work embodies a variety of avant-garde modern ideas. The most obvious of these is his penchant for "deconstructivism" as shown in his work.
Contemporary artist Anthony Gormley is passionate about experimenting with the space of the human body itself, reassembling it with geometric elements to parse it into pixels or architectural structures. Yusuke Nakamura, on the other hand, prefers to dismantle the world outside of man, rebuild a completely new structure that belongs to him, and then put his maidens into it.
Motorcycle and girl, always the most romantic combination. Nakamura was always more romantic than the average person, so he took off the moon in the sky and converted it into a fashionable yellow locomotive. This is a special locomotive, the hood lights emit a rainbow, the exhaust is a colorful foam, the girl steps on the boots, puts on the leather jacket, puts on the helmet, raises the telescope, and drives the locomotive to track her sweetheart.
Another scene, the sailor suit girl driving the Japanese island as a horse, the brush brush to make a long gun, in the pink of the cherry blossoms, the long mane flying, the clouds flying, is it to break through the opponent's heart defense on the love battlefield?
Nakamura dismantles everything—including the things we think are not related to the word "girl"—and combines them with magical brushstrokes into romantic objects with a "girlish feeling" to create a beautiful dream stage for his girls, and we the audience are so easily immersed in the girlish tale he created.
Masaaki Yuasa said of Nakamura's work: "The colors and lines of his works are very characteristic, which gives me the feeling of similar to prints, that is, prints. In addition, the composition and design of his works are very avant-garde, especially the observation of contemporary girls is unique, and my creations also have many traces of him. ”
Many people use the term "flat sense" to describe the feeling that Nakamura's paintings give them. Indeed, Nakamura's work rarely presents a three-dimensional perspective, and he does not seem to like the structure of three-dimensional space, but bases his thinking on the position of space on a two-dimensional plane. There is no depth, no shadow, only a plane that Nakamura can freely wield, stretching out to the other side of the endless.
Nakamura loves regular flat geometry, and he paints maidens, always with only two angles: 180° parallel to the viewer, and 90° perpendicular to the viewer.
His penchant for the geometric beauty of this rule doesn't stop there. He is also adept at drawing precise and beautiful lines to depict the slender and beautiful figures of young girls, or to create interesting and romantic structures. It is amazing that such exquisite lines are not aided by computers, but are completed by Nakamura himself.
He usually draws a draft on paper with a pencil, scans it, and then uses ps to color it. After the line is drawn, it is the coloring project.
Nakamura likes to paint flat, likes to use bright and colorful color combinations to color the youth of white girls, and sometimes, one of his paintings can have dozens of contrasting colors so that it is difficult to find a clear color tone - we can't help but think of the pop art that was popular in the last century.
Filled with artificially carved geometric aesthetic lines, or heavy ink or fresh and fashionable colors, composition with a girl as the visual center, and a combination of fashionable and trendy elements, it is no wonder that Yuasa uses "prints" and "prints" to describe his works.
Nakamura's formation of this unique style today has also been influenced by many artists. One of the most influential for him, and difficult to avoid when talking about Yusuke Nakamura's artistic style, is the previous generation of Japanese "girl painting" standard-bearer - Lin Jingyi.
If combined with Lin Jingyi's appreciation of Yusuke Nakamura' works, it is easy to find some similar aesthetic consciousness between the two when portraying young girls, and the best recognition is the two people's identical and perfectly perpendicular to the audience's girlish side.
In addition, some of the other characteristics of the girl under Lin Jing's pen, such as the slender posture and white skin, Nakamura also inherited it well.
However, the differences in their era and personal personalities influenced the style of their works.
Lin Jing's maiden is more of a Taisho style and Showa flavor. At the same time, Lin Jingyi, who has a delicate personality, is more sentimental, and there are many dark and depressing works in his illustration collection. (If you are interested in Lin Jingyi, you may wish to go to his self-written and self-directed animated short film "Red Elegy")
"Spring is short, the girl is moving forward!" theme song album cover and novel version cover
Growing up in the new era, and born lively and cheerful, Nakamura has become the most suitable window to show the youth and vitality of modern girls, and the girls in his paintings, although equally slender and feminine, are full of high vitality, which is where he surpasses Lin Jingyi.
Nakamura took over the banner of the "Maiden Painting" that Lin Jingyi had handed over, and who would be the next flag bearer?
Yusuke Nakamura in all directions
In 2009, Yusuke Nakamura published his first collection, Blue, a selection of illustrations from a decade as a comprehensive review of his early work.
And today, another decade later, the official Chinese edition of this illustrative collection, Yusuke Nakamura's Illustration World I: Blue, has finally come to us after all kinds of twists and turns!
"Blue" is Nakamura's first commemorative album ten years after he devoted himself to creation, and this introduction is also the first time that his collection of paintings has been published in the Chinese-speaking world.
The author himself selects a variety of illustrations from the university era to 2008, and the book includes nearly 200 works in a variety of categories, including early hand-drawn manuscripts, music album covers, best-selling book covers, postcards and posters, sorted by picture number, with the blue flowing in the depths of memory as the main line, showing Yusuke Nakamura's creative process in an all-round way.
Who wouldn't want to have Yusuke Nakamura's teenage girl?