Directed by Masaaki Yuasa in 2010 and based on Morimi Noboru's original novel, "Four Stacks and a Half Mythical Series" was the first time that the original case of Yusuke Nakamura appeared on the screen, but for me when watching the anime, the name Masaaki Yuasa is far more familiar and attractive than Yusuke Nakamura, and the encounter with Yusuke Nakamura again stems from the love at first sight that he recently illustrated.
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.
Japanese Girl Cos-style Yusuke Nakamura's Paintings
Fiction, music and painting
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. Morimi's trick won my heart, he did not write a personal love story, but a youth poem called "girl", which is a natural romantic word, for a young girl who is in her youth, what is the name of the widow and the word "girl" more representative of herself?
Nakamura is undoubtedly deeply aware of the three ambiguities, the pages unfold, Nakamura depicts the spring supper girl, drinking a cup of pseudo-electric white orchid, walking non-stop under the rose night light of Kyoto, running towards her youth with a light pace, capturing her sweetheart with a red line, and bursting out a confused rhapsody in the hearts of thousands of readers.
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 is mostly unwilling, the mushroom-headed uncle born in 78 is a free and rebellious rock blood, in addition to painting and love dog Shiba Inu はぽんちゃん, his greatest love is music.
Nakamura's involvement in the music field is not just about drawing album covers, as if with endless creative enthusiasm and inspiration, he and four like-minded partners formed a band called "s▲ils" and served as the lead singer. Unfortunately, I can't find a taste of his singing, but if you want to speculate on his musical style, you may want to take a look at the work of his favorite band "Asian Kung Fu Kid". Then there is nothing more appropriate than the animation op "Lost Wild Dogs and The Beat of rain" from the "Four Stacks and a Half Myth Series":
Album cover drawn by Nakamura for Akg
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.
Nakamura, who plays a rock band, has become a 20-year-old musical boy, and it is hard to imagine that his brush can depict such a slender and beautiful girlish figure. In fact, Nakamura 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 game of beautiful girl love had become the mainstream, so he began to practice painting girls' postures, which made him unique today.
Dismantled, rebuilt, maiden's moon locomotive and Japanese horse
Nakamura's father was an architect and his mother was a fashion designer, and perhaps inspired by this family environment, Nakamura's work embodies a variety of avant-garde modern ideas, the most distinctive of which is his penchant for deconstructivism.
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.
The locomotive and the girl are always the most romantic combination, and Nakamura is 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.
And here, the sailor suit girl drives the Japanese island as a horse, the brush brush makes a long gun, in the pink of the cherry blossoms, the long mane is flying, the clouds are flying, is it to break through the opponent's heart defense in 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.
A flat world of imagination
Masaaki Yuasa said of Nakamura's work: The colors and lines of his works are very characteristic, giving 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 works rarely have 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, with no depth, no shadow, only a plane that Nakamura can freely swing and extend to the endless other side.
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 does not end there, he is also good at outlining precise and beautiful lines to depict the slender and beautiful figure of a young girl, 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.
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 - can't help but think of the pop art that was popular in the last century.
Filled with artificially carved geometric aesthetic lines, or thick 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 evaluates the use of "prints" and "prints" to describe his works.
The flag bearer of the maiden painting
Nakamura's formation of this unique style today has also been influenced by many artists, the biggest influence on him is also difficult to avoid when talking about Yusuke Nakamura's artistic style, the flag bearer of the previous generation of "girl painting" in Japan: 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 Jingyi's young girls are 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")
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?
Nakamura-kanu is Pon-chan