• Photographer Katrin Paul gives a slide show and talk on the this summer’s 3 major European contemporary art exhibitions, tonight (July 28) at Youkobo Art Space (17:00-18:30).

PingMag covers the Naoto Fukasawa-produced “Chocolate” exhibition at the 21_21 Design Sight. You have until tomorrow (July 29) to catch it yourself.

Core77 posts an interview with digital artist and filmmaker Masa Inakage, who will head the new Graduate School of Media Design at Keio University — the programs will be offered in both English and Japanese. More details here, and a direct link to the interview here.

Back in April, when the last season of anime started, I promised I’d post some thoughts on the series that I started watching. Well, bad blogger that I am, I never got around to doing it, but I figure I can still share a few words on what I’ve been following, since the ones I really did like are all continuing with a second season (meaning past episode 13).

• CLAYMORE: This has actually turned into my favorite of the bunch, and I’m the first one to admit that I’m really surprised by that. I usually don’t go for stuff with monsters, and I’m not particularly attracted to fantasy settings, but there’s something about this series that had me locked in after only 2-3 episodes. I think it’s the main character, Claire, and the interest I found in her development throughout, as well as the episodes that were devoted to an extended flashback. Even my wife, who doesn’t care at all for this sort of stuff, as been following along.
• SEIREI NO MORIBITO: Another fantasy show, this time with a Japanese-style fantasy setting, and again, another series that my wife also latched on to. In fact, I think it’s because she showed interest early on that I stuck with it, and after the slow start, it’s turned into a truly terrific series. My wife enjoyed it so much that she quickly picked up and read the book it’s based on, written by an anthropology professor. We both look forward to each new episode, and my wife says that the second book (there are 10 in all, but this series only covers the first one) is as good if not better.
• DENNO COIL: I only recently started watching this one, from the start though, since at first it wasn’t something I thought I’d be interested in; the character designs looked too childish, and I just figured that the show would be as well. But this is one hell of an interesting concept, with kids using net-like abilities to “hack” around their world, confronting virus-like creatures and guardians. The Ghibli-style character designs have even grown on me, and I absolutely love the main character’s little sister, Kyoko. Unchi! It’s another show that I find myself watching with my wife every week, and I’m a bit surprised that I’m currently following two shows that air on NHK (SEIREI also airs on NHK).
• BLUE DRAGON: I’ve already mentioned in my game column how much I love this show, as well as the game its based on, and again, this is something that my wife has also been enjoying. If you’re a fan of Akira Toriyama’s work, you’ll definitely like this. Yeah, I know Toriyama only provided the character designs, but the whole show has the same wacky feel as stuff like DRAGONBALL, and it’s a joy to watch. I do realize that it’s not for everyone, but if you like fun adventure stories, then do give it a try.

That’s the stuff that I actually stuck with. I watched the first 10 episodes or so of DARKER THAN BLACK, but stopped because I lost interest (an interest that was never really that huge, even from the start). I watched maybe 6-7 episodes of THE SKULL MAN, but that too couldn’t hold my interest. I really liked how it started, with a retro mystery-like feel to the show, but then it sort of turned into something else. I gave up on MOONLIGHT MILE after 3-4 episodes. I was really excited by the sequence we see in the opening credits, which I’m assuming happens later in the series, but what we had to endure until then was just too painful to watch. I watched REIDEEN until episode 5, but that was mostly because it started before all those other shows, and I really wanted to watch something. In the end, it didn’t feel special enough to bother with. I think I’ve covered most of what I watched last season, and for this latest season, the only show I sampled was DEVIL MAY CRY. One episode was enough.

One other series I would like to mention that I watched recently — it came out last year — is THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA. Absolutely amazing. This is probably the best series I’ve watched since MONSTER, and before that SAMURAI CHAMPLOO. I was so into it that I watched all 14 episodes in 2-3 days. From the ballsy first episode — I don’t want to ruin it, but let’s just say that I’ve never seen anything like it, especially to launch a show — to the out-of-order sequence for all episodes, this show is not afraid of trying new things, and is probably the most exciting and out-there show since FLCL. Don’t let the fact that, on the surface, it comes of as an average high-school comedy fool you, it’s so much more than that, and I was absolutely ecstatic when I found out recently that they will be producing a second season. Must-see.

This Flickr account has quite a few photos of Toyo Ito-designed Tama Art University Library. Via Dezain.net.

My weekly Tokyo round-up for MoCo Loco is up.

• Shin-Marunouchi Building
• Takeo Showroom
• Krispy Kreme Kraziness
• Under Tokyo

You can read all of my Gridskipper posts here (or even subscribe to a feed).

This week’s episode of TOKYO EYE (#40) — it starts airing today — is the one which has me in the studio for the entire taping, and features the longest segment I’ve done yet, about 10 minutes long, on the creative use of space in Japanese architecture, featuring a few examples of what Atelier Bow-Wow calls “pet architecture.” The most exciting thing about the piece is that we were able to shoot at the now quite famous Moriyama House, and it’s in fact the first time the home has ever appeared on TV. When you watch the show, you’ll recognize the Coffee Saloon Kimoto, as well as the motorcyle and scooter showroom pictured above. This exclusive does mean that I won’t be able to put it online as I’ve done with my past segments. The broadcast schedule is listed here, at the bottom of the page.

Here’s the segment I did for NHK World’s TOKYO EYE program, as part of their “My Private Tokyo” series, on the pocket parks of Higashi-Ikebukuro (I wrote about the show here, and have photos of each here). As you can see, the idea here was to be a bit more wacky, which helps explain my, huh, “genki” demeanor.

Added these two Brockmann figures by Groovisions to my collection the other day. They are part of the Brockmann Extreme series. I picked them up at the Shin-Marunouchi Building, at one of the select shops on the 5th floor.

Added these 2 figures to my Spider-Man gacha-pon collection. I was just missing these 2, so now I have all 6 (except for the secret one — it’s Spider-Man 2099, but they’re selling it for too much). I got them at one of the stores at Nakano Broadway.

This month’s edition of my “On Design” column was in today’s THE JAPAN TIMES, and can be read online here. In it, I cover Dainippon Type Organization‘s Toypography, DoCoMo‘s Simpure L2, Kazuhito Ishida‘s Book Hook, and Uniqlo’s Hotels Homes line of home and personal accessories.

Karl Escritt has made a ton of badges. I want some.

Chris Palmieri has started a new series of font-related interviews for the AQ blog called “Facetime.” As Chris explains, the “series was originally conceived for Japanese designers, to introduce well-crafted Western fonts and the contemporary designers behind them. In the end though, we enjoyed these interviews so much ourselves, we decided to publish them in English too.” The first one has Eric Olson talking about Klavika.

Intervall-audio has a new MP3 release, MDDA, by Kumiko Okamura. Read more about the Tokyo-based artist here, where you can also download the album.