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Anime by Design: Paradise Kiss and the genius of Osamu Kobayashi

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In the grainy, flickering photo montage that opens Paradise Kiss (2005), things immediately take a turn for the surreal. Monsters, ghosts, aliens and creepy crawlies of all kinds seem to wander about, their unintelligible grumblings and gurglings fading into ambient noise as people go about their days. They haunt mythical spots in Shibuya: its fashionable backstreets, Harajuku Station, Takeshita Street, Laforet, Omotesando Avenue… Yukari's narration guides us through the unknown world we're stepping into. Her sentimental phrasing paints an alluring picture as the montage transitions to background art. Beyond descriptions of sights, smells and sounds, the choice of verbiage itself is just as evocative. The door leading to the Atelier isn't ‘pink' but ‘Shocking Pink', a nod to Elsa Schiaparelli. The singing pouring out from the underground is ‘hysteric’ and not merely ‘hysterical’, echoing cult fashion brand Hysteric Glamour. Standing at a crossing, Yukari has to dea...
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Specificity killed the cat

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JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has been on my mind quite a lot recently, kind of odd when you consider it’s a series I’ve neither read nor watched, and only really experienced through cultural osmosis. That of course hasn’t stopped me from nailing down a few opinions though: at a glance, Araki is a very interesting artist with extremely potent stylings. Echoes of Michelangelo, Antonio Lopez, pop iconography, fashion photography. I’m not turning over any new rocks here. He’s widely beloved for this rather peculiar aesthetic he’s cultivated over the years. The ubiquity of his work also leads to funny instances where JoJo now becomes certain people's single point of reference to process imagery well within the traditions of the fashion world. A model creating interesting shapes with their body is actually doing “ JoJo poses”. Someone dressed in high fashion is “dressed like a stand user”. The list goes on.  Another opinion I’ve also settled on is that the JoJo anime adaptations look ho...
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