Ooka Makoto is an authentic heavyweight of modern Japanese poetry: a winner of multiple awards including Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, his poetry column appeared on the front page of the Asahi Shimbun daily newspaper every day for over twenty years. Every day! Just one minute from Mishima station, the museum that bears his name holds a range of special exhibitions each year, covering a variety of visual forms including craftworks, sculpture and anime.
When I visited, the special exhibition was one focused on four works by critically acclaimed anime creator Shinkai Makoto; not being into anime myself, I knew nothing about him, but since I wrote this, he's become famous as the creator of 'Your Name'. It was all in Japanese, but the presentation was entertaining and informative, so even without understanding the explanations I could glean some insight into the animator's creative process.
As well as beautiful large prints of backgrounds used for his films, there were preliminary sketches of characters, showing fine detail such as dimples and phone straps; there was also a moveable display showing how individually animated elements of a scene are overlaid on top of each other, then a video mixing rough cuts, individual elements and completed scenes.
I also enjoyed some of the inventive ways the space was used; there were hand-cut paper kanji characters hanging from the ceiling, I assume to explain the theme of each part of the room, and a speaker with the sound of dripping water above a picture of a couple sheltering from rain.
After the special exhibition, you come to a final room with items related to Ooka's life and work. There are personal belongings such as spectacles, money, calligraphy brushes and books (among them collections of poetry by Beaudelaire and T S Eliot), and canvases by artist friends such as Sam Harris.
There are also a couple of other rooms to enjoy. On one side there's a small lounge with funky couches overlooking the station, so you can watch the bullet trains zooming past while you relax; on the other there's a reading room with books and periodicals, mostly in Japanese, but with some translations of Ooka's poetry into English, French and Spanish. When I was there, this room also had a large TV showing the complete films on which the special exhibition was based.
Before you leave, there's also of course a gift shop, where you can pick up goods specific to the exhibition, as well as a range of quirky pens, crayons, postcards, prints and other stationery.
