Pushing the boundaries of the bucket
An innovative Japanese craftsman is taking the traditional art of the wooden bucket to uncharted territory, harnessing computer design and modern art ideas.
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Japan Times
14 hours ago
- Japan Times
Two months on, Osaka Expo organizer struggles to improve experience as crowds grow
A three-hour wait to enter the U.S. exhibit. A snaking lineup at a hot dog stand. A dozen people lingering outside the Austrian pavilion — which was already at capacity — just for the opportunity to enter the line. Mere months ago, the prevailing narrative around the Osaka Expo was that the event was on track to be a box office bomb amid low public interest and slower-than-expected ticket sales. Now, two months after the expo's gates opened on Osaka's Yumeshima island, organizers have a different problem on their hands: how to improve the guest experience despite swelling attendance figures. 'I wanted to go in,' said Noriko Moriguchi, who visited last Saturday, while looking at the long lines for the U.S. and France pavilions from the Grand Ring. 'But I guess it won't be possible.' 'We couldn't get any reservations,' added her partner Tatsuya. 'So I guess we'll just go to the less busy pavilions.' With a third of the expo's scheduled runtime now in the books, momentum appears to be building toward what organizers hope will be a boom period for the event as they try to recoup ballooning costs via ticket sales. 'The expo is a very rare occasion where people globally join forces and to showcase each country's specialties, therefore we want as many people as possible to come,' Osaka Expo Secretary-General Hiroyuki Ishige said during a news conference on Monday when asked about a cap on the number of visitors. 'The visitors who come to the expo should be happy and fully satisfied with their experiences and that's what we will do.' Visitors rest under the Grand Ring during the Osaka expo on May 21. | AFP-JIJI Expo officials had set a goal of attracting 28.2 million visitors, which equates to about 154,000 people per day over the course of its 183-day run. Before its opening in April, the expo looked like it would fall well short of that mark. Over the first seven days of the event, an average of 91,410 people attended, and even that relatively low number was buoyed by a robust 146,426 people visiting on a rainy opening day. Through June 7, however, the daily average had risen to 124,182, while an average of 146,647 visited in the week starting June 1. Those figures include people entering with accreditation passes, which accounted for about 14% of the 6,830,053 visitors through June 7. Particularly after advance ticket sales only reached about 70% of their target, local organizers and officials from the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions, which organizes World Expos, pinned their hopes on word-of-mouth and a late rush of visitors in the event's final weeks. 'Every expo starts slowly and by the last month people are trying to jump through the gates in order to get a chance to see it,' BIE Secretary-General Dimitri S. Kerkentzes told reporters in January. 'If you want a comfortable visit to the expo ... come at the beginning, come in the first three months.' But even before the expo reaches its peak attendance, some visitors are already growing weary of the long lines at everything from food stalls and souvenir shops to pavilions. 'It's a three, four, five hour wait (for some pavilions),' said Italy native Antonio Cianci, who was among the 173,305 people to visit last Saturday. 'It's impossible.' Crowds line up for events at various pavilions during the 2025 Osaka Expo in May. | AFP-JIJI The issue isn't lost on organizers, even as the expo rolls out new television ads in a bid to attract even bigger crowds. 'We are happy that there are many visitors here and we hope to have some more visitors because we have more events coming every day, but we have to make sure that everybody is safe and comfortable so I think that's our challenge,' said Sachiko Yoshimura, the director of global public relations for the Osaka Expo. The reservation system for popular pavilions and events has long been criticized for being too complicated and difficult to use, while on-site registrations could only be made after entering the expo site. High web traffic has also brought the booking system to a crawl at various times. In response, organizers have promised to improve the performance of the reservation system and facilitate more on-site bookings. They're also encouraging more people to use the west entry gate, which is accessible by bus or private car, to reduce congestion at the east gate outside Osaka Metro's Yumeshima Station. Even with those measures in place — including an expanded twilight entry period to encourage people to visit later in the day — it's hard to imagine the lines for the most popular pavilions will get much shorter. In addition to limited space inside the pavilions, some, like the U.S. pavilion, are conducted as a tour with only a certain number of people allowed in for each showing. Visitors rest under the Grand Ring during the Osaka expo in the city of Osaka on May 21. | AFP-JIJI The importance of reservations is still catching some visitors off-guard, including those who have attended other expos and didn't have the same experience with lines. 'I went to the (2015) expo in Milan,' said Matteo Piras, who visited with Cianci. 'I didn't need any reservations. I was thinking it was the same (here), but no.' Still, despite some vocal criticism on social media sites, data shows that visitors are broadly pleased with their expo experience. In a survey conducted by the organizers of over 100,000 visitors to the expo through the end of April, 44% of respondents said they were satisfied with their experience and 35.7% said they were somewhat satisfied, compared to a combined rate of 9.4% who said they were somewhat dissatisfied or dissatisfied. Even Piras and Cianci weren't exactly disappointed with their experience. 'The global vision is very beautiful,' Piras said. Takeru Nakao was visiting for the second time last Saturday and, despite the long lineups, says he would recommend the expo. 'I haven't been to many foreign destinations, but here I can learn a lot because I come across them naturally just by walking around,' he said. Swarms of midges have proved to be a major annoyance for visitors at Osaka expo in the evening, forcing organizers to form a task force to determine pest control measures. | JIJI Beyond crowd control, there are other sources of turbulence. Swarms of midges have proved to be a major annoyance for visitors in the evening, forcing organizers to form a task force to determine pest control measures. Meanwhile, the detection of high levels of Legionella bacteria in the seawater at the site's Water Plaza and in the Forest of Tranquility raised public health concerns and caused the cancellation of water shows, and in the face of criticism over the slow reaction to the problem, organizers acknowledged the response was insufficient. Those issues might pale in comparison, however, to the impending risk posed by Japan's scorching summers. Mist-cooling areas and spot air conditioners are being installed in anticipation of ever-increasing temperatures. | Joel Tansey Despite the shade provided by the Grand Ring and other buildings, the expo site is largely exposed to the elements and the large area means people expend a lot of energy getting from point A to point B, raising the risk of heatstroke. Organizers have set up water stations and tents to ensure guests are hydrated and can escape the sun. There are also mist-cooling areas around the site and spot air conditioners are being installed in anticipation of ever-increasing temperatures. Given the long lineups for many pavilions, sometimes in places directly exposed to the sun, it remains to be seen whether that will be enough. 'We're really trying to make improvements every day,' Yoshimura of Osaka Expo said. 'Of course Japan has these hot, humid summers every year ... We have the technology and know-how in Japan so we'd like to use that as much as possible.'
NHK
20 hours ago
- NHK
Pushing the boundaries of the bucket
An innovative Japanese craftsman is taking the traditional art of the wooden bucket to uncharted territory, harnessing computer design and modern art ideas.
Japan Times
21 hours ago
- Japan Times
Stop-motion sci-fi saga ‘Junk World' expands its bizarre universe
A year into the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, one of the bright spots was a film set in the dark. The stop-motion animation feature "Junk Head" followed a hapless, amnesic cyborg as he traversed a series of underground caverns populated by grotesque (yet somehow cute) monsters and made friends with a zany cadre of artificial lifeforms called Mulligans. The film's blend of horror and humor helped bring in ¥130 million at the Japanese box office. Not bad for a feature made almost entirely by one person: interior designer Takahide Hori, who had decided to try his hand at filmmaking for the first time at age 40. Hori, born in 1971, had always harbored artistic aspirations, he tells The Japan Times, producing work in fields like illustration, sculpture and manga, but despite winning some awards, he never felt there was much of a future in it for him. "I didn't want to be confined to one genre," Hori says. "I wanted to do something bigger." The inspiration for what form that 'something' might take came when Hori discovered animator Makoto Shinkai's ("Your Name.") 2002 short "Voices of a Distant Star," which Shinkai wrote and produced entirely by himself. Hori realized he might be able to do something similar. He chose stop-motion animation as his medium, combining his previous experience as a sculptor of marionettes with his interior design skills, which enabled him to create elaborate sets. "It really looked like my marionettes had come alive on screen," says Hori. "It was as if all the skills I'd built up until then had come together." Following his marionette experiments, Hori spent four years animating the 30-minute short "Junk Head I," which he finished in 2013, then expanded it into "Junk Head," his full-length debut. That film, which took Hori a total of seven years to complete, was the first chapter in a planned "Junk" trilogy. Now, Hori is back with "Junk World," his second entry in the series, which hits theaters in Japan Friday. And this time, it took him a mere three-and-a-half years. "Junk World," set over 1,000 years before "Junk Head," kicks off with a meeting between humans and Mulligans, who maintain an uneasy truce after a brutal war centuries earlier. Among the humans is Triss, a soldier with an eyepatch, a take-no-prisoners attitude and a robot companion named Robin whose sole purpose is to keep Triss safe. The Mulligan leader is Dante, whose guarded trust of humans isn't shared by all the members of his race — as evidenced by an attack on the meeting by rogue Mulligan forces mere moments after it begins. Triss, Robin and Dante are forced to flee and, during their escape, discover strange portals that allow them to travel in time. The battle then turns temporal as the varying factions begin to use time travel to outfox each other, going further and further back in time to influence the present. After years of harboring artistic aspirations, Takahide Hori tried his hand at filmmaking for the first time at age 40. His first feature, 'Junk Head,' brought in ¥130 million at the Japanese box office. | Matt Schley One of Hori's goals for "Junk World" was to expand the Junkverse's narrative and visual scope. While the first film largely takes place in subterranean hallways (essentially a single set which Hori could rearrange to create new locations), "Junk World" unfolds above ground, with some computer-generated elements — a new addition to Hori's toolkit — helping fill out the wider horizons. Another upgrade was the addition of 3D-printed models, allowing for multiple copies of the same characters to be filmed across different sets at the same time. But because "Junk World" was still an independent, low-budget production, Hori had to figure out a way to stretch the use of his new, more expansive sets, eventually hitting on the idea of time loops as a plausible way to reuse the same locations. "My budget for 'World' was about double that of 'Head,' but still very low," says Hori with a laugh. "The budget for the first film allowed a staff of three to barely get by, and this time, it allowed for a staff of six to barely get by." In many ways, Hori's "Junk" films embody the well-worn notion that limitations breed creativity. The entire concept of the underground world and its malformed creatures, for example, were initially born from budgetary constraints. "I realized that if it were set underground, I wouldn't have to worry about animating the landscape," says Hori. "And if the characters didn't have eyes, it would cut down on parts I needed to build and animate. When I put all that together, including research into real underground organisms, the 'Junk' world slowly came into view." Another example is the language the characters speak in the first film — gibberish, subtitled in Japanese, done to hide the fact that Hori was voicing almost every character himself. "Junk World," on the other hand, is voiced in Japanese, in part because it's a more dialogue-heavy film than "Junk Head," and the complicated story might be hard to track in subtitled form. However, after realizing how many fans were charmed by his invented language, Hori also produced a "gibberish version" of the film, which is being released alongside the Japanese version. It's like those big-budget Hollywood movies that get Japanese dubs and subs, except that cinemagoers will be able to choose between Japanese and 'Junkese.' Regardless which version cinemagoers choose, all the characters are voiced by Hori and the film's five other staff members. "We came down to the wire in terms of production, so the voices were recorded right at the end," says Hori. "If I'd hired professional voice actors, it might not have worked out schedule-wise. In any case, we might not be as good as pros, but I think that DIY, hand-made feel is part of the appeal of my films." While 'Junk Head' largely takes place in subterranean hallways, 'Junk World' unfolds aboveground to expand the narrative and visual scope of Hori's "Junk" universe. | © YAMIKEN For all the extra lore in "World," it retains the unique sense of humor on display in the first film, in which serious sci-fi plot points, thrilling action and splattery gore go hand-in-hand with fart jokes. One subplot involves two men who greedily feast on a delicacy that looks just like a man's, well, private parts. Like much of the movie, it's simultaneously cringe-inducing and laugh-out-loud funny. "I always want people to come out thinking, 'That was fun,'" says Hori. "I want the funny parts to surpass the parts that are grotesque or tough to watch." Hori is currently working on the script for the third "Junk" film, tentatively titled "Junk End." Set about 50 years after "Junk Head," it will reunite viewers with the protagonist of the original — and, thanks to the time travel introduced in "World," may feature some of its characters, too. An average day of stop-motion shooting yields just a few seconds of completed footage, Hori says, meaning it will be some time before "Junk End" hits screens. I ask how he stays motivated over long years of painstaking work. "You spend hours moving your models a fraction of an inch, shooting a frame, then doing it over and over again. But when you finish for the day and play back the footage, it really looks like they're moving. Those little moments of joy add up. Then you think to yourself, 'One day, this will be an entire movie, and that will be a great day.'" 'Junk World' is currently screening in cinemas nationwide. For more information, visit
