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Photos and text by Mark Vallen. Posted April 1998. |
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Everywhere in the Little Tokyo area
of downtown Los Angeles you could see the posters announcing the
upcoming art exhibit. The colorful posters of Seizo Watase were
on display in storefronts and at kiosks for more than a month, and
the community was abuzz with expectant conversation. This was the
first time any mangaka (manga artist) was to have a major exhibition
in the United States. The
exhibit at the Doizaki Gallery was an important breakthrough
for the art of anime and manga in the U.S., and having one of L.A.'s
cultural institutions recognize a manga artist lent an air of legitimacy
and prestige to the artform.
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Very large and beautiful wall hangings of Seizo-san's images were hung from the ceiling. Byobu (traditional folding screens), made from the artist's silkscreen prints were on display, as were over one hundred works spanning the career of the artist. Display cases held numerous examples of the artist's manga production methods. It was fascinating to see the rough pencil sketches and first ink outlines, the addition of colors with inks, marker pens, colored pencils, and the final finished printed manga. |
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The exhibition presented works the artist created for
a multitude of purposes. Seizo-san has made illustrations for magazines,
books, advertisements, C.D. covers, and the like. His romantic series
Heart Cocktail sold over 5 million copies, but it's the artworks
from his manga, Sai that captured my imagination. I
found "Sai" to be most endearing and it's not at all surprising to find
out how popular the series is amongst grown ups in Japan. To see five
select images from "Sai" just click on the gallery button directly below.
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