Superflat
Takashi Murakami is a Japanese pop artist who seeks to “flatten tradition, modernity, and other media including oneness” with his Superflat art movement. Even though I consider myself to be somewhat of an artist, I’m still trying to figure out just what the hell that means. So instead of me fumbling through a poor definition, let me instead show you what Superflat looks like. First up, an interview with the man responsible for Superflat, Takashi Murakami.
Next, we have an advertisement for Luis Vuitton.
Here are two of Murakami’s characters, KaiKai and KiKi. Beware the cutie attack!
This is a scene from Mindgame, my first encounter with Superflat. Our main character has just died (about ten minutes into the damn thing) and meets God.
Finally, here’s a bit from Tekkonkinkreet which just came out on DVD. I highly recommend you get out and rent this sucker right away!
I’m not sure any of that helps in terms of definition, but at least now you know what it looks like. For the next few posts, I think I will seek out more information and examples of the Superflat movement.
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October 26th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Nice post Jamie. I’m really not as up on my anime as I should be, but the styles in Superflat are too cool for me to pass up. And Mind Game looks like it has an interesting story. Off they got to my list of things to watch.
October 29th, 2007 at 12:44 am
I’m curious what the link is between the movie Tekkonkinkreet and Murakami. I have been google searching for a while and I can’t pull anything up saying that he was involved with the project.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:03 am
@goldbuick, that’s the other thing I’m not sure about. Does Murakami or one of his stable have to be involved in order for it to be called superflat? I don’t think any of them were involved in Tekkonkinkreet so if that’s the case, it might not be superflat. But the animation style certainly reminded me a lot of Mindgame.