I choose you, Utagawa Hiroshige!

November 15, 2016 9:09 AM

Pokemon turned into traditional Japanese woodblock prints.
posted by isthmus (7 comments total)

It reminds me of the ukioy-e heroes prints. My husband has the Mario Cart one of those.
posted by MsDaniB at 9:43 AM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

It reminds me of the ukioy-e heroes prints.

feat. MeFi's own™ woodblock100.
posted by zamboni at 10:24 AM on November 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

These are great! My poke-print is a rather more European in its styling.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:40 AM on November 15, 2016 [9 favorites]

I think these are fun, and I like that they actually carved a block for the outlines. I wish they hadn't gone with digital coloring though, but had used additional blocks and real inks. You don't get nearly the subtlety in variation in the background colors with the digital technique.

Of course, to do this by hand would have added an order of magnitude to their effort, but I don't see why you can't use a CNC router for contemporary work like this.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:23 PM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Once in a while, Nintendo lets slip their pride in being based in Kyoto. These woodblock prints may not be 100% authentically produced (we'll call it 80%) but they've made The King of Games an exclusive apparel licensee in Japan specifically because they use traditional silk screening techniques and happen to be based in Kyoto. Nintendo is big on Tradition in a lot of regards, and can be a fairly sentimental company at times.

The biggest shock, in a way, is how long it took for a Pokémon Center to open in Kyoto, but on the other hand the Pokémon Company is a weird independent subsidiary or something that is responsible for everything Pokémon other than the games themselves, so.

These are fun! And they get bonus authenticity points for being pop art of pop culture like the originals were — you couldn't get posters with photos of your favorite actors back in the day, of course, so woodblock prints depicting stage shows you liked were the best thing available.
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:20 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, looking at the actual sale item listings: these are in fact made 100% authentically, down to the coloring. The computerized coloring is just for renderings used for the item images on the web site. There's a reason they're like ¥50,000 each, apparently.
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:28 PM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Excellent. Another thing it reminds me of: MeFi's Own robocop is bleeding's Corey Press.
posted by ignignokt at 6:26 PM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]