Once you get to interact with Yu Nagaba in person, you will find that he is not a talkative person. He merely likes to sit quietly at a corner, laughing along with the group only from time to time. This is somewhat like his drawings, which are formed by simple intersecting dots and lines. He does not love to dwell too much upon small detail, but still from his images you can feel his sincerity and they can bring a smile of understanding to your face.
He started out undertaking jobs from POPEYE, and then, his pieces began to appear subsequently in magazines such as Casa BRUTUS, WIRED and GINZA. Later on, even such fashion brands as Beams and Rayban have all vied for collaborating with him. In just last month, in June, he even crossed to the field of food and catering by launching his pop-up store featuring his illustrations at the Wanchai branch of Genki Sushi in Hong Kong. You can find Yu Nagaba’s illustrations decorating every corner of the restaurant and even on the sushi conveyor belt you can find a row of his small-sized illustrations. On seeing all these, he laughed and said, “This is the very first time that I have my ‘own’ store. This has made me very excited.”
John Lennon和Yoko Ono這個組合,儼然是六十年代嬉皮、反戰文化的象徵。在2015年日本解禁自衛權後,長場雄為表達抗議,立即依照二人著名的反戰照片繪製作品反擊。然而Kurt Cobain卻跟前者屬性不太一樣,其所屬樂團Nirvana發跡於九十年代,也是說,他是與長場雄同代成長的標誌性音樂人。
I have read a media interview of Yu Nagaba before. In the interview, he mentioned that he did not want to bring a worldview to his work to avoid an excess of complicated language. However, looking back, from the famous individuals featured in his works such as John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Kurt Cobain and Ramones, you can seemingly discover his preferences for music and movies, and the influence of American popular culture on him.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono are symbols of the hippies and anti-war culture in the 60s. In 2015, after the Japanese government eased the restrictions of its Self- Defence Forces, Yu Nagaba immediately drew pieces based on the anti-war photos of the two figures as a form a protest. Kurt Cobain, on the other hand, is an individual of a different nature. Nirvana, the band to which he belonged, rose to fame in the 1990s. In other words, he is a symbolic musician from Yu Nagaba’s generation.
「Kurt Cobain是我少年時的偶像,一個很有代表性的人物,John Lennon雖然是較久遠的人物,不過也是一樣的帥氣。」成長於九十年代的他回憶道,當年有一個電視音樂節目,主要放日本及西洋的主流音樂,某天他收看節目時突然聽見一首很不尋常的曲目,並深深被音樂打動。「之前節目上聽到的都是一般旋律優美的音樂,但那首單曲很不一樣,感覺有點粗糙,有令人甩頭的衝動,留下了非常深刻的印象。雖然沒有明確的理由,但我可是一頭栽了進去。」他口中說的曲目,想當然就是Nirvana的《Smells Like Teen Spirit》。
“Kurt Cobain is my childhood idol, and he is a very representative figure. Even though John Lennon is from an era further back in history, he is equally cool,” he said, reminiscing about growing up in the 90s. Back then, there was a music programme on television playing mainstream Japanese and Western music. One day, when he was watching the programme, he found himself listening to an unusual song, which moved him deeply. “Until that point, the songs I had listened to on the programme were all regular music with a beautiful melody, but that song was very different, with a bit of a rough feeling, giving you an impulse to shake your head. The song has left a very deep impression on me. Even though I didn’t have a clear reason, I became hooked completely .” The song he was referring to was Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Every young man who likes rock music has probably played an air guitar before, facing the mirror, fantasizing himself being able to form a band and perform. Yu Nagaba should be no exception? “I did, but it has not come true,” he said, with a shy expression that made everybody present laugh.
Yu Nagaba mentioned that he was a member of the track and field team at school, and even though he did not become a rock musician in the end, back when he was a student, he was already addicted to the American culture, loving both its music and movies. When I asked him which movie he liked in recent years, he said he liked Single Man directed by Tom Ford, being drawn by its dark and beautiful mood. “In terms of genres, I like coming-of-age movies about love and friendship, and my favorite one of late is Everybody Wants Some!! Quite a great movie.”
In 2005, Yu Nagaba collaborated with Keisuke Kagiwada in publishing a book titled Minna no Eiga 100 sen (Movies for Everyone: 100 Selection), which contains his illustrations of 100 classic movie scenes. It is an illustrated book much discussed within Japan in the past few years. Given Yu Nagaba has long been exposed to American movie culture, drawing illustrations of movie scenes should be second nature to him. Nonetheless, quite unexpectedly, there were still some scenes which defeated him, and he had no choice but to give up.
“Originally I wanted very much to draw Sylvester Stallone, who played the main character in Rocky or Rambo, but I gave up eventually because I found his face extremely difficult to draw. (Is it because he often puts on a poker face without any facial expressions?) Exactly! In the end, I could only switch to Apollo, Rocky’s opponent played by Carl Weathers.”
As for his top favorite scene from the book, Yu Nagaba said it was a scene from Leon featured on its cover.
At one point during the interview, our cameraman wanted to capture his expression while he was drawing so invited him to draw us something on the spot. After we moved to a private space, he just grabbed a random marker pen and began slowly to draw in the white space on a press release. He managed to draw a Snoopy in just a few strokes.
“My works are all hand-drawn. Normally I seldom use the computer except when I need to scan or email my work.” Yu Nagaba recalled that he did use the computer when the Internet first came into being because of his interest in everything new. However, he felt that nowadays the online world is overflowing with information with questionable authenticity, and only then, did he decide to distance himself from it.“I’m not sure why but I find it very difficult to retain the information I absorb through the digital world. Quite the contrary, I find it easier to acquire information from books.”
Nevertheless, do not jump to the conclusion that Yo Nagaba is a person who rejects technology. Apart from POPEYE, among his favorite magazines is WIRED, which mainly covers technological trends. “My work has nothing to do with technology. All I want is to soak up new information, and to get an idea about what the future will be like… I have an interest in the unknown, and it can be history, science, or anything yet to be known.”
The 22nd issue of WIRED from last October, which features the topic of Artificial Intelligence, predicted that thirty years later AI will make full inroads to every part of human society. Rather than viewing it as a cause for concern as most people do, Yu is more or less happy to see it come true. He believes that AI can possibly reduce working hours so that human beings will have more free time to engage in a variety of creative activities such as writing novels or songs, and drawing. Out of curiosity, I asked if he was afraid that AI would make his job as an illustrator obsolete? His answer was very optimistic.
“I would see this as a challenge, which I will happily accept, and as a source of motivation for me to win this battle against AI!” said Yu Nagaba half-heartedly, with a laugh.
Yu Nagaba entertains fond thoughts of the future. He even believes that human beings in the future will live more happily than those living in this era. However, I was curious to know, given the apparent abundance of bad news from all over the world in recent years, and the mood of pessimism and loss seemingly permeating every corner of the world, why could he be so confident about the future still?
“I prefer to control the amount of information I receive daily. It is because if you pay too much attention, you will easily get upset, and subsequently get the feeling that life itself is not a big deal.” Then he went on, “For me, each day presents a goal to be achieved. It might only be a tiny step, but you need to have faith, and you need to do what you consider right. This is how I face the future, and how I manage to entertain hopes for the future.”