iU President Gachon. Mr.Shuichi Miyawaki

■iU President Gachon. Mr.Shuichi Miyawaki

Representative of Kaiyodo, a global company. Representative, but with a name of Senmu. Four people, but they remind me of the Chambara Trio. It's a tremendous achievement to have created a worldview for the sculptures and figures, but it looks light and fun. It's Osaka. I've been to the head office in Kadoma, the museum in Nagahama, and the Wonder Festival.

◆Kaiyodo

Kaiyodo is the only group that calls itself a modeling group. There are many toy and figure plastic model manufacturers, but this is what sets them apart. Kaiyodo's biggest selling point is that the names of the prototype and model artists are included on all of the products, works, and merchandise they make. They continue to promote the idea that great things are made by people. They have created various exhibition facilities throughout Japan and are engaged in missionary activities to have people all over the world recognize Kaiyodo's way of making things and its way of life.

◆50 years since I started working

I've been in this job for 50 years. I graduated from junior high school at the age of 15 and joined Kaiyodo, a plastic model shop founded by my father, and have been making things ever since.

Kaiyodo was founded in 1964. When I was entering elementary school, I was a boy who loved plastic models, so my father wanted to open a model shop for me. Plastic is a wonderful material; it can be painted, is easy to process, can be mass-produced, is precise, and does not decay. When this material for models was born, I fell in love with it. I continued making models. I knew what I liked when I entered elementary school. I had the ambition from the beginning to expand my world of making models, plastic models, and all kinds of things, without thinking about anything else after graduating from junior high school.

People around me told me to graduate from high school and go to college, but my father had strong opinions about education, so he thought, "How can I leave my beloved son in the hands of a teacher I can't trust? I'll raise him!" and so I've been in the world of model making for 50 years. This is my biggest selling point.

◆ Sculptor

Instead of just making prototypes, we make large objects, individual items, and works of art. There are many sculptors. And so are artisans. Japan also has material workshops. There must have been a system in place for making things, but there weren't many for plastic models and miniatures. We were able to fuse these things with the world of otaku. Until then, there were great academic sculptors, fine art, and Buddhist statue artists. By incorporating otaku elements such as manga characters, monsters, and ghosts, we were able to do fun work.

The things we wanted didn't exist in the world, so we decided to make them ourselves. We started making manga characters, monsters, and all sorts of things, and the fact that we were doing modeling as an otaku job is our strongest point.

Japanese manufacturing is too serious. It would be nice if they made more interesting things. The new work we have started with figures involves making beautiful girls, monsters, robots, tanks, and other figures with our own hands, as if we were drawing a picture.

Kaiyodo's Ambition

20 years ago, there was a big boom in figurines as a freebie with candy. However, Japanese people still don't love figurines as much as people in the world. 40 or 50 years ago, there were toy stores, plastic model stores, and stationery stores in the city. There were heaps of places selling things you could make. Now they've died out, and mail order has taken over. Japanese people are the ones in the world who enjoy three-dimensional objects the most. I want to somehow make up for what is missing among Japanese people. I want everyone to love figurines. No one knows about Kaiyodo yet. I want to spread the fun and excitement of figurines, three-dimensional objects, and modeling to the world more and more.

◆School

Kaiyodo is like Tokiwa-so. As long as there is a place where people who like manga, anime, dinosaurs, beautiful girls, robots, etc. can gather, it is a school. A place where people who like things gather together, see each other's strengths, compete as rivals, and aim for higher heights while being conscious of each other. They work hard to improve themselves.

At one time, Kaiyodo had about 20 people living together and working on making things. That passion is something you can't experience anywhere else. Now, various vocational schools such as Osaka University of Arts have opened, and people have a place to gather. At Osaka University of Arts, about 180 students are learning figure shaping all at once. That kind of era has come. Even at 65 years old, he is still working at the forefront. The driving force behind teaching is for the representative of Kaiyodo to convey the stories, fun, and appeal of figures from the front lines, and to share the appeal of various artists with everyone.

◆Message for you guys

There is a 60-year-old beautiful girl figure artist called BOME. He has been our customer since he was in the fifth grade of elementary school. He had no talent whatsoever. He just loves beautiful girls. He loves manga. Once he finds something he loves, he can become a great man who has teamed up with Takashi Murakami and held exhibitions at the Versailles Museum and the Cartier Museum of Contemporary Art, just by using that power.

First of all, what do you like? As long as you have something you like, you can manage.

★Postscript

Mr. BOME, who appears at the end. I thought it was a French nickname, but when I found out it was Baume with hats and glasses, I realized it was Osaka. We were born in the same year and month, but when I went to the head office, he was busy sculpting alone, and I was nervous in front of a great man and couldn't speak well. In 2022, he received the Commissioner's Award from the Agency for Cultural Affairs. I was a judge and strongly recommended him.