Description: To welcome the New Year 2021, this piece was created with the concept of looking toward the future and the past, aiming for visuals that evoke both nostalgia and a sense of newness.

“Is the moon not the same moon as in the past, and is spring not the same spring as before?” (Modern colloquial translation: Is the moon not the same moon as it was in the past, and is spring not the same spring as it once was?) - The ghost of the woman, “Izutsu” This work was created in official collaboration with the DeFi-staked crypto collectibles “Aavegotchi,” and was released as crypto art. “Aave” in Aavegotchi means “ghost” in Finnish, and it is a web3 game in which users collect a variety of NFTs featuring cute ghosts as its motif. In Japan’s traditional performing art of “Noh,” there is a type called “mugen Noh,” in which a ghost is the protagonist. This work draws on “Izutsu,” which is also regarded as the finest masterpiece of mugen Noh. “Izutsu” centers on the theme of “unchanging love,” and the protagonist is performed as the spirit of a woman who continues to wait for the man she loves, Ariwara no Narihira, even after death. This work (crypto art) overlaps that with a future society that will undergo changes beyond our imagination through blockchain technology, and with the fundamental human passions that remain unchanged even as the times change. Noh includes the keyword “yūgen,” one of the aesthetic ideals that form the foundation of Japanese culture, an essential quality in which the depth of a thing’s flavor cannot be fully grasped by human understanding. This work uses the metaverse, played with avatars, as a metaphor for a Noh stage performed with Noh masks, depicting the “yūgen” of a new worldview. “Though I alone remain as I once was” (Modern colloquial translation: Only I remain unchanged, continuing to think of you as I always have.) - Ariwara no Narihira (825–880)

This work was created through the first collaboration between Kohei Kadowaki and Takaya Kawasaki. It incorporates real-life experiences from Kawasaki’s childhood, and also features photos taken by Kawasaki himself in his hometown and at his home, as well as timelapse footage of the sky shot by Director Kadowaki. The result is a fresh, innovative visual work that seamlessly blends live action and animation. Told as a fantasy-tinged story beginning with the encounter between a boy who has come from the future in a time machine and an elderly man, it delicately portrays the two characters’ memories, bond, and eventual parting through gentle, warm animation.