The Ability to Make It Work

Masuda

Not to change the subject, but when you say that this cafe resonated with you when you visited the first time, did you mean it has that “underground” feel I often talk about?

Itoi

Underground? Oh, yes, it does. Okay, I see what you mean now.

Masuda

I’m really into the retro Showa age of the mid-20th century, and to this day I like to take walks and look for old train tracks, hints of the old red-light district, things like that. I also love imagining how a certain spot may have been a jazz cafe or something back in the day. I think this shop also has that same kind of underground feel to it.

Itoi

Yeah, I can sense it. It’s interesting to see that connection.

Masuda

People generally have a consistent idea of how something looks if you label it cute and from Harajuku. I didn’t want to make this cafe totally in line with that, because I don’t completely agree with the way that look is being accepted around the world in a way that makes it a passing fad of the current generation.

Itoi

It’s not sustainable.

Masuda

Right. I think it’s much more rewarding for a new and upcoming style to be built on the foundations of past innovators in a way that encourages the next generation to take it and just blast it into orbit. That’s the perspective I work with when I create something new of my own, and the result is what you see here.

Itoi

If this was a cafe designed by a young person influenced by Gundam or Alien, for example, I think I’d be able to distinguish those roots in their work. I can’t decipher any roots in your work, though. People must think you’re younger than you really are.

Masuda

Maybe. But all I’m doing is meticulously working on all the things I wasn’t able to when I was twenty. Stuff I think will take people by surprise.

Itoi

It’s incredibly intricate. I can tell just by sitting here that every corner of this place has been carefully designed with the touch of its artist.

Masuda

That “touch” is my grudge. (laughs)

Itoi

But that grudge is your motivation. It takes a strong motivation of that caliber to be able to build a place this amazing in the first place. You can very clearly see the determination that was cultivated back in the days when people told you your work was no good.

Masuda

I actually made a blacklist back then. I wrote out the names of all the gallerists and editors and people who said my work was awful. I wanted to get back at them with the creations I would make someday. But when I come across those people nowadays, I don’t really care anymore.

Itoi

Yeah, writing out lists like that is pointless. People on that list will have broken down by the time you reach them, anyway.

Masuda

Exactly. They didn’t even seem worth my time anymore.

Itoi

Not to sound proud, but I’ve had two articles published about me in the past that said I was washed up, and both times, the magazines went under before me. So I’ve come to pay no mind to criticism like that.

Masuda

Yes.

Itoi

The only thing you can truly rely on is your own feelings. If you’re at a place where you’d have a thing or two to tell yourself if you travelled to the recent past, then that means you’re a little more passable than you were before. Nowadays I feel like that’s all we really need to worry about.

Masuda

Yeah, that’s true.

Itoi

I realized when I read Family Tree Cutter that you’ve got a relationship with contemporary artist Norimizu Ameya.

Masuda

I helped out at his studio when I was in my twenties. We were only really close for about a year or two, but he’s got an incredibly strong will and had a great impact on my life. I owe a lot to his guidance.

Itoi

I’ve only met him once, as he’s always been a degree or two away from me. He seems like a hermit, but at the same time he has such a powerful spirit. That polarity really amazes me.

Masuda

When I first met Ameya, he was even more intense than he is now. He was always cutting iron from junkyards. Cutting it causes sparks to fly everywhere, so there are protective guards installed on the cutting equipment. But his staff ripped them off and said “Don’t use these silly things. You must feel the iron!” and they were just cutting it with sparks flying all over the place. That’s the kind of extreme man he was.

Itoi

But according to him, it’s just the logical thing to do.

Masuda

Right. But even though he’s such an intense guy, those of us who know him see him as a man whose whole way of thinking is based on puns. For example, one of his galleries had mixers all lined up and spinning with something inside them. Apparently it was just cow brains. (“Nou miso” is Japanese for brain). He had these on display as miso soup. So he was the kind of guy to have that really extreme aspect to him overlayed with such a strong interest in puns.

Itoi

Puns are tools that use coincidence. Sure, a pun comes from two words simply sounding the same, but its role as the trigger to bring two different things together starts up a new development. Even people in Japan have been known to make friends solely on the starting point of having the same blood type because of that old “blood type = personality traits” stereotype.

Masuda

That’s true.

Itoi

But that stops mattering when people just take puns at face value with a flat response, like “Oh. A pun.” I think the overall image people have come to hold towards puns is what has driven everyone to give up on them. I personally think we should have more of them. If we start cutting these coincidences off from the equation, we won’t have any humor left.

Masuda

That’s true, isn’t it? There’s this tired aura that comes up when someone brings up a pun.

Itoi

Yeah. But puns are a very affirmative thing by nature. “All it takes is a similar sound for these two separate concepts to share a connection!” I think it’s a modern concept, this active recognition that two things can be totally separate while still sounding the same. During the Edo Period, people would imagine puns when they created calendars or drew pictures.

Masuda

Ah, you’re right.

Itoi

I think consistency is being given too much of the attention nowadays. Even an extremely well-written fiction novel can be immediately written off as unrealistic, but that’s giving too much weight to the mere sake of consistency. Sometimes that consistency is given even more importance than how the reader or viewer felt. And that’s not really a good thing.

Masuda

Ah, yeah, that may be.

Itoi

That’s why I was so happy when I came and sat down in your cafe. There’s the brightly-colored food, the Monster Girls, the interior decorations, everything.

Masuda

Like it caught you off guard. (laughs)

Itoi

Not even that—I thought it was worth respecting. Even though it’s a cafe, it seems like the menu is one that doesn’t care if anyone thinks it looks unappetizing. So I could really feel the emotion behind this place, and figured the creator was quite happy about it.

Masuda

Yes, I had a great time creating it.

2016-12-06-Tue

BACK | Part 3Part 5 | NEXT