Yoshitomo Nara “NO WAR”
Yoshitomo Nara’s “NO WAR” is a drawing collection published in 2014 and subsequently went out of print, making it a difficult book to obtain today.
The other day, I stumbled upon Yoshitomo Nara’s “NO WAR” at a bookstore I happened to drop into in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, Tokyo. Neighborhood bookstores — quarantined from online shopping — often have hidden treasures buried in their shelves. I was in the middle of reading “Kiseki no Honya wo Tsukuritai” (I Want to Build a Miraculous Bookstore) from Sapporo’s Kusumi Shobo, which may have been part of why my casual drop-in turned out to be so fortunate.
Some of Nara’s art books, once out of print, circulate at horrifyingly inflated prices. Sadly, on Yahoo Auctions, Mercari, and the like, they’ve become a target for resellers.
Four years have passed since its release, so of course the outer plastic wrap was torn in places, but fortunately the contents seemed to be in reasonably good shape, so I bought it. I opened it right away.
This book has stripped away all text and presents itself purely as a collection of Yoshitomo Nara’s printed works. Aside from a comment from Nara at the beginning and words from Masafumi Gotoh, vocalist of ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, at the end, everything is Nara’s “art.” The theme is “NO WAR,” and the lineup consists of works tied to anti-war elements. More than half feature girls as the motif.
The pages are not stapled or bound together — each one is independent and can be pulled out. You can extract only your favorite pages to view, display, or use.
This calls to mind a similar book. It has a construction reminiscent of “DRAWING FILE,” which I introduced previously.
“DRAWING FILE” saw its prices soar sharply from the moment this site featured it — a product that used to trade for a few thousand yen on the used market now goes for tens of thousands. I also swap the prints in my own home according to the season and my mood — it’s a wonderful item, and if you spot it somewhere affordable, I’d highly recommend picking it up.
I compared it to “DRAWING FILE.” Please see the photo below.
Size-wise, “NO WAR” is smaller, but since the printed surface of “DRAWING FILE” contains a lot of white margin, the impression is that they’re not much different.
DRAWING FILE: 370mm×275mm
NO WAR: 365mm×255mm
Summary
Here are the key points.
- A collection featuring 72 newly created works
- No perforations — ready to display as is
- Comes with a large-format poster (B2 size)
- May still be in stock at neighborhood bookstores…
- More affordable than “DRAWING FILE”
- Thin and easy to store
Bonus
There’s also a postcard-sized item available at a low price.
The item that Korean idol group BTS introduced on Twitter was a set of Yoshitomo Nara postcards.
Fighting! https://t.co/SrDbht98Md
— yoshitomo nara (@michinara3) January 16, 2019
This product is the Yoshitomo Nara postcard set “PRINT WORKS.”
A steal at under 2,000 yen.
They’re larger than standard postcards, and stickers are included too — highly recommended!
Overview
Yoshitomo Nara Drawing Collection
YOSHITOMO NARA “NO WAR!”
Yoshitomo Nara, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha editorial team; paperback: 72 pages
Publisher: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha
Language: Japanese
ISBN-10: 4568104823
ISBN-13: 978-4568104820
Release date: 2014/11/25
Product package dimensions: 28 x 1 x 37 cm
