Creator Interview: Kazuharu Kina [1/3]

On his TokyoOtakuMode Special Creator MyPage, Kazuharu Kina has more than 10 works on display all using the same motif of young women with long, beautiful, black hair. Is this because of some longing or attachment? Of course, looking at it from another point of view, black-haired girls are a strong, easily understandable icon in Japan’s otaku culture, just like girls with glasses. Icons like that, precisely because of their strong public image, often tend to follow a stereotypical, standard pattern. However, the cute style and personality he gives to each of his girls makes them all stand out in their own unique way, even though they may look at first glance to be strikingly similar.

So, for one reason or another, Kazuharu Kina keeps on drawing black-haired girls. Then again, Van Gogh painted 12 sunflowers and Monet also left behind many works based on water lilies. Painters who challenge themselves in making series exploring the same motif probably look at how the motif shifts with the change of seasons or as lights and shadows move with time. So this creative urge of chasing the same motif isn’t rare at all to artists.

However, Kazuharu Kina isn’t continuously drawing the same girl. Though they may look similar at first glance, he creates a new black-haired beauty on every work he creates. We were curious about finding out more regarding what he is trying to express in his work, so we attended his debut exhibition to unravel this mystery.

Kazuharu Kina’s constant motif was not something he decided on through conscious means, it was something that naturaly flowed and couldn’t be avoided: “I’m not drawing black haired girls to please overseas fans. The reason I started drawing is, well...it’s a pretty bad story (laughs)... You know, I went to an all-boys high school. The basis of my creative motivation was the frustration of that time. I had this image about my “original form,” that I should’ve attended school together with girls, but that became impossible. But meeting girls on after-school gatherings is also somewhat romantic, isn’t it? So I guess that’s why I started to unconsciously pursue those fantasies in illustrations...”

This is when Kazuharu Kina embarked on his journey of finding the girl he was supposed to meet during that troubled time, but whom he still hasn’t been able to find: “It’s only a coincidence that it was a drawing. Of course I’ve used the girl-motif before as well, but that wasn’t the ‘black-haired girl’ in my visions. However, during my years in boys school, I started seeking the ‘the girl who should be sitting next to me’ in illustrations.”

Continue to Part 2

Kazuharu Kina’s MyPage:
http://otakumode.com/kazuharukina

This is a TokyoOtakuMode original article.