Interest
Inoue's 18-Meter-Tall Vagabond Mural Looms Over Tokyo
posted on by Egan Loo
A mural that manga creator Takehiko Inoue drew of his Vagabond lead character Musashi has been blown up several stories tall and plastered against a store tower in Tokyo on Sunday. At 18.2 meters (about 59.7 feet) tall and 10.3 meters (33.8 feet) wide, the painted samurai is now larger than the 18-meter-tall life-size Gundam figure.
Inoue originally drew the mural over the course of 12 hours on a 3-meter by 1.7-meter (10-foot by 6-foot) canvas. The food maker Nissin used three video cameras to record Inoue painting every brush stroke, and it edited the footage into a television commercial that encouraged Japan one month after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake disaster (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai). Next to the mural is another giant ad with the commercial's tagline: "In this country, there is untapped strength."
The mural will remain on the Laforet Harajuku fashion store tower in Tokyo until Saturday, May 7. It will then be displayed on the Marui Jam Shibuya department store, just down the road, from May 16 to the end of May. Viz Media published the 33rd and most recent volume of the manga in North America last October.
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