What Author Tomonori Taniguchi Wants to Express Through Picture Story Books
by IGNITION Staff
Tomonori Taniguchi is a picture book author who has successfully reached audiences outside of Japan, releasing his books in France through the publishing company Le petit lezard. Taniguchi’s soft art style has a very human feel and resonated with audiences in France before Japan. The reason for his success lies in his focus on Japan and identity as a Japanese person.
The potential of picture books
“Whenever I put together a picture book or just illustrate something, I’m always striving to create images that can tell a story. No matter whatever I draw I always focus on the story, and I’m not very interested in illustrations that don’t tell a story. That’s why, even when I illustrate a cover for a magazine, I’m always thinking about creating something that tells a story; in this case by making the monkey the main character.
Taniguchi says that whenever he went to art gallery events, he was rarely moved by single works of art. But then he learned about picture books. He believed that pictures with small captions could be used to tell stories and portray messages that could reach kids and adults from all kinds of backgrounds.
“I read a lot of picture books, but the ones that really stuck with me were mainly from foreign authors. Picture books from authors like Charles Keeping and Shel Silverstein, who wrote The Giving Tree, had very deep stories and were full of beautiful art.”
He also says he felt the potential of picture books. “I was very surprised and moved by the fact that even in Japan, foreign picture books were easy to access. I knew that if I were to create a picture book, I would want to reach foreign audiences in the same way.”
The struggles of a picture book author
Still, it was not smooth sailing when he started. There were many cases where publishers wouldn’t even meet with him to discuss his picture books. Most Japanese picture books feature illustrations that look like small children could have drawn them. Compared to those, publishers told Taniguchi his drawings were too dark and children wouldn’t be able to understand them.
“I’m often told that my illustrations are too dark and that children wouldn’t be able to understand them, but I know that is not true. That is just what the adults think is right for the children, but kids are more than capable when it comes to knowing what they like. Plus, I want to create picture books that appeal to adults as well as children.”
Taniguchi truly believes that, instead of forcing himself to appeal only to children, as long as he draws pictures that he thinks are beautiful, he will find an audience. And just like Taniguchi has believed, he currently has fans from all kinds of backgrounds. Whenever he holds book-signing events, his fans range from young kids to elderly people. “After I released my first picture book, my very first fan was an elderly man who was born in the 1920’s.”
Learning the basics of picture books through Japanese paintings
Taniguchi majored in Japanese art at university. He explains that most of his artistic style came from his student years when he was studying Japanese art. “I started by imitating Japanese art. I would start by realistically depicting animals and then bring in past Japanese works to imitate. At that time, I copied the famous Japanese scroll Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga (also known as Scrolls of Frolicking Animals). With the way the movements of the rabbits and frogs are portrayed, I felt it had many things in common with picture books.”
Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga is a picture scroll that has not only been declared a Japanese natural treasure, but is also said to be the origin of Japanese manga since it uses techniques found in manga today. Many Japanese manga use depictions similar to classical Japanese art.
“I wanted to bring the unique worlds found in Japanese art into my own picture books. You won’t find any words in Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga. Although it is a scroll, there aren’t any passages to be read. Instead, the story is told through the various pictures that appear as well as the blank spaces between each illustration. When I was replicating this piece, I decided I want to implement a similar type of story telling in my picture books.
One of the biggest things that influenced Taniguchi to become extremely conscious of Japanese-style beauty was Kanazawa, the city where he spent his university years. During the Sengoku era of Japan, Kanazawa expanded as the town located near the castle built by leading general Toshiie Maeda, and is currently one of Japan’s most historically rich cities. It is the home to many types of traditional Japanese crafts including Kanazawa-shikki, Kanazawa-haku, Kutani-yaki, Kaga-yuzen, as well as traditional events like Noh plays known as Kaga Hosho. Also, geographically speaking it is located between the ocean and the mountains, and its four seasons are very distinct. Living here is what made Taniguchi conscious about Japanese beauty and what it meant to be Japanese.
His turning point came from overseas
Although Taniguchi’s first picture book was more or less a failure, about 3 years later he was approached with an amazing opportunity. “Since it was actually much easier to get my first book published than I had expected, I thought I could easily make a living as a picture book author, but it turned out to be the exact opposite. Because my first book failed to sell many copies, I had a hard time getting out my second picture book. At one point, I even thought that making a living as a picture book artist in Japan would be impossible and considering quitting.”
Taniguchi spent 3 years working part-time while he tried to get his works published. One day, as he began to feel he had done all he could with picture books, he received an email. “I suddenly received an email from a publisher in France. The publisher was focused on art, and apparently their job was to go around Japanese galleries to look for up and coming Japanese artists. The person who emailed me had just come to Japan and by chance came upon my first picture book and really took a liking to it.”
The man turned out to be Stephen Duvall, an employee of France’s Le petit lezard publishing company, the company that is now responsible for publishing nearly all of Taniguchi’s works in France. With this meeting, Taniguchi’s work, which had failed to find an audience in Japan, had found a second chance in the far away country of France.
All of a sudden, Taniguchi’s original dream of creating works that could reach overseas audiences had come true. Since then, Taniguchi has continued to release picture books in France at the rate of 1 book per year.
“Publishing overseas is really interesting because you can feel the cultural differences. Japanese is an extremely expressive language because of its 3 alphabets (Chinese kanji, hiragana, and katakana) and its abundance of onomatopoeic and mimetic words, so we had great difficulty with translate the text into French. In the end, we decided the text was impossible to translate, so we would keep the Japanese text intact and include explanatory notes at the end of the book. For example, if the Japanese onomatopoeic word gatagoto, gatagoto was used, we would explain that this is the sound a train makes in the explanatory notes.” Taniguchi mentions that overseas audiences of all ages find these unique Japanese expressions very interesting.
Recently, Taniguchi is trying to create picture books from traditional Japanese folk stories for foreign audiences. At the moment, as part of his work as an author, he goes around the country holding talk events for children to show them the importance of picture books and what it means to be a picture book author.
“I realized this when I had a book-signing event overseas, but in other countries, book-signings are held quite often and there are many opportunities for children to meet the authors of their favorite picture books. But in Japan, book-signings are rare for picture book authors, which is why I think many children don’t think about becoming picture book authors when they grow up. That’s why on weekends and holidays, I try to hold as many book-signing and live-painting events as possible. It also gives me an opportunity to see the faces of the people who read my books, so this work is very important to me.
Many of Taniguchi’s fans visit the cafe and gallery he opened up in Osaka’s Shijonawate to meet Taniguchi and see his work. Taniguchi created this place as another way to help increase the interest for picture books.
When asked about his future as an author, Taniguchi answered, “I want more people all around the world to read more picture books. Also, I would like to release picture books in English since I haven’t been able to yet.”
(photo: Takuya Shiraishi translation: Nelson Babin-Coy)
Originally published at ignition.co.
