The Museum of Kyoto is hosting an exhibition for Chūya Koyama‘s Space Brothers franchise until September 23. The exhibit, which takes up two floors of the museum, features more than 200 pieces of original art from the manga as well as story summaries, anime storyboards, information about JAXA and space exploration, models of spacecraft, and of course, a very large inflatable Apo. ANN had a chance to go to the museum and take some pictures of the exhibition.
The exhibition featured many of the original panels Koyama drew for the manga. Some of these included instructions in blue pencil for where to put screentone, and some contained obvious mistakes where the author had to tape over a corrected drawing.
Those interested could also have a picture taken of themselves as the next JAXA astronaut.
The exhibit also featured examples of JAXA space food and model spacecraft.
Also featured were many of the originals for Koyama’s colored images, such as those used for covers of Kodansha‘s Morning magazine where the manga is published and those used as covers for compiled volumes.
Koyama also provided some of his reference materials, including his first ever drawing of Mutta, NASA images, a model hat for Carlo, and even the NASA staff member who inspired the character of Deneil Young.
The exhibit even had an entire area dedicated to Apo, with original pages of manga featuring the character, and of course, a tall inflatable replica.
There was also a souvenir shop with everything from bottles of alcohol to space food and even replicas of Raleigh’s T-shirts of badly-drawn Japanese kanji.
The museum also had a café with Space Brothers-inspired food, including “moon curry,” a flan made in the shape of Mutta’s hair, and “Hibito’s carrot chiffon cake set.”
Visitors could also take home a fake issue of The Yomiuri Shimbun reporting that Hibito is the firstJapanese person to stand on the moon (the subheadline notes that his first word on the moon was “Yeah!!”).
More images from the exhibition can be viewed here.
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