Teacher bookends three years with his class with two stunning pieces of chalkboard art.

Because the Japanese school year both starts and ends in spring, third-year students in middle and high schools are getting set to graduate over the coming weeks. Moving on to the next stage of life, whether it’s continuing education or joining the workforce, can be a scary step, but it’s also the start of a grand adventure, with all sorts of possibilities waiting for those who are brave enough to chase after their dreams.

With the time to say goodbye to his third-years coming up fast, Japanese art teacher and Twitter user @wistariavillage wanted to remind his students of all that, and naturally he chose to do that visually. So after all the school’s students had gone home for the day, @wistariavillage stayed behind, wiped his classroom’s board clean, and started drawing, so that the next time his students walked into class, this was waiting for them.

▼ “Set forth on your new adventures!” @wistariavillage says.

That’s the cover artwork for the latest game in the Pokémon franchise, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, reproduced in amazing detail. And while the game’s Hisui region is a wild, forestry environment, the green borders on @wistariavillage’s artwork aren’t something he added to give the impression of vegetation. They’re simply the sections of the chalkboard he didn’t use.

Yes, the chalkboard. @wistariavillage didn’t do this with dry-erase markers on a whiteboard, but instead drew the entire thing with chalk.

It’s not just the skill that’s impressive, but the speed too. @wistariavillage didn’t do the drawing over a weekend or school holiday. Between staying late after work and arriving the next day as soon as staff could get into the school, he managed to get everything done in seven hours, applying the last strokes of chalk just four minutes before students started showing up.

▼ A work-in-progress shot of where @wistariavillage stopped on the first day

Oh, and the story gets sweeter still. Those third-years who are graduating this month? Three years ago, to celebrate the friendships they’d be forming with their new schoolmates, @wistariavillage drew the cast of Dragon Quest XI for his students.

“Because of the pandemic, we haven’t been able to hold fun school events for the students as often as we usually would, so at the very least, I wanted to give them a place where they could pose for photos together today,” says @wistariavillage of his Pokémon chalkboard art, but it’s a safe bet that the memory of a teacher’s kind gesture will last a lot longer than a day.

Source: Twitter/@wistariavillage via Jin
Top image: Twitter/@wistariavillage
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