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Hikobae connects Japanese everyday life with a European artistic perspective. Illustrators led by Václav Šlajch, comic author and head of the Media Illustration studio at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (FDU ZČU), and his assistant Dominika Lizoňová adapted 15 scripts by poet and curator Jean-Gaspard Páleníček, who has long been active in Japan. The comic follows the previous title Iogi, which won the Japan International Manga Award and Golden Ribbon. This time, the creators venture into lesser-known corners of Japan and will present the book at the Expo 2025 world exhibition in Osaka, Japan, among other venues. We spoke with Václav Šlajch, Dominika Lizoňová, and scriptwriter Jean-Gaspard Páleníček about its creation, themes, and studio work.

The book Hikobae follows the successful Iogi project. Václav, what led you to the idea of creating a comic about everyday life in Japan, and why did you decide to continue with this theme?

Ordinary everyday life in Japan is very distant from our European notions. When people hear Tokyo, many imagine overcrowded metro, clusters of skyscrapers around Shinjuku station, or the iconic Shibuya crossing with thousands of people flowing back and forth. But these are transit points that ordinary Japanese people pass through on their way to and from work, and their main goal is to leave these places as quickly as possible. We were interested in how people live in residential neighborhoods, what reality "normal life" represents far from the blinking intersections of the big city. But when we finished the first book, screenwriter J.G. Páleníček and I discovered that we were still thematically "loaded" and that it would be a shame not to explore other topics.

How did you select the locations and themes for individual stories? Did you visit all the places personally?

Páleníček's knowledge and inspirational sources played the main role in this regard. Many stories are based on his lived experiences and encounters with specific people. Although during our joint trip to Japan we didn't manage to visit all the places and meet all the story protagonists, Jean-Gaspard didn't write about places where he hadn't been.

The most emotional was certainly our encounter with the staff of Nakase kindergarten in Tokyo, right near the station called Iogi. We went to the kindergarten thinking there would be some obligatory polite introduction and then we'd quickly leave. But the locals decided to spend the whole day with us. We immediately absorbed some kind of local (almost mystical) calm and then we really didn't want to leave that exceptional place. Complete strangers we'd never seen before suddenly became like our family. When we were leaving the kindergarten, they waved to us from the gate and watched us until we disappeared over the horizon. I admit, those of us who are more sensitive were crying. The most cheerful visit was (unsurprisingly) to Mr. Honke's traditional sake brewery. There we experienced the real Japanese countryside with everything that entails.

Dominika, did working in Japan influence the artistic expression of the students?

The Japanese environment influenced the students' technical skills more than their actual drawing style. During their stay, they had the opportunity to master working with brush pens – calligraphic pens that were surprisingly available on almost every corner, often even in regular convenience stores. They quickly grew fond of this tool for its expressive flexibility and the possibility of fine, detailed drawing. All students kept sketchbooks in which they captured small scenes from their experiences – whether views from countless train journeys or impressions from visits to museums, galleries, and street life.

Did you encounter any cultural challenges or misunderstandings while working on the book, Mr. Páleníček?

One of the purposes of Hikobae, but also Iogi, was precisely to try not to stay on the surface. We know several projects from the past, including comic ones, where foreign creators stayed in Japan, usually for some limited time, and then reacted to their first encounters in a work they had to create within a project or grant framework, often without sufficient distance that would allow them to reflect on local reality in any substantial way. So the result speaks more about encountering radical difference than about people's actual lives. That's why we also chose places rather distant from modern urban centers, which better reflect ordinary everyday life. That's also why some Hikobae stories stem from authentic testimonies of real people, for example Teppei Terada, descendant of an important family of ceramic makers, or architect Kazuhiro Toma. Or they focus on precise capture of certain activities, such as the specific sake production process.

Unexpected but delightful for us was seeing photos of Czechs on social media who used the book Iogi as a kind of atypical guide to a different, perhaps more authentic Japan, and who visited more or less obscure places on the outskirts of Tokyo that are captured in our comics.

Václav, how did the Japanese people who are depicted in the book or whose testimonies you used react to your work?

Everyone reacted positively and naturally with traditional Japanese modesty. Ceramicist Teppei Terada, whom we visited in his workshop in the town of Seto, for example, praised the illustration showing him bowing to the lit kiln before firing his artistic works and products. According to him, that comic panel reminded him that bowing to fire isn't just a common habit that he's actually been doing half-automatically his whole life. That it has meaning. There's a request in it, gratitude, humility.

What is specific about Japanese comic aesthetics and how do you explain the rather massive popularity of Japanese manga and Japanese culture in general in Europe and the Czech Republic?

We respect Japanese comic aesthetics primarily for its refined compositions and traditionally sophisticated paneling. And again – "manga" really has much more aesthetic nuance than just those overcooked and annoying characters with big eyes. Japan has really strong "soft power" capital in its local cultural wealth (both traditional and contemporary) and knows how to handle it very skillfully. The current young European generation sees Japan as a cool country for completely different reasons than, say, millennials or boomers.

Dominika, the book Hikobae will be presented at the Expo in Osaka. Can you reveal more details about this presentation?

The program will include twenty-minute commented presentations during which the entire project and selected comics will be briefly introduced. We're trying to adapt the presentation as best as possible to the available technology in the Czech pavilion, and Lukáš Kellner from the Multilab studio at Sutnar Faculty will help us with its execution. We're currently in the preparation phase of video mapping and short animations of selected comics, which we're collaborating on with several studios at the faculty.