I've always been fascinated with Yoshitaka Amano's（天野喜孝） artwork, especially his illustrative work. He's greatly known for his character design for the Final Fantasy series, and also (perhaps not so greatly known) for the Gatchaman anime series (a.k.a. G-Force, soon to be a motion picture... erk. I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to that, though.)
To the joy of fantasy fans everywhere, Amano collaborated with Neil Gaiman to produce a Sandman graphic novel, "Dream Hunters" (1999). The story is actually a re-telling of a Japanese legend/story, set in Heian-era Japan (or so I think, since Onmyouji 阴阳师 and "classical" Japanese supernatural beings figures largely in the plot) -- which makes Amano's flowing style rather relevant. There's something Klimt-ish about his work in "Dream Hunters".
Gaiman's clever style here could've fooled me into thinking that this was something translated directly from a Japanese source! (Well, it is a re-telling of a Japanese story but still, I'm really happy that he took this approach instead of "Westernising" it. :p)
2 comments:
Onmyouji are just the court feng shui masters. The most famous one was Abe no Seimei. Have a look at Wikipedia if you're curious.
franzi,
Feng shui is just one of the many skills and responsibilities of onmyouji's, and then some. :-) They're more popularly known for their exorcist expertise -- although you could, of course, argue that a.) exorcising *has* become part and parcel of feng shui anyways through the centuries or b.) it's just more romantic to be known for exorcising and making acquaintance of supernatural beings than, say, giving out geomancy readings for the next palace to be built or c.) it was them novelists and mangakas who popularised the "onmyouji-as-exorcist" image.
In my mind I tend to group Onmyouji's together with 茅山派道士. Or, ceremonial priestesses to go back to even more ancient times ;-) I mentioned the Heian-period (平安时代) because most Onmyouji stories are set in that period, and perhaps because they enjoyed most power (with a court position and all) at that time.
Abe (安倍晴明) is certainly *the* poster boy of 阴阳师 (although I know I'd be lynched by his fans for calling him "poster boy"...) His character almost always show up in anime/manga of similar genres: more recently in 梦枕獏's novels and 冈野玲子's mangas.
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