(MOFU)インタビュー

The Laugh That Comes Later: Ohkura Motonari on Kata, Inheritance, and Seven Centuries of Kyōgen

Shohei Toguri — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 13:22:01 GMT

The nō stage is solid hinoki cypress, and when you stand on it, something comes back up through the soles of your feet — or so they say. There are no microphones; none are used in any nō theatre. On this day, Ohkura Motonari arrived carrying several masks. He had seated them in the car, seatbelt fastened — because if the car were rear-ended, they would be crushed.

The Space Between the Flowers ー Kouen Yokoi and the Art of Arranging Emptiness

Shohei Toguri — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 13:00:00 GMT

In the atelier, wood comes before flowers. Driftwood leaned against the wall, bamboo reaching almost to the ceiling, old timber waiting for the day it will become a work. A single pair of shears bites into a length of material on the diagonal, and makes a dry sound.

Braiding a Thousand-Year Thread into the Present — The Handwork Philosophy That Yusoku Kumihimo "Domyo" Continues to Keep

Shohei Toguri — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:55:05 GMT

Ueno, Tokyo. Stepping into Domyo's building, which stands quietly among the office blocks, the first thing to come into view is Kumihimo — braided silk cord — in every color. Going up to the floor above, what reaches the ear is a small, dry sound of tama striking against tama, the weighted bobbins that hold the silk. Karan-karan, karan-karan. Behind that sound, which continues in a steady rhythm, an artisan sits before a braiding stand — the dai — strung with bundled silk threads, moving the threads through a fixed sequence. On a floor higher still, light falls on a bundle of silk threads just dyed, and the reds and golds and indigos rise up with surprising vividness. Nowhere in this process of making Kumihimo was there any sign of hurry.

Toward the Unseen: What Noh Offers Beyond Performance

Shohei Toguri — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Noh is not simply an old form of theater. Through the words of Tomoyuki Takeda , a Kanze-school shite-kata Noh performer, what comes into view is its origin in prayer, the imagination that raises a world upon an empty stage, a bodily discipline in service of the space rather than the self, and the realities of transmission today. To encounter Noh may be, more than learning its stories, to encounter a way of turning oneself toward what cannot be seen.

The Sword Polisher Who Chooses Not to Finish

Shohei Toguri — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:00:00 GMT

When you are shown into the polishing room, the first thing you notice is a particular way of sitting. The posture resembles nothing in everyday movement, and someone working only by imitation cannot hold it for even a minute.

The Stroke That Cannot Return: Shukou Tsuchiya on Living a Thousand-Year Art

Shohei Toguri — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMT

In his atelier in Higashi-Kitazawa, Tokyo, the contemporary sumi-e painter Shukou Tsuchiya speaks of a sensation he calls shitomeru — literally "to bring down," as in hunting, but used here for the single, irreversible stroke that must succeed on the first attempt, drawn with the whole body and spirit concentrated into it.

Zen, Beyond Self-Protection: A Conversation with Rev. Taijun Namiki of Kinryuji

Shohei Toguri — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMT

At Kinryuji, a temple in one corner of Asakusa, the head priest (jūshoku), Rev. Taijun Namiki, speaks of Zen not as "a technique for protecting the self strongly," but as "a practice of quietly letting go of the self that keeps comparing." Born into the temple, trained in law, and having passed through the experience of monastic practice and illness, he arrives at these words—and through them, we look once more at the contours of what Zen is as a practice.

What Gindendo Inherits: Silver, Time, and the Meaning of Atsurae

Shohei Toguri — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Intro

What first remains in the mind upon entering the workshop is its quietness.