Finally reaching the front door, most people probably miss Aya Takano's mural covering the opening archway--a sea of girls floating above technological warfare so deep and saturated you head straight for the Chappie custodial army. If you do happen to miss it on the way in, that's okay because with her animation of the elements in four movements there's no way you'll miss it on the way out.

The Chappie Army is more or less Groovisions' trademark. Supposedly the Chappies have no age or gender, but damn if I wasnąt trying to see which one of the 20 identical girls with the big, big eyes had the cutest haircut. God, I'm such a pervert. These figures are made with amazing precision, outfitted in white jumpsuits, some with helmets, some with safety glasses, some with goggles, and you could easily lose yourself and spend the whole time staring back at them, trying to figure out what they're looking at because they're aren't quite looking past you, and they aren't quite looking directly at you, either. On the right there is the Super Flat Manifesto, which a good number of people take time to read. The left wall is covered with screen shots of Yoshinori Kanada's Galaxy Express 999 with video of the bleak animation rolling in the corners, fiery dragons rising from apocalyptic flames, diving and darting above a crumbled metropolis before burning out over and over and over. The sound is a screeching of modified white noise and feedback probably sampled by the likes of Buzz'oven.

I walk up the stairs past Kanada's stills on the lookout for what Yoshitomo Nara was telling me and Eric about a week earlier over free Pacific del Sol beers--well, me anyway. "You have to see this girl's stuff," he told us. "It will make you shit!"

That comes at the top of the stairs in the form of a towering 80-foot wide Illustrator mural by Chiho Aoshima comprising every hue of blue imaginable. Faeries, cheerleaders, and mermaids sweeping dreamily along the length of the wall, covering even every inch of an inset doorframe, door knob, and door itself. Seriously, the piece is so big it could only be taken in slices because of the actual geometry of the room makes it impossible to see the work in its entirety from any one spot unless you have walleye or panoramic vision.



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