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Maya Nakanishi was a 21-year-old dreaming of a tennis career when a five-ton steel girder fell on her at work severing her right leg below the knee. After six months of hospitalization, a resolute Nakanishi began training with a prosthetic limb and showed remarkable progress right away, qualifying for a berth on the Japanese team at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games. Although she barely missed medalling at the ’08 Paralympics, Nakanishi vowed to transform herself into one of the best prosthetic-wearing sprinters in the world, and a year later was accepted into a program that enabled her to train under gold medal triple jumper Al Joyner at a U.S. Olympic Training Center in California. Nakanishi is currently training in preparation for the 2012 London Paralympic Games to be held August 29 till Sept. 9, the biggest paralympic event ever with 4200 athletes from 160 countries competing in 20 events. But world-class “amateur athletics” is a misnomer, and para-athletes often pay their own expenses to compete unlike they able-bodied counterparts. Nakanishi, now 26, found herself scrimping to make her athletic dreams come true. Aside from everyday living expenses, Maya had to pay to use training facilities and for her trainer. Paralympic regulations required that she have at least two prosthetic limbs for the competition. And at about 1.2 million yen ($14,500) a piece, they cost a pretty penny. During the worst times, Nakanishi found herself living in her car. But Maya lost a limb not her resolve. Earlier this year, she decided to publish a calendar featuring photographs of her posing semi-nude wearing nothing but her rose-pink prosthesis, raising quite a few eyebrows across prudish Japan. Some people went as far to criticize Maya for “humiliating disabled people” by baring her disability. “A prosthetic limb is something beautiful, not something you should be embarrassed at being seen with,” said Nakanishi, whose prosthetic legs are made of red fabric and fabric with a rose print. She also said that publishing a semi-nude calendar is also meant to bring more attention to the financial adversity fellow Paralympic athletes are facing. “No matter how much disdain and bashing I will receive for the calendar, I want to pave the way for younger athletes to shine,” she said. A limited 2,000 copies at 1200 yen (US$15) apiece are available. Visit Nakanishi’s website at ameblo.jp/n-maya/ for details. [Yahoo! Sports ~ Maya Nakanishi] [Spiegel Online ~ Maya Nakanishi: Ein Kalender als Paralympics-Ticket] [The Asahi Shimbun ~ Athlete poses seminude to fund Paralympic dream]
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“When the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown struck northern Japan, I felt powerless to do something substantial to help my homeland. Family circumstances took me to Japan a few months later, and I resolved to visit the devastated area to see it with my own eyes. While I was there I decided to draw portraits of people who are living in shelters, to give them some token that a visitor from far away in America cares about their plight. “I remembered that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City, school children in Japan sent 1,000 paper cranes, a symbol of healing and good fortune, to my children’s school. I decided to make 1,000 Portraits to give to people in northern Japan – a symbolic way to demonstrate that others care for them and that we support each other in a crisis. “During five subsequent trips to Japan, I was assisted by a humanitarian aid group, which arranged for me to visit schools and shelters. The response was overwhelming; when I focused on my subjects, they started to talk, or sometimes to cry. One woman told me that she had lost all her family photos in the tsunami, and was so grateful to have my portrait of her.” Nakagawa is shown (above) with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly after sitting for a portrait last year. Ironically, Commissioner Kelly briefly lived in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, one of the areas hardest hit by the 3-11 earthquake and tsunami. Nakagawa’s “1000 Portraits of Hope” will be on display from June 18 through Aug. 8 as part of “Voices From Japan: Despair and Hope From Disaster” at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112 Street. For more information, visit stjohndivine.org
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That’s Karen Hsiao (Miso) and her piece for Game Over. Sean Chao and Shelby Cinca with Yeren, the game. Nick Arciaga with his Bub and Bob Kaiju. Chris Chan’s Streetfighter wood series. Very nice and they’re over a foot tall each. Luke Chueh always comes through for us.
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Tottori’s prefectural government has announced they will hold events in Tokyo leading up to its International Manga Expo later this summer. Tottori on the west coast of Japan is well known as the hometown for famous Japanese manga artists such as Shigeru Mizuki (Gegege no Kitaro), Gosho Aoyama (Detective Conan), and Jiro Taniguchi (Distant Neighborhood). First. the prefecture will host a manga event in Tokyo’s Akihabara “Electric Town” district on July 1, officials said. The Tottori prefectural government lsat year came up with a regional promotional program called “Manga Kingdom Tottori” to capitalize on the prefecture’s ties to the roots of manga and anime. The prefectural government then concluded an agreement with the ATPA to hold an event in Akihabara. The Akihabara promotion will be followed by Manga Kingdom Tottori August through November 2012. Then, in November, it will host the International Comic Artist Conference to bring together comic artists from overseas. Sakaiminato City, Tottori Pref., shot to fame after it served as a location for the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) drama series “Gegege no Nyobo” (The Wife of Gegege) that aired in 2010. The story follows the lives of manga artist Shigeru Mizuki, the creator of the “Gegege no Kitaro” horror manga series, and his wife. The birthplace of Mizuki, the city also boasts the Mizuki Shigeru Road. More than 130 bronze statues of “yokai” ghouls and hobgoblins from the manga line city streets. At least 3 million visitors are attracted to the sightseeing spot every year. Meanwhile, the “Conan Street” was completed in 1999 in Hokuei, the hometown of “Detective Conan” manga series author Gosho Aoyama. Bronze statues of the manga characters are placed along the streets. The town office also opened the Gosho Aoyama Manga Museum, in which the artist’s illustrations from his childhood diaries are on display. His studio was also reproduced in the museum. Jiro Taniguchi is also a world-famous manga artist from the prefecture. He has been critically acclaimed in Europe for his elaborate drawings and was named a chevalier (knight) of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. Taniguchi has earned the nickname of “Yasujiro Ozu” in the manga industry. Although the artist was born in the prefectural capital, his “A Distant Neighborhood” is set in the city of Kurayoshi, which retains beautiful rows of traditional white walls and storehouses. [The Asahi Shimbun ~ Tottori Celebrates Manga Heritage ~ Manga Kingdom Tottori]
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TOKYO ~ A 9-year-old boy has become the youngest Japanese to have ever designed a government memorial coin after his artwork was chosen for one of the coins to be issued to commemorate the Great East Japan Earthquake reconstruction project. The design by Taichi Kojima, a fourth-grader at Odawara municipal Kuno Primary School in Kanagawa Prefecture, shows a boy holding Japanese flags, with “Ganbaro Nippon” (Hang on, Japan) written in colorful words beside him. This is the third time the government has chosen designs for memorial coins from the public. The previous coins commemorated the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the 1985 Tsukuba Exposition. [Kyodo ~ Commemorative Coin]
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