VOLUME 5
AKITA
Kanto Festival, Namahage Ogres & Akita Dogs
Kanto poles bending under their own lantern weight. The straw skirts of a Namahage on the last night of December. A snow tunnel cut head-high through a Yokote lane. The deepest lake in Japan, cobalt at its centre. Akita is a winter prefecture before it is anything else. The Sea of Japan pushes weather inland against the beech-clad spine of Tohoku, and by January the rice paddies behind Omagari have flattened into a single white plane. Things come out of that whiteness: kamakura huts glowing from a candle within, kiritanpo skewered beside an irori, a sleeping Akita inu coiled against the boards. Things come out of summer too, briefly, fiercely: the Kanto Matsuri in Akita City, where men balance fifty-kilogram bamboo poles strung with forty-six paper lanterns on their foreheads and lower backs. Forty drawings between these covers. They follow the prefecture from Shirakami's virgin beech down through Tazawa-ko and the milky baths of Nyuto, past the black storehouses of Kakunodate, and out to the basalt cliffs of Oga where the ogres come down at New Year. Begin wherever the snow has thinned.
“Draw the snow before it melts.”
- 40 original Akita Prefecture illustrations
- Single-sided pages to prevent bleed-through
- 8.5 x 8.5 inch square format
- A mix of detailed and breathable compositions
- Brief editorial introduction to Akita
- Anyone with an interest in Japan, its culture, and its quieter rural landscapes
- Adults who use coloring for relaxation and quiet focus
- A considered gift for friends and family with a love of Japan
The Akita coloring book is Volume 5 of Sora Mikami's Prefectures of Japan series, a 47-volume collection that explores Japan one prefecture at a time. It gathers 40 original black-line illustrations of Akita. It draws on Kanto Festival, Namahage Ogres, and Akita Dogs, alongside the everyday scenes Akita considers its own.
You will find Kanto Festival, Namahage Ogres, and Akita Dogs, together with the landmarks, food, and quiet corners that give Akita its character. The compositions move between detailed, intricate pages and calmer, more breathable ones, so there is something for every mood.
Yes. The book mixes detailed illustrations with more open, breathable designs, so beginners and experienced colorists alike can settle in. The large 8.5 x 8.5 inch square pages give you plenty of room to work, and every page is printed single-sided.
Colored pencils, markers, and gel pens all work beautifully. Because every illustration is printed single-sided on white paper, you can use heavier media without bleed-through onto another design. Slip a sheet of card behind the page if you want to be sure.
It is Volume 5 of a planned 47, one book for every Japanese prefecture. The volumes can be coloured in any order, and together they sketch the whole country one place at a time. Akita sits in the Tohoku region of Japan.
