Column: 'Tokyo Beat': The Pixel Art of the 256 Bros.
['Tokyo Beat' is a new, bi-weekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by writer Ryan Winterhalter, focusing on expressions of game culture in Japan. This time, he checks out a group of video game inspired artists.]
A small collection of artists gather, every four months or so, in Tokyo’s most famous game bar, the 8-Bit Cafe, These artists don’t use paint, ink, stone, or any other traditional medium. Instead, they utilize “dots”. By vertically placing small rubber blocks into a square, the artists create what they call “dot pictures”, or what we call pixel art in English.
“I’ve been making pixel art for about seven years” says Hachi, game developer and head organizer of “256 Bros.,” as this group of pixel artists is called. The venue for the event, the 8-Bit Cafe, is a well known bar in Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood. On most weekend nights, it’s filled with game fans playing SNES games and drinking.
The place is also, strangely enough, a popular date spot. About a dozen other people joined in the event, which was held on a Sunday afternoon. It seemed that most, but not all, of the participants were in the games industry. This small group of people is held together by its Mixi community. Mixi is Japan’s largest social network.
Social networking sites in Japan are not quite the force that they are in the west. Mixi is primarily used by a younger demographic and has a strong emphasis on music and blogging. It’s more MySpace than Facebook. Users rarely use their own picture and identifying personal info is kept at a minimum. Pseudonyms and first names are often used instead full names.
After we finished making our own pixel art, we were treated to tofu pixel art by a professional tofu maker named Shota. He creation, was a tofu-pixel art fish from the Super Mario Bros., a Cheep-Cheep.
The heat of the Tokyo summer threatened to turn the Tofu into a rotting, inedible mess. We quickly ate the fish. Afterwards, all that remained was his pixilated bones and a scattering of onions.
The evening ended on a competitive note, since the final event of the night was a Famicon (NES) tournament. We gathered together to play three different games. The player who had the highest combined score would walk away with his choice of prizes. First up was a hacked version of Super Mario Bros. starring Pikachu:
Next up was a game I had never heard about before now, a surprisingly difficult 2D shooter called The New Type.
At the end of two rounds I was in the middle of the pack. I had taken second in Pikachu, but done rather poorly in The New Type. If I was going to win this, I needed a game I knew backwards and forwards...
...and the game was Dr. Mario. This tournament was mine. Actually, I only took third in Dr. Mario, but that was enough to secure me second place in the tournament. I had the choice between the GBA version of the original Legend of Zelda or this dot’s pixel art kit.
It seemed as if video games and pixel art were secondary to just hanging out with like minded people. Most attendees made one or two pieces and then went on to mingle and drink. Video games were just the pretense for the event. The real reason was socializing and drinking.
People do this all the time -- the purpose of a pool table in a bar is to give the customers something to do while they talk. Likewise, the purpose of the pixel art is to give people something to do and talk about.
