Amano on Yaruo

As part of his promotional effort for his new Amano Galaxy exhibition, acclaimed illustrator Yoshitaka Amano is making two live appearances on Japanese video hosting site Nico Nico Douga in which he’ll draw original interpretations of two ASCII characters determined by NicoDou user votes. Last night Amano made his first guest appearance, drawing his own version of “Yaruo.” The Yaruo character is a dim-witted instructor mascot frequently added to user posts in the “Newsflash” section of Japanese message board 2channel.

A recording of Amano’s entire 40 minute live appearance is available on NicoDou in two parts: first half, second half. The 5 minutes of Amano drawing Yaruo is also isolated in a third recording. Access to NicoDou video is free, but requires registration.

Amano’s second live appearance will be this evening. Judging by yesterday’s polling numbers, Kuma has the second highest number of votes by a strong margin over Tall Mona, which has a small lead over Jinsei Owata.

Image from Canned Dogs