Cool Japan: worldwide fascination in focus Cool Japan showcases the world’s fascination with Japanese visual culture: from Hello Kitty, Super Mario and Godzilla to samurai, robots, monsters and kawaii (‘cute’) fashion from the streets of Tokyo. Using historic highlights from its world-famous Japan collection, Museum Volkenkunde shows how such contemporary icons are predicated on a long and venerable tradition. Modern illustrators and old masters display striking similarities. Cool Japan shows how age-old techniques and visual tricks in historical prints, woodcuts and paintings are still deployed by modern mangaka (illustrators) and animators. Centerpiece are the four-meter-high painting Uki-Uki by Matsuura Hiroyuki, and the ceramic sculpture Otafuku by Yoshitomo Nara. Not only is there lots to see, there’s also lots to do. Visitors can game to their hearts’ content on Japanese arcade machines or converse with Pepper, the human robot. For fans of comic books and graphic novels there are thousands of mangas to choose from for a good read. In 2017, Cool Japan drew a record-breaking 125.000 visitors to Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden. From September 28 2018, the exhibition is on view in Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam.