Cat's Eye View series was first released in 1997, as a Macromedia Director movie on Macintosh platform. At that time, I was working as a teacher at a preparatory school for art university.  One day when I went to the office, I found a Macintosh Performa 575 was put at the corner of my room. It was my first encounter with the computer. Adobe Illustrator was pre-installed in it. Frankly, I had looked down on that machine as a tool for the artistic activity. But contrary to my expectations, I became immediately mad to draw my pictures on the computer.

My first computer drawing was a cat. Why a cat? Perhaps, I was impressed with a name "mouse". Because I drew it with a mouse only. And it became a prototype of Cat's Eye View series.  This time I added high resolution images, 16-bit original music written and peformed by ukeke.

HAKONE HACHIRI

Hakone is located on the Tōkaidō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto, which is known by Hakone checkpoint at the Edo period and known by a steep mountain trail. Hachiri means traveling about 30 kilometers. Hakone Hachiri was originally composed by Taki Rentaro (1879 - 1903) , a genius died at the age of 23. He left several famous pieces - such as Kojo no Tsuki, Hana and this one. This movie is an hommage to him.

Bride Doll

I've just released "Bride Doll -Hanayome Ningyou".



This sentimental music was composed by Sughiyama Haseo (1889 - 1952) on the basis of a poetry "Hanayome Ningyou (Bride Doll)" by Fukiya Koji (1898 - 1979) who was a painter and a poet. This movie is an hommage to them.

Just released "Mary Had a Little Lamb". A famous American children's song.
We hope you enjoy it.

 

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

We've just released "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". This is the first release of Suchanworld Karaoke Series. Ukeke and I have been making a number of music videos in recent years. Many of them are Ukeke's original compositions, and others are from Japanese old songs or foreign childern's songs.

Three stooges

This is an old work. At first I intended this movie for Cat's Eye View series, but gave up for several reasons. So this would've been a part of Cat's Eye View vol.8.

About my songs

Yep, I know I'm a poor singer.
For various reasons I decided to sing myself in the end.

At first Ukeke recruited singers at a small avant-garde theater company where she taught before. Two guys applied for it. One is an actress and the other is an actor. They desired to sing our songs. They seemed to us to be earnest.
Ukeke gave each of them two lessons and gave a month in advance for recording.
I reserved a rental studio in Tokyo. No matter how we're looking forward to the recording day !
But.......I swear that was a horribly bad day. I would believe easily even if I was told that these guys had been trained how to sing badly during a month.
The recording was a disaster. We had to try again and again.They obliged me to reserve extra time and to ask the studio operator to digitally-remaster the recorded data. Despite this, there were only craps with us.
They looked like feel a little bit shame at their clumsy singing.
"If I had one more chance !" said the actor.
I said in my head."The professional would never say so."
Anyway Ukeke and I were thoroughly disappointed.
This failure taught us a lesson with no small fees. There are people who don't do their best in the world. We should've realised in advance why they wern't famouse. They're minor actors and will probably be minor to the end of their life.
Ukeke cursed herself to be blind to others.
"You can't blame anybody."
"YOU sing, moheji" said Ukeke.
"ME ? SING ?......... You know I'm a poor singer." surprised I was.
"You're singing these songs everyday, huh ?"
"Yeah, because I wrote them."
"You know, singers have skills and hearts as singers. If it's alternative, I'd choose heart. You have no skill, but heart. Because you wrote them."
"mmm........"

This is the whole story about why I sing poor songs.