The national Art Centre, is located in Minato, Tokyo and is a five minute walk from Nogizaka station on the Tokyo Metro Chiyado Line. The building itself is very spacious and was designed by one of the Japanese architects, Kisho Kurokawa. The Center itself has no permanent collections but hosts various traveling exhibitions and shows. Cafes, souvenir shop and an art library is located within the building and the center is open from 10am-6pm all week except for Tuesdays so if you are interested in art, this is a good place to start! The art Centre had two million visitors in 2013, ranking it 20th most visited art museum globally.
Currently there’s an exhibition titled ‘Manga, Anime, Games from Japan’ which is located on the 1st floor of the centre, it is 1000 yen to get in or 500 yen for students. Other discounts are available for groups and advanced bookings. Even if you don't have much understanding of Anime or Manga this exhibition was interactive and enjoyable. Focusing on the period from 1990 to 2015, the exhibition is spread over eight different sections, and as you walk around they have videos, photographs, drawings & even games, which you can play at your pleasure. A few examples of the themes include ‘Contemporary Heroes and Heroines’ which has information and photographs about these characters which have remained through the genres. Another section focuses on ‘The Fruits of a Network Society’ which shows an understanding of how such genres have developed within the past 25 years. Although some aspects of this exhibition are produced in English, much of it is only available in Japanese. For me one of the most interesting part was titled under “The technique of the artist” which displayed various photographs of cars to produce the visuals for Gran Turismo 6. I wasn’t very good at one of the interactive games on the Wii so one of the friendly staff members helped me out.
This exhibition is open until August 31st 2015 but the whole centre is closed on Tuesdays. I would recommend visiting The National Art Centre, but only if you have a keen interest in the exhibitions which are on show. If you enjoy playing games this exhibition is defiantly for you as various consoles such as PSP, Nintendo 64, and Nintendo DS and Play stations are available to play for visitors. At the end of the exhibition a shop is there to purchase various genre related goods.
