The Yanai Initiative

UCLA + Waseda University
reimagining the Japanese humanities
for the world

A-side / B-side: Conversation & Music

Now available for purchase: a limited-edition record featuring novelist Furukawa Hideo and musician Mukai Shūtoku, pressed from a lacquer master cut before a live audience.

A poster by Kamijō Takahisa from The Poster Project (2017)

In 2017, the Yanai Initiative worked with eleven major Japanese designers to reimagine a legendary series of posters created in 1982

One of two kyogen masterclasses with Nomura Mansai and Ishida Yukio held at UCLA in 2017

Designated holders of Important Intangible Cultural Property Nomura Mansai and Ishida Yukio each held one free masterclass for participants from UCLA and the broader Los Angeles community