Yumiko Kayukawa: Double-O-Something

Let me confess here that You Only Live Twice is my favorite Bond film, slightly pipping Goldfinger.

While otherwise often maligned by Bond aficionados, I love so much about the film. There's the rousing score (by John Barry, with Nancy Sinatra doing the vocal bit on one of the series' most memorable songs), and Little Nellie remains one of Bond's most quaintly unprepossessing technological contraptions.

On top of this, it was set (and much of it filmed) in 1960s Japan, so we get often hilarious doses of sumo, ninja, sake, a Shintō wedding, exotic pearl divers, devious salarymen, and Himeji Castle. Siamese vodka and piranha are also shoo-ins.

I first saw this movie on the telly back in Melbourne, when I was still in primary school. It was my first dose of 'Japan' – and is probably one of the minor and/or subliminal reasons I moved to this country 10 years ago.

So when I saw the painting, above, that leads into this article, along with the one of two pearl divers, by Japanese artist Yumiko Kayukawa, I was hooked. Kayukawa's also did a brilliant Bond image (below) that captures the atmosphere of the '67 film along with several key elements, and it's just so – Pop Art, a movement that also had its genesis in the 1960s.


There's something quite magical about Yumiko's style – a heady, often surreal blend of Western and Japanese elements in which voluptuous, too-beautiful girls share space with ukiyo-e tsunami, pink flamingos, and kimono imprinted with hyenas.

Luckily for me she also turned out to be a friendly, approachable, funny individual who was ready to indulge me with her time when I hit her up out of nowhere for the following interview that appeared today online over at Forces Of Geek. Just click on the title (left) to have a gander.