Hi Gen,

It was so good to meet you in person in Tokyo and see all of your frames in person. However, you are from Osaka, what was it like growing up in Osaka and what was
your childhood like?

Gen: 

From 1983 to 1989 I lived in a commercial area called Tenjinbashisuji 6-chome in Osaka, and from 1989 to about 2010 I grew up in a factory district on the outskirts of Toyonaka City, Osaka. My father ran a small ironworks, and the factory was on the first floor of a three-story house. Every day, the sound and vibration of my father's hammer hitting the steel echoed throughout the house, which was not normal, now that I think about it. I grew up in a factory district with not a single house within a one-kilometer radius, so it was very quiet at night and on holidays. I was fascinated by the sight of scrap iron and
scrap metal lying around, naturally decaying.