{"id":34,"date":"2019-10-08T15:15:36","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T06:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2019-11-15T15:23:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T06:23:02","slug":"akira_otsuka","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/akira_otsuka\/","title":{"rendered":"Akira Otsuka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-35 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/akira-otuka-425x600.jpg\" alt=\"Akira Otsuka\" width=\"790\" height=\"1116\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/akira-otuka-425x600.jpg 425w, https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/akira-otuka-725x1024.jpg 725w, https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/akira-otuka-768x1085.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/akira-otuka-1087x1536.jpg 1087w, https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/akira-otuka.jpg 1235w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Born in Nagaoka, Niigata, \u014ctsuka currently resides in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, and is a member of JiLLA, the Japan Illustrators\u2019 Association.<\/p>\n<p>A graduate of Tokyo Designer Gakuin College, he joined Joymark Design, an apparel manufacturer, where he created the popular character Captain Santa.<\/p>\n<p>He became freelance illustrator and character designer in 2005, and headed the Sundays Graphics studio. \u00a0His style is noted for its American character touch.<\/p>\n<p>In the summer of 2005, the studio\u2019s original brand Sunday Sundy T-shirts was released for sale at the Sony Plaza. In 2007, the studio\u2019s A-kun, Lu-chan, and Bi-kun became mascots for the Japanese soccer team Albirex Niigata.<\/p>\n<p>In 2008, he created the characters Phoeny and Don-Bee for his earthquake-stricken hometown of Nagaoka, famous for its firework festival.\u00a0 Phoeny the Phoenix was symbolic of the city\u2019s recovery efforts from disaster.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, he produced Saku-saku Katsu-mon, the official mascot commemorating the 50<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the eatery Tonkatsu Shinjuku Saboten.<\/p>\n<p>Many of his characters have also appeared in illustrated books.\u00a0 He has done illustrations, characters, and graphic design for apparels, kids\u2019 brands, headwear, houseware, and created original characters for corporations, organizations, and new products.\u00a0 He has also done calendars, pamphlet illustrations, as well as participating in project exhibitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Born in Nagaoka, Niigata, \u014ctsuka currently resides in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, and is a member of JiLLA, the Japan  [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-noside.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooninc.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}