Tokyo, Japan

Excerpt from The Day the Rain Fell: an oral history of The Storm by Natasha Silvio and Francisco de Manion

Akio is a young man attending Tokyogeidai, one of the most prestigious arts universities in Japan. We catch up with him on his lunch break where he leads us out to a picnic table and starts in on prepackaged sandwiches and an iced tea that he bought from a FamilyMart. About twenty feet from the picnic table stands a bronze statue of a dancer, a red ribbon tied around her right wrist.

I’ve wanted to be an artist since I was a little kid. Most kids don’t really know what they want to be when they grow up, or if they do it’s always superhero or wizard or something from a manga. Not me.

My mother took me to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum when I was young. I can still remember the entire day. We wandered among the exhibits, listened in on tour groups, took in the paintings, and as we left the museum we walked through the gift shop there. She bought me my very first art book. I still have it on my desk in my dorm room. It’s tattered and worn, and I spilled some stuff on it over the years, but it’s still my most prized possession.

When I got to high school, I was accepted into the Tokyo Senior High School of Fine Arts. That’s where I met Kamiko. I don’t know if her parents knew what they were doing when they named her.

(In Japanese, Kamiko means Little Goddess)

She was a prodigy; the kind that puts other prodigies to shame. As a kid, her parents enrolled her in a music class. Within two years she’d mastered the violin. There were rumors that conductors and composers would visit the school, begging to teach her, giddy about what she could accomplish.

Then, her parents put her in ballet. One year in and everyone was talking about when, not if, she’d become the prima ballerina of the Tokyo Ballet. By the time she was ready to graduate high school, art had become her new obsession. She started with the traditional Japanese art we’re all taught in school, then she moved to watercolors, and finally oil paints. She had this pattern – master something with ease to the point where her ability far outstrips that which everyone else around her could do, then move on to the next challenge.

There was…a lot of jealousy that surrounded her. When she quit the violin, I think a lot of the music students let out a sigh of relief. They would no longer be compared to her. Same thing when she left the ballet. The other dancers wouldn’t be forced to look like uncoordinated children on their first day of class while dancing on the same stage as her. I kind of understood the feeling. She started focusing on art and you’d see her creations and then look at your own and naturally compare the two. Her skill was enough to make you want to snap your paintbrush in half.

Did she brag about her skill? Did she ever make people feel like they’d never be good enough?

No. Nothing like that. The opposite really. She had this way of asking you questions about your work. I remember one day in class, she came over to where I was painting and started asking why I was choosing certain colors, what was the meaning behind the composition. At first, I was closed off. I thought she was mocking me or something. I think that’s how everyone felt. ‘Is she poking fun? Is she looking down on my work?’

But after a while, I started getting really invested in the conversation. She made me…confront my art. Made me think about how I was painting and how I was creating in a way that I’d never done before. By the end of the conversation, I felt energized, like she’d unveiled something for me. It turned into, without a doubt, the best painting I’d ever done. And it was all due to that conversation.

(There’s a pause as Akio tries to find the words to describe what happened next)

There was something at the end though. It was like…she was disappointed. It was just this flash in her eyes, like she was sad I couldn’t see art in the same way that she did. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.

You were with her in Tokyo on the day of The Storm?

Yea. End of January is when you do the entrance exams for TUA. (Tokyo University of the Arts) It takes place over a couple days. There are two ways people get in: recommendations or the general exam. The general exam was my route. They give you a subject and a time limit with which to paint. Kamiko, from what I heard, was offered the recommendation route where she’d meet with a bunch of the professors and show her portfolio and walk them through why she painted what she painted. But instead of doing that, she chose to sit for the general exam with the rest of us.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was the end of the day. There were a few of us still around campus, sitting and talking about all sorts of things, trying to figure out what to do next. Some of us were smoking, some were trying to organize a night out at a restaurant. Kamiko didn’t really talk a lot, but I think she enjoyed being around the conversation.

The rain started coming down and we all retreated to this awning to stay dry. This girl, Haru, was smoking under the awning and I remember her hanging her hand out to let the rain pass through her fingers. That’s when we knew something was different. She jerked her hand back in surprise and…her hand left a trail in the rain. Like an echo of it. Within moments the rain washed away the echo, but all of us sitting under the awning had seen it.

All of us were too stunned to completely understand what had just happened. Haru puts her hand out in the rain, an echo is created that momentarily hangs in the air. It’s unnatural and we were all stunned silent. Everyone except Kamiko. I heard her gasp next to me before she started barking out orders.

It was so unlike her. She was always so quiet and reserved in class. Almost detached. But she demanded we all get our phones out and then she led us into the rain and organized us into a wide circle. She had this red ribbon in her bag that she tied around her right wrist, and then she walked into the middle of the circle, told us to start recording, and waited until the rain had washed away all her echoes.

And then she danced.

I can’t really describe it. It’s better if you just watch.

(He hands his phone over, opened to the video he had taken the day of The Storm. The clip begins with Kamiko in the middle of a wide circle of students, all with their phones pointed at her recording. The soft lighting from the campus light poles mixes with the rain to cast an almost dreamlike haze over her. The red ribbon tied around her wrist flutters in the breeze as she holds herself perfectly still. When she starts dancing, her body seems to transcend the physical, transforming every movement into a stroke of paint on the surrounding canvas. She leaps into the air, pirouettes and performs a pas de bourree. Her body sings a melody, translated into a physical medium. Every movement of the dance is captured in the rain which creates echoes that hover in the air alongside her. The rain ripples with her motion, creating a living oil painting. The dance lasts for two minutes, and as Kamiko comes to a stop, her earliest movements have already been washed away by the rain.)

She titled it “Incomplete”

How did it make you feel?

(Akio struggles with the answer, as if worried that whatever he says will somehow take away from the beauty of the performance)

Like I said, there was always jealousy surrounding her. But after watching her dance that day…we all understood.

Whenever Kamiko played the violin, or danced in the ballet, or painted a picture, we all saw perfection that was far beyond what any of us were capable of. We’d look at what she created and understand the size of the gap between her skill and our own. But to Kamiko, all of her successes tasted of ash. Everything she created felt incomplete to her.

In music, she was desperately trying to convey the full symphony she heard in her mind. But whenever she played, there were missing notes – silent, elusive tones – that rendered what she created janky and broken. Every song she performed was only a half-formed echo of what it could be.

When she danced, despite the genius evident in her movements, it was as if she were struggling against some unseen force. This invisible barrier imposed limitations that kept her from moving the way she needed to, preventing her from bringing out the full beauty of the performance.

When she painted, she was unfulfilled. The colors she needed to fully express her art weren’t there. Every brush stroke she made felt like a compromise. Every completed masterpiece was like a photocopy of a photocopy of the image in her mind, each one deteriorating with reproduction until eventually it becomes a blob that no longer resembles the original.

Watching her create that masterpiece in the rain, we all finally understood that there had been something missing in her act of creation. Every success she had was bittersweet. Everyone who saw her praised her genius, but none of us had been capable of understanding that she wasn’t proud of any of her creations. I mean, how could she be? Everything she made was incomplete.

Art is about capturing how you see the world. Whether it’s a performance or a painting or…whatever, it’s about showing the world your perspective. Kamiko couldn’t do that. She couldn’t explain to others how she saw the world because there were always missing colors or silent musical notes. There were always limitations placed on her, and she could never break free. It must have been exceedingly frustrating.

I still can’t understand how she was able to pack all of that into her creation of “Incomplete.”

Did she use “Incomplete” as her portfolio submission for TUA?

No. Well, yes but no. Someone submitted it. A bunch of us knew exactly what she had created. We…sometimes you see something that is so astounding, so awe inspiring, that you’re happy just to have witnessed it. None of us could have matched what she did in the rain that day, but instead of jealousy that we might have all normally felt, it was replaced by awe.

It's hard not to be jealous when everything she creates is perfect. But I think after watching her performance in the rain, after watching her create her art, you can’t feel jealous. You understand her a little more, understand the troubles she’s faced with. And also, I think you’re happy just to have seen it.

A bunch of us posted it on Instagram and group chats and wherever else. It was like ‘oh man, look at Kamiko and what she made.’ We wanted people to see it. We wanted everyone to understand her a little more. The TUA people got hold of it immediately and offered her a scholarship.

(He pauses again, seemingly lost in the memory of her dance.)

When she finished, she smiled. It wasn’t…I want to say it wasn’t a happy smile. Maybe it was. I don’t know. It was more the smile of…I’m saying it wrong. It was like she had finally found what was missing in her art. She had come to some kind of realization or something.

How are the people in the class towards her lately? Are they still jealous of her talent? Do they still feel less than when they compare their artwork to hers?

(Akio looks visibly confused about the question)

She’s not in class with us. TUA offered her a full scholarship but, nobody’s seen her. We don’t know where she went.

As far as whether people are jealous or not, I don’t think so. She made something that is so far beyond perfect that I don’t think you can feel jealousy towards it.

(Akio looks at the sculpture of Kamiko near the picnic table, the red ribbon flapping in the breeze)

They got all our videos from that day. I heard a rumor that TUA is going to try and stitch them together to create some 3D form of her dance or something. That might be good. I think some of the beauty is lost when you see it in video form.