Shodo is the ancient and revered art of Japanese calligraphy. Not really the kind of thing you’d expect young girls to be doing, right?
Well, a new film, Shodo Girls, based on fact, depicts a group of high school girls who revitalize calligraphy through unconventional, modern means. Simultaneously drawing multiple characters with giant brushes onto a massive piece of paper, the Shodo Girls dance to music and pump the calligraphy with J-Pop energy.
“Performance shodo” got really going thanks to an annual event called the Shodo Performance Koshien, where school girl groups compete to see who can produce the best calligraphy-music-dance performance. What they write is certainly not traditional shodo, but colorful, bold and infused with unmistakable kawaii dashes.
[Performance shodo isn’t actually completely new. There have been notable artists doing it for a while, including Takahiro Yamaguchi and Yabe Chosho (above, right). However, its growing popularity amongst a younger demographic is evident from the Shodo Girls film.
A similar new service is now offered by Fudejiya. Based from her studio in Arakawa, Tokyo, the calligrapher Masumi Narita’s performance shodo is available for hire at your wedding, company event — or basically anything.
For the cost of around 150,000 JPY (c.$1,600) Narita will write something inspiring for the occasion. If it’s a wedding she will draw “love” or some such appropriate one-word slogan; for a corporate event, “dream” and so on. You can say a lot more in one kanji character than you’d think.
William is an editor of JapanTrends.com and researcher for 
When you have a tradition, when in doubt, just stick on some pop music and hey presto you can make it popular. Apparently. Not. A fad, it’ll pass.
Wow; the readers on here are so negative!