Drawing on myths, history, folklore, and literature from the East and West, Morohoshi Daijiro has used his boundless imagination to fuse reality and fantasy to produce a large number of original and creative manga. He presents a number of works that resonate with the Aichi Triennale 2025 theme, A Time Between Ashes and Roses.

“Bio City” is about a phenomenon that occurs on Earth when a spaceship returns from exploring Jupiter’s first moon, Io. Living beings begin to merge with machines and metals. This spreads out, eventually becoming a single massive organism, resulting in a utopia where there is no war and no authority. His Demon Hunter series follows an archaeologist who encounters strange incidents wherever he goes. One story in this series is “Tree of Life,” set in a Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christian) village in Northeastern Japan, telling the story of a new god who saves the descendants of Lucifer, who had been punished for eating the fruit of the Tree of Life by having to suffer on Earth for all time, unable to die (in contrast to Adam, who was banished from the garden of Eden for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge). “Guest of Darkness” is another story in the same series, set in an isolated town and relating how reviving an old festival that had been dormant for close to a century resulted in calling up a demon rather than a god of fortune from a large torii gate standing at a distance from the town. In Mud Men, the son of the chief of an ethnic minority community in Papua New Guinea joins with his Japanese half sister. Together they trace the path of a local myth that resembles the Japanese creation myth of Izanagi and Izanami, having to work out how to survive a life trapped between tradition and Modern society. “From a Faraway Land – P.S. Khao-Khao comes through” is a travelogue following Khao-Khao, a large face that moves between countries once every 130 days. Some countries identify with Khao-Khao, but others feel uncomfortable and attempt to keep out of the way. Some are simply uninterested, and others panic. This is a simple and clear portrayal of the differing values of each of these countries.