高橋真琴さんが追求する少女の在るべき姿

By Jamie Lano

　日本で生まれ育った女性ならば、星が輝く瞳と静かなほほ笑みをたたえた、夢あふれる少女の絵を、一度は見かけたことがあるのではないでしょうか？作者は、こうした少女画を描き続けて59年目を迎えた高橋真琴さんです。男性の目線ばかり気にする最近の少女の姿に抵抗を感じるジェイミーは、少女独特の愛らしさを存分に引き出す高橋さんの作品に強く引かれ、今回インタビューが実現。活力あふれる高橋さんと少女像について語り合いました。

　I recently had the opportunity to meet a rarity, a truly happy man. Macoto Takahashi is an illustrator and easily the happiest person I have ever met.

　Takahashi-sensei is in his late-70s, but full of life and vigor. He pours his heart into drawing beautiful young girls. These girls look innocent, sweet and pure. They live in the world of princesses and fairy tales, where a knight in shining armor is right around the bend, ready to sweep them off of their feet. Their eyes, full of stars, seem to see the world for its possibilities.

　In today's world of AKB48 and Britney Spears, girls who sing and frolic on the beach in string bikinis, purity is something that is simply, not seen. Maybe I am a bit too innocent, too much of a prude. But I am weary of the media's portrayal of women as if their only asset is their bodies. How did we get to this point?

　Luckily, there are artists like Takahashi-sensei, who believe in the same kind of world that I do.

　We were at a gallery in Ginza, where he was staging one of his biannual art shows. I was curious about why a male artist would draw these girls. The kind of girls that seem to have come straight from an innocent maiden's heart.

　"Well," he said, smiling, "In my family, I didn't have any sisters. The only girl was my mother. So, I wanted to find out what a girl's world was like."

　A girl's world?

　"There are five things that I consider when I draw," he said. "The first is kihin, or class. Then, yasashisa, kindness. Then, shoujo no seiketsukan, or purity. They also have to be kawaii, or cute, but it's more than that. The last is hajirai. Shyness, but also a sense of knowing where their boundaries are. It's something that has all but disappeared in modern society."

　"That's exactly what I think," I said. "Today's girls just conform to whatever a guy wants them to be."

　"Right," he said.

　It's kind of sad. I feel it's not just the purity that is gone; it's also the modern girl's sense of individuality. When she finds a boyfriend, she starts to change everything about herself, to make him happy. I've done it myself, and when I did, I hated who I became. I wasn't myself anymore.

　"If I can put all of those qualities into a drawing," Takahashi-sensei continued, "then I hope people will notice at least one or two of them."

　Despite his age, I had never met any man with such lively eyes. Like the girls that adorned the walls around us, he was filled with joy. Whether it was because he was innocent, or because he was doing something every day that made him happy (drawing), I don't know. But what I do know is that I want to be as happy as Takahashi-sensei.