"I prefer a colorful world."
Kana Nakamura
2026
Kappa Ebisen bag (petroleum-saving package), acrylic gouache, permanent marker
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I painted this piece on June 25, 2026.
In June 2026, Calbee began releasing products like potato chips and Kappa Ebisen in monochrome printing (petroleum-saving packaging) instead of their usual color printing.
War is a major reason for the shortage of petroleum raw materials.
As of June 2026, due to the escalation of tensions in the Middle East, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and disruptions in logistics, Japan was facing a shortage of imported naphtha (a raw petroleum material).
If there were no war, there would be no oil shortage, and the snacks would have been released in their usual colorful packaging. When I saw the black-and-white bags lined up on the supermarket shelves, I felt the shadow of war gradually creeping into our daily lives.
When this monochrome packaging came out, a certain movement started among illustrators in Japan. It was an attempt to doodle their own drawings using permanent markers (which are also made from petroleum) on the blank spaces left simple by the petroleum-saving design.
Everyone was drawing beautiful pieces, and I thought it was a fun, humor-filled movement. At the same time, however, I felt a certain sense of crisis. I wondered, "Is it really okay to just enjoy and consume this black-and-white packaging caused by an unreasonable war, leaving things as they are? Can we really ignore the underlying problem?"
Petroleum materials are also heavily included in the tools used by painters and illustrators. Not just permanent markers, but all kinds of paints, markers, and even erasers are derived from petroleum. If the oil shortage continues like this, art supplies might become harder to get. If that happens, the next thing to turn monochrome after the packaging might be the very art I create.
I thought to myself, rather than monochrome, "I prefer a colorful world."
So, instead of using a black marker to doodle on the monochrome package and keep it monochrome, I decided to use acrylic gouache (also petroleum-based) to create a colorful drawing.
I usually paint a lot of plants, especially flowers. This is because I love flowers, and since my childhood, plants have always felt closer to me, both mentally and physically, than human beings.
In Japan, when people speak out against war, they are often ridiculed with the phrase "ohanabatake (flower garden) thinking." It is a form of mockery meaning that one is just spouting naive ideals without looking at reality.
"Then, I will paint a flower garden," I thought. If we cannot depict our ideals, it is not true expression.
I surrounded the package with colorful flowers, and to show that we are looking in the same direction as the character in the center, I placed a dog fairy—my alter ego—sitting there, and wrote "NO WAR."
At 10:09 PM on June 25, 2026, I posted the piece "I prefer a colorful world" on X (formerly Twitter). Within a day, the post recorded around 4,000 reposts, 30,000 likes, and over 1.8 million impressions.
What made me personally very happy was that the painter Yoshitomo Nara liked and reposted it from his official X account. This is because I have always been deeply encouraged by Mr. Nara's work, which has long infused the spirit of NO WAR and NO NUKES.
Even now, this painting is being interpreted in many different ways by many people.
The consumption cycle of social media is fast, and this painting will probably be forgotten soon. However, I want to continue my creative practice without ever forgetting that I made a stand here.