The Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo will host the exhibition "Animals & Monsters: Cute, Scary, and a Little Weird" from June 23 to August 23, 2025. The show features 140 ukiyo-e woodblock prints, about one-fifth newly acquired, split into two parts with entirely different works. Highlights include anthropomorphized cats, a dancing fox by Koson Ohara, a chimera of the Chinese zodiac, and prints from Yoshikazu Utagawa's "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido" series, showcasing the playful and bizarre side of traditional Japanese art.
This exhibition matters because it reframes ukiyo-e—often viewed as refined high culture—as a medium that also embraced humor, whimsy, and the grotesque, making it accessible to contemporary audiences. By placing the show in Tokyo's Harajuku district, a hub for youth culture and fashion, the museum bridges historical art with modern pop sensibilities, potentially attracting new and younger visitors to a specialized museum. It also highlights the museum's ongoing collection development and its role in preserving and reinterpreting Japanese heritage.