Gallery Fake – It’s the real thing

“My Lins have penetrated to my paunch. My rump’s a crupper, as a counterweight, and pointless the unseeing steps I go”


This episode, a flashback into our hero Fujita’s past where he works on painting a fresco for the ceiling of a prison, probably highlights everything that I love about this forgotten little gem called Gallery Fake.

It’s fascinating artistic detail mixed with a real human story. Here Fujita finds himself working as an assistant to an elderly prisoner – Shiomda Tappei, a former tatoo artist – who’s reason for being in jail is a mystery to Fujita. Tappei paints the fresco and Fujita, then a young and astonishingly feminine looking novice, does the back-breakingly painful assistant work.

While they work, we also get lots of random information about the creation of fresco’s thrown at us. For me, someone who’s in no way “in” to art but is always keen to learn new things, it was all rather fascinating. Suffice to say, however, any potential enjoyment you may derive from Gallery Fake can be ascertained fairly well from how interested you are in knowing that, in fresco’s, “the surface layer is made from a mixture of fine sand and hydrated lime in a ratio of one to one”.

Fascinating, no?

Ok, so I might have made it all sound fairly mundane, but through the twists and turns of the two characters relationship, their pasts and the nature of the fresco’s imagery, we get another of Gallery Fakes lovingly understated observations on the healing powers of art. It strikes a perfect emotional chord and, in a quiet and subtle way, reminds me why it is I love Gallery Fake, and am quite willing to wait months between episodes.

Because what is sad about Gallery Fake is how uncertain its future is as far as being subtitled is concerned. Currently the only releases come via MUJI, a Gallery Fake restoration project that, by the talk on the forum, seems to be run entirely by one guy. Sadly it seems likely that that one guy, King among men as he is, will no doubt give up without support from the community. This show is a fun, unique little curiosity in the world of anime, and it seems a shame that it’s not getting the attention it deserves when dozens of sub groups are literally tripping over eachother to subtitle emo school-girl bullshit like “True Tears”.

Ho hum.

Don’t let all my pseudo-pretentious gushing suggest I view Gallery Fake as some ill-treated classic, however. It is very cheap, with animation quality that hovers somewhere between ‘average’ and ‘totally awful’, and for every brilliant episode like this one, there’s a laughably naff one with a GIANT SNAKE in it. But its unique, often very intelligent and deserves your attention.

So come on anime community, show your support. let’s make it happen!