Tatsuya Yoshikawa, the character designer and artist of Capcom’sBreath of Fireseries, started up a virtual expo. The art exposition is officially titled the “Exhibition of Tatsuya Yoshikawa 2020” and lasts from April 17 to August 07, 2025. The expo is described as a “Spectators-less Solo Exhibition”. Instead of a venue, it’s held online, and you can explore the exposition in 360°on its official site.This exhibition was initially supposed to be held at Gallery El Shaddai in Shinjuku, but it got canceled as Japan entered a state of emergency to slow down the Coronavirus epidemic.The exposition is made of original works. There’s no actualBreath of Fire,etc,art there. It’s composed of brand new works made for the expo, artwork from the previous exhibition in 2017, and specialEl Shaddaiartwork. All of it is pretty gorgeous. Scrolling down the official site uncovers a list of all the artwork, which you can click to read more details on. It’s all in Japanese though.A book for the exposition is also being sold. It contains all its artwork plus exclusive artwork not exposed in the exhibition, such as pictures Yoshikawa did for a previousAssassins' Creedart expo.The shop is accessible here. The shop most probably only ships to Japan so you’ll have to use other means if you wish to obtain it. It’ll probably pop up on other online stores later.Last but not least, the expo’s official site also includes a message from Tatsuya Yoshikawa. He initially planned to refuse this expo offer because of how busy he is. He also apologized to the people he recently refused job offers from to focus on the expo, which took tremendous time and work. He also brings up the fact that no illustrations from the famous game series he’s known for are exposed. The reason is, many of his past illustrations are copyrighted, so he’d need authorizations from various parties to have them exposed in these kind of exhibitions. Lastly, he shared a touching note: This 2020 expo is a tribute to his late father, who loved the 2017 expo. His father passed away in 2019.Tatsuya Yoshikawa provided the art for many Capcom games and characters. Besides theBreath of Fireseries’character design and illustrations, he did illustrations forMegaman XandDevil May Cryas well. He also worked onLast Rankeron PSP andStar Fox Zeroon Wii U.A few months ago Yusuke Hashimotorevealed a new project he’s working on.Tatsuya Yoshikawa works together with him on the project, as the two go way back.Just voicing my thoughts out loud there, but since Capcom seems to be pretty muchrolling in moneynowadays I’d be great if a newBreath of Fireconsole game happened. I know it’s not how it works, and whether it’s profitable or not, whether people will buy it or not, is all that matters in the end, but I’d definitely have preferred that over aResident Evil 4 Remake.Update:Â
The exposition has been extended until May 24. New artwork by Tatsuya Yoshikawa has been added as well. It’s artwork used in indie games he worked on, such as the upcomingStar Child.
