Here, we will report on the class and the activities of the students of Doshisha University’s “World Heritage PBL Course ~ Regional Revitalization through O2O Marketing” (in charge: Prof. Minoru Tada) at Nijo Castle ×.

Fieldwork in and around Nijo Castle

In the class on Sunday, July 12, we conducted fieldwork in Nijo Castle and the surrounding area, and interviewed the staff of Nijo Castle.
In Dr. Tada’s class, there are four teams: two groups of “Team M,” who are in charge of marketing strategies such as research, analysis, and consideration of crowdfunding, “Team A,” which is in charge of public relations strategies using social media, and “Team Y,” which is in charge of video production and publication on YouTube. This time, we were divided into four teams.
On the day of the event, we gathered at 1 p.m. and first did fieldwork around Nijo Castle for about one and a half hours for each team.

Team A investigated the Shinsen-en Garden, which is adjacent to Nijo Castle. At Shinsen-en, we conducted research on its history and cultural properties, and confirmed its relationship with Nijo Castle.
Team Y conducted a survey around Nijo Castle, and since there are elementary and junior high schools in the vicinity, it was suggested that it would be effective to approach the children and students in the surrounding area to get them interested in the goodness of Nijo Castle.
Two teams from Team M surveyed the shops around Nijo Castle, and one of them visited the Sanjo shopping street. In the Sanjo shopping street, I discovered that there are many shops that place more emphasis on local residents than tourists.

　

After fieldwork in the surrounding area, the students were divided into teams and continued their fieldwork in Nijo Castle for about 90 minutes. During the fieldwork in the castle, while the information pamphlets are available in multiple languages, many of the signboards installed are only in Japanese, and there were many discoveries and realizations, such as the possibility of conveying the charm of Nijo Castle by making it multilingual, and the usefulness of devising catch phrases that match the historically significant Nijo Castle.

　

After the fieldwork, we interviewed Tamaki Goto, the head of the Nijo Castle Office of the Kyoto City Culture and Citizenship Bureau. In the interview, questions were asked about the events that have been held at Nijo Castle so far, as well as the restrictions and difficulties due to the fact that it is a cultural property. In addition, there was a lively exchange of opinions on specific proposals, led by students.

In the future, we will go through voluntary activities during the summer vacation to make our proposals concrete.

Guest lecturer: Lecture by Mr. Ryoichi Kawajiri

Mr. Ryoichi Kawajiri (Ginga Writer / Visiting Professor at Tohoku University of Art and Design) was invited as a guest lecturer to give a lecture on advertising and promotion.
Kyoichi Kawajiri is an editor specializing in advertising creative. Since the theme of Professor Tada’s class is to attract tourists to Nijo Castle and revitalize events through online promotions, he gave a lecture that was very helpful when planning future promotions.

Mr. Kawajiri covers the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, a competition for advertising, communication and promotion, held annually in Cannes, France. This year’s event was held in late June, and we talked about the recent trends in promotion and tips for planning, including the contents of the interview. In the lecture, while introducing the award-winning works of the Cannes Lions, there was also an explanation with specific examples, such as how the O2O method is used in the process.
Mr. Kawajiri also gave important suggestions for future projects, such as the importance of “simple and bold ideas and stories that bring strong empathy” in promotions using O2O, and that “O2O has already been incorporated into daily life (in an “O=O” state), so there is no need to think so hard.

　

After Mr. Kawajiri’s lecture, the students were divided into groups and shared what they felt and learned in the lecture to deepen their experiences, and each group had a question-and-answer session. During the Q&A session, opinions were exchanged on the pros and cons of using “Yuru Chara”.

In the next class on Sunday, July 12, we will visit Nijo Castle and try fieldwork and interviews.

 

Learning about Nijo Castle

On Thursday, June 11, a class was held by Professor Tada of Doshisha University, who is developing activities at Nijo Castle. The first class of Mr. Tada’s class was held on Saturday, May 30, at a joint opening ceremony and general orientation with other classes, so this was the first time that he had a class held alone.
The theme of Professor Tada’s class is “creating a ‘device’ for regional revitalization from O2O marketing methods.” O2O is an abbreviation for Online to Offline, which refers to a marketing method that uses online (web) promotions such as social media to direct consumers to physical stores that sell and provide related products and services (offline).

Nijo Castle is in the midst of a full-scale repair project that has spanned 20 years since the castle was built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603, and aims to cover part of the repair costs with donations and profits from various event projects. One of the challenges of this class is to propose how to increase interest in Nijo Castle, increase the number of visitors and participants in various events, and earn revenue to cover repair costs using the O2O method.

In this class, in order to deepen the understanding of Nijo Castle, a lecture was given by Mr. Umebayashi, the head of the former Nijo Castle Office. Mr. Umebayashi introduced the history of Nijo Castle, the cultural properties in the grounds, and the evaluation of Nijo Castle from Japan and abroad, and then explained the “World Heritage Nijo Castle MICE Plan” that Nijo Castle is working on. MICE is an acronym for “Meeting,” “Incentive,” “Convention,” and “Exhibition/Event.” By providing Nijo Castle, a World Heritage Site with high historical value, as a venue for MICE, we aim to widely disseminate the charm of Nijo Castle and Kyoto, as well as the value of cultural properties, and at the same time, earn revenue. He talked about the events he has held so far and the difficulties that arise from the fact that it is a cultural property that arises in holding the event.

After the lecture, the students were divided into four groups for group work. In addition to deepening the content of the lecture as a group, questions were asked to Mr. Umebayashi and opinions were exchanged on the possibilities of MICE.

In this section, we will report on the activities of the students and the classes of the Toji × Kyoto City University of the Arts “Introduction to Conservation Science “Making a Toji Picture Scroll” (in charge: Professor Shigeo Uno).

Production of Toji Picture Scrolls

On Wednesday, July 22nd, we finally started the production of the picture scroll.
In the past, classes were held at Campus Plaza Kyoto and Toji Temple, but this time they were held at Kyoto City University of Arts, where the atelier is located. In the class, Professor Uno first gave a lecture on the types of brushes used in Japan painting, how to draw with each brush, and how to use ink and paint, and then we actually started making picture scrolls.

　

As a result of repeated research and interviews at Toji Temple, it was decided to draw a picture scroll with three themes: “Lotus Gate”, “Three Pine Trees”, and “Five-storied Pagoda”.
Students will be divided into three teams and will be assigned to each theme. The team consists of students from Kyoto City University of Arts and students from other universities who are transferring credits, and students who are transferring credits work together to complete the painting of the part they are in charge of.
“Lotus Gate” depicts a legend that is said to have occurred when Kobo Daishi Kukai passed through the gate to travel from Toji Temple to Mt. Koya.
“The Pine of the Three Bells” depicts the legend that when Kobo Daishi Kukai went to the Tang Dynasty to train, he threw the three bells (Buddhist utensils used in esoteric Buddhist rituals) toward the sea on the sandy beach in the Tang Dynasty in the hope of the prosperity of esoteric Buddhism, crossed the sea through the clouds, and hung on the pine tree of Toji Temple given to him by the Emperor after returning to Japan.
“Five-storied Pagoda” depicts the burning and reconstruction of the five-storied pagoda, which has been repeatedly burned down and rebuilt in its long history of 1,200 years.
While some of the students were creating Japan paintings for the first time, the team exchanged opinions, checked the Mr./Ms.drawings, and asked for advice from Professor Uno.

　

During the summer vacation, the students will work on their respective parts on their own, complete the preliminary drawings by early September, and have a meeting with the people involved in Toji Temple about the contents.

Second interview with Toji

On Wednesday, June 10, I took on the challenge of conducting a second interview at Toji Temple. This is my first visit to Toji Temple in a month since my last interview on Wednesday, May 13.

This project is approaching the second half of its life, and the subjects to be drawn in the picture scroll, such as the Lotus Gate, the five-storied pagoda, and the sky and sea people, have been solidified. This time, in order to gather the information necessary to create a story for a picture scroll and to actually draw it in a picture (historical facts, episodes, etc.), we interviewed Mr. Niimi, the head of the Toji Temple and Cultural Properties Protection Division, who is familiar with materials and documents related to Toji. In the interviews, the students were actively asking questions, perhaps due to the results of their training and previous experiences, as well as their preparations. In addition to the main subject, there were also questions unique to art university students, such as confirming the details depicted in the picture scrolls, such as the cityscape, scenery, and seasonal sense of the area around Toji Temple at the time when each episode occurred.

 

In addition, although the information that the students had researched in advance was a mixture of historical facts and legends, he advised that it is important to understand historical facts and non-historical facts, organize the information, and then formulate the story of the picture scroll.

Interview Training ~ Interview Challenge at Toji Temple

Interview Training

On Saturday, May 9, we invited former NHK announcer Yoshihiro Mori as a lecturer and conducted interview training jointly with Professor Wakamatsu’s class at Kyoto Sangyo University, which is conducting classes at Kamigamo Shrine. Interviews with people involved in World Heritage sites and local people are very important in order to deepen our understanding of the World Heritage sites that take place in the process, and in the process of discovering problems and establishing hypotheses for solutions. Uno-sensei’s class is scheduled to have an interview at Toji Temple next week on Wednesday, May 13.
According to Mr. Mori, of the many jobs of an announcer, interviews are one of the most difficult. In the limited time of 90 minutes, he explained in an easy-to-understand manner with his own experience about how to prepare for an interview, the necessary preparations, and interview techniques that even beginners can use.
The students listened attentively to Mr. Mori’s enthusiastic lecture and took notes.

After the interview training, a strategy meeting was held based on the content of the training in preparation for the next class. We discussed how to prepare for the interview and how to divide the roles on the day of the interview.

Interview at Toji Temple

On Wednesday, May 13, we visited Toji Temple to get some hints on the subject matter to be drawn in the picture scroll, and interviewed General Manager Sunahara. Toji Temple has a history of 1,200 years, and there are many important cultural properties, national treasures, and episodes of great people related to Toji such as Kobo Daishi. In this interview, the students researched Toji Temple in advance and interviewed Director Sunahara about what they were interested in and what they were interested in to deepen their knowledge. The students conducted interviews on a wide range of topics, including the origin of the name of the gate at Toji Temple, their roots, Buddha statues, the life of Kobo Daishi, and events that still exist today, such as Kobo City.
The student who conducted the interview said, “I was able to hear what I wanted to ask to some extent, but I received more information than I expected, and it is difficult to summarize it. I was talking.

　

After the interview, we visited places that we could not visit during our previous visit to Toji Temple, under the guidance of Director Sunahara.

1st class ~ First visit to Toji Temple

This class started on Wednesday, April 15, ahead of other World Heritage PBL courses. The theme of this course is “to create original records that can be passed on to future generations using traditional expressions of Japan painting.” In line with the theme, Professor Uno, who was in charge of the exhibition, explained the characteristics of traditional Japan painting, including picture scrolls.

While current recording media have disadvantages such as deterioration due to color fading in the case of photographs and the inability to play records due to technological advances in the case of digital devices, picture scrolls created with traditional techniques have survived vividly after hundreds of years due to the excellent properties of the materials. He explained that he was able to convey the events of the time effectively and in an easy-to-understand manner.

In the second half of the class, the students created illustrations and introduced themselves and gave presentations on their enthusiasm for the class, which is unique to an art university.

On Wednesday, April 22, we actually visited Toji Temple and toured the temple grounds under the guidance of Mr. Sunahara, General Manager of Toji Temple. The lecture was very intense, as he carefully explained the valuable cultural properties of Toji Temple, which has a history of 1,200 years, and the willows and anecdotes related to the Ono Michi style, a Heian period calligrapher who is also known as the Sankan, and their anecdotes.

Inquiries

University Consortium Kyoto Credit Transfer Project
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