Mr.’s BAPE Collaboration Is a True Crossover of Japanese …

What happens when one of Japan’s wildest visual artists links up with one of its most iconic streetwear brands? You get the Mr. & BAPE Collection, a new capsule available now exclusively on the Complex app, followed by an online release through Complex.com on December 6. Coinciding with Miami Art Week, BAPE is hosting a pop-up for the collection at its Miami store with two city-exclusive products.

If you don’t know Mr., it’s time to get familiar. He’s a Tokyo-based artist who’s been incorporating manga, anime, and video game influences into fine art for over two decades. Represented by the famed Kaikai Kiki gallery, Mr. turns otaku (Japanese nerd) culture into art.

The capsule hits all the BAPE classics remixed through Mr.’s lens: BAPE STA sneakers, Shark Hoodies, and graphic tees. Think hyper-colorful illustrations and anime-styled characters like Mr.’s iconic Marina, which turns the legendary silhouettes into something that looks straight out of a Tokyo arcade. The six-piece collection features a playful take on BAPE’s signature camo design. The standouts are the Miami-exclusive hoodie and BAPE STA, inspired by the city’s vibrant colors of Biscayne Bay and Art Deco buildings.

BAPE has a long tradition of teaming up with key figures in art, design, and culture. For Mr., it’s a chance to take his work beyond gallery walls and into the closets of a new generation of style heads. We spoke with Mr. on his design process, Japanese subculture, and more.

How has your artistic style evolved, and who or what have been your biggest inspirations along that journey?
My encounter with Japanese anime (from birth) and the Great East Japan Earthquake.

What excited you most about collaborating with BAPE?
A collaboration is like encountering a mind other than my own, and something completely unexpected, beyond anything I could have imagined, could come into being, which is both surprising and moving. For example, in this collaboration I thought the sparkling texture of the character’s face on the T-shirt and the fine semi-three-dimensional details on the shoes were wonderful.

What elements from your artwork shaped this collaboration?
Fragments of everyday life. In daily life, objects or words that jump into my field of vision for no particular reason are edited together in a rough, unstructured way.

What do you hope fans of your art take away from your collaboration with BAPE?
There are many countries in the world, and I just happen to be Japanese. The world is made up of a chaotic jumble of things, some shared across countries, some unique and exclusive to each. So I think it’s fun to make use of the things we like amid that mix.

The Mr. & BAPE collection is available now exclusively on the Complex app, BAPE Miami pop-up store, and Dec. 6 on Complex.com.