"Hito-no-Kanji" (人の感字) - Book by Hayashi Kenzo (林建造)

This is a very cool little book of many intricate silhouettes of people - created from photos taken by Hayashi Kenzo (林建造), who takes out the backgrounds and assembles the resulting silhouettes into composite pictures that are fun to contemplate the details of.

In this latest in a series of silhouette books by the same artist, one kanji character is featured for each collection of silhouettes - such as in the picture below (from the book - cover title by Nakamura Makie 中村牧江).

The title 人の感字 combines 感 from 感じ (kanji - feelings, etc.) and 字 from 文字 (moji - character). Lurking behind this, obviously, is 漢字 (kanji - Chinese characters), which are playfully utilized in the book with the silhouetted figures demonstrating various kanji character meanings.

It's not a very thick book, but each page has a lot of people pictures on it and represents quite a time investment by the artist - with the result that you can spend several entertaining minutes on each page looking at the many details.

It's published by Nihon Kyozai, Inc. (日本教材システム株式会社), and its ISBN number is: ISBN978-4-316-80326-5 C0781  It just came out, so it might not be at Amazon, etc. right away.  If you're having trouble obtaining the book, let me know and I can contact the artist and and/or the publisher to find out how to obtain the book outside of Japan.

この本は、実に面白い！ 漢字の意味と人の感じの事を上手く合わせている。 ページ数は多くないが、それぞれの絵は、沢山の写真から作られて、バラバラの絵の組み合わせの作業は、大変だったはずです、おすすめです。

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://ginzalyle.blogspot.com/
http://tokyoartmusic.blogspot.com/