As a young girl, Japanese artist and author Akiko Ikeda dreamed up a world in which plants talk to each other and animals that are normally enemies become friends. The magical land is called Wachifield and its lead character is a mischievous but sensitive cat named Dayan.
Ikeda was in Hong Kong last week to open an exhibition featuring Dayan and his friends, along with illustrations of Wachifield. The exhibition gave Hong Kong a taste of the Japanese sensation that has created nearly 40 books and even a museum-theme park in her home country.
'Wachifield was the name of my guardian angel,' she says, explaining how the fantasy world grew in her imagination.
Inspired by Grimm's Fairy Tales and C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, among other things, Ikeda takes Dayan and his friends on a journey through Wachifield, where they learn lighthearted lessons about love, trust and friendship.
After graduating from Kyoto University and Chelsea College of Art and Design in Britain, Ikeda opened a leather-craft store in Tokyo under the Wachifield brand in 1984. Her first book, Dayan's Yummy Dream, came out in 1984 - the first of what are now 39 Dayan adventures.
Ikeda says she cherished her imaginary world of Wachifield as a child, when she realised humans were failing to live with nature. The creatures of Wachifield - Dayan and his mouse and alligator companions - all live in harmony.
