• Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music also cooperated in the project to raise the artistic and cultural value of the shutter painting  visuals. The university is located in Ueno, near Asakusa, and its participation helped to accomplish the revitalisation and culture promotion of  the district.

• Two anniversary events of the local community afforded an excellent opportunity to pursue the ideals of the scheme. The Nakamise shops  association celebrated its centennial and 1988 witnessed the 30th anniversary of the reconstruction of the main building of Sensoji Temple.

• The scheme went ahead smoothly through a three-way relationship between the local shopkeepers’ association, the shutter company and the university. It was the combined efforts of these three bodies that ensured the speedy success of the project.

The actual Asakusa Picture Scrolls project was made up of the following items:

1. Location and scale. The shutters are about 2.3 meters high and up to about 360 meters along the Nakamise shopping street.
Four scrolls depict the traditional culture of Tokyo’s Asakusa district.

2.The theme of each scroll depicts Asakusa’s seasonal events and characteristic sights enjoying long traditions.
The themes shown on the scrolls were:

– The Sanja Festival. This is one of Tokyo’s major festivals. Sanja is a harbinger of summer.
– Hozuki (Chinese ground-cherry) Fair, a summer event featuring market booths lined up in the grounds of the Sensoji Temple.
– Ukiyoe-genre paintings expressing the life of the common people in the Edo era.
– Dances of a golden dragon and a white heron – elegant dances handed down at the Sensoji Temple.

3.The actual production and supervision of the scrolls was executed by 16 members of the teaching staff of the National University of Fine Arts and     Music. Professor Sawato Fukui headed the group which was supervised by Professor Ikuo Hirayama, world famous for his ‘silk road’ painting series. He is now president of the university. Each of the four scrolls averages about 10 meters long and is painted in Japanese style with delicate color tones appropriate for expressing the traditional Edo period culture.

4. Bunka Shutter Company was responsible for putting the final design of the pictures onto the shutters. This was achieved by applying the pictures to the shutters with a new ‘Marking Film’ method. After the delicate color tones of the Japanese paintings were analyzed into 64 different colors, the pictures were magnified 10 times and copied onto 80micron vinyl chloride sheets, which were then attached to the shutters.

5.The whole project took over a year to complete and as the various stages of the work were reached, the media were kept fully informed of developments. The response of the print and broadcast media was continual and enthusiastic and finally very congratulatory when the completion of the Asakusa Scrolls was announced.

6.Since the pictures appear on the shutters, they can only be seen after the shops close at 8 pm. Moreover, all the scrolls cannot be seen from any one vantage point because they are 360 meters long. To make up for these inconveniences, a number of commemorative souvenirs were produced. These included an Asakusa Picture Scrolls Calendar, picture postcards of a selection of the scrolls and framed pictures.