Coming soon, I hope. I want to get all of their names right
Norihiro Ito
Mitsuhiro Midorikawa
Nao Suzuki
Yasuyuki Osaki
Chiemi Kato
Tomonori Hirano
Masanori Fukuhara
Kaori Kimizuka
This could not have been accomplished without the help of Kiyomi Okuba. Officially she was my translator, but she helped with quite a lot more than that. By the end, she knew as much about balloon art as anyone there. She had to in order to help explain everything that came up and answer questions. Rather than sit back and watch she also had her hands on balloons when we found ourselves racing against the clock in the end. Most importantly, she put up with my rambling every time I needed someone to talk to. Kinda makes you feel sorry for her, doesn't it?
The last two people that need mentioning are Emily and Chris Suguira, American expatriots living in Tokyo. They came to help out in the end, only because they were really cool people. They didn't get anything for it that comes near to what they deserved. The assistance they provided made it possible for me to turn this project into what I wanted. Emily is a great balloon artist. When we fell behind schedule, her experienced hands were a big help. She also teaches balloon art in Japan, so all it took was a short time to show her the techniques I use and all of my sketches, and she, being bilingual, was able to help a great deal as problems arose. In this project, she came in and did what I asked, but I could see from watching her and from conversations that there's a lot I can learn from her and hope I get a chance to work under her on a project some time.