Tokyo-based artist Koshi Kawachi recently demonstrated his "Manga Farming" technique -- which uses old manga as a growing medium for vegetables -- by cultivating a crop of radish sprouts in an installation at the Matsuzakaya department store in Nagoya.
[Link: Koshi Kawachi]
otakugirl
Great idea for the usage of any old books. It is competitive with recently famous moss aquariums.
[]kErEn14
yEah... yOu're riGtH :)
[]tHAt's eCo frieNdLy :))
a person
iF sHe sTiLl wRiTeS LiKe tHis She's too young!
(beware- pedobear)
[]Nynght
This is amazing. Both artistic and scientific, great for kids and adults. I love it!
[]Tornadoes28
That's pretty cool.
[]Ted Lemon
I like this idea in principle, but isn't the ink toxic? And for that matter, the bleach in the paper?
[]Adam
Are you scared for the plants? I mean, they either thrive or they die, right?
[]Keii
I think the concern is if the plants are eaten and that then has adverse affects on the animal, which it might not have had on the plant. We see it in the wild with insecticides which are sprayed on plants, and eaten by insects, which are then eaten by other animals between them being poisoned and them dying. Then the poison continues up the food chain and can cause all kinds of havoc on the food web.
So yes, if it's decorative it's not that big a deal. The problem is whether it'll be a big deal if someone eats the plants.
[]Maybelle
LOOLLLLLLL..
[]overreacting.
Your Forehead
Maybelle, I can't tell if you're "reacting" at all.
Janae
Only a selfless person without a heart wouldn't care about the plants. They might have feelings and thoughts too, but the human race is too shallow to try to listen. In these photos they seem to be thriving pretty well, for a plant person's point of view. But they do breathe, eat, and grow so they must have a life like us!
[]Mordoz Cookie Lord
Wow are you happy in your fairy world? I mean seriously. Reality is down here with the rest of us. Plants don't have a brain, therefore, they cannot be anything like us. Even insects, which have a teeny rudimentary brain of some kind, are merely natures robots, reacting to everything, and not thinking for themselves. Damn, even many people I see out there are all "zombied" out, or acting like ants in their routines.
In order to have feelings, you need a sense of self. Plants don't have that. Neither do insects. Higher animals do, based on their reactions being similar to that of human when confronted with emotional stimulus.
I am very aware of the various experiments done to plants to try to get some kind of EKG stimulus reaction due to emotional stress. Those findings were interesting, but ultimately inconclusive, since the results could have easily been effected by vibrations (insects landing on them, people nearby stomping around etc.)... Vibrational sounds can infinitesimally shake the plant, and therefore cause mini-vibrations to occur. Depending on the frequency of vibration, the results would be different. Also the fact that EKG is not effective in determining emotion, just meant for stress levels to determine a lie. (This is why EKG evidence is not admissible in court, but only used as a psychological tool by authorities to get a general idea of the direction of the suspects stress level to determine truth. If found to be lying, then they can investigate in that direction. That person would only be found guilty of lying to police when they have found the evidence to prove that and the crime.
Back to my main point: Just because something "might" have feelings, doesn't make it actual. A maybe is no reason to act on something as fact. That is insane, counter to survival and unrealistic. We may have ideals and wishes, but if we were to live and expect life to follow that vein of ill logic, we would be very disappointed. There is no ideal anything. Only the struggle to have ideal in our lives. It is the journey to get to that ideal that is important. It is the same as perfection. Nobody will ever get there because it is an abstract concept, very much subjective in nature.
The problem with your point of view is it is very idealistically unrealistic. Everything consumes others to survive. That fact doesn't make that thing feeling or thinking. Fungus is alive, growing and feeding. Do you want to call that feeling? No, its not enough. Intelligence needs more than that. Feelings need more than that to happen too.
CIAO
[]Bob Frank
Janae is just a troll. Mordoz Cookie Lord is apparently not very well-versed in the ways of the internet.
Unless he's some kind of genius reverse-troll. Oh God.
LostBoy
Janae is a genuine plant loving person, who is perhaps a little over enthusiastic on behalf of her non-speaking friends.
Mordoz Cookie Lord is EITHER a massive twat who can't stand other people having a different opinion than him, even when it affects him in no way whatsoever, OR a massive twat on a trolling spree who just happened to choose to pick on someone who likes plants.
I think he's a troll. because those arguments are painful to read... Especially this one, which requires a slap in the face response;
"A maybe is no reason to act on something as fact."
So if a doctor says he thinks you might have cancer, you'll do nothing about it. Good, we could use less obtuse unforgiving people, there are plenty to take your place.
Pappy
The line a "A maybe is no reason to act on something as fact." actually applies to your example of a doctor saying you might have cancer. In his logic it is impossible to determine if the plants have thoughts but by all means it looks like they shouldn't. So in the same situation if a doctor thinks its possible that you have cancer but can't tell at all and acts on it, it would be terrible. If he thinks you MIGHT have cancer and acts on it he'll most likely be giving you kemo which would be terrible for a person who doesn't have cancer. You misinterpreted the line. He's saying that there's no reason to assume that plants can think when according to all logic they shouldn't be able to, even if it might be probable. And maybe hes just realistic and likes to correct feeble thinking that's based on completely illogical thought patterns. If I have thoughts and feeling and I'm alive all things that are alive have thoughts and feeling? Wrong.
Idaboob
look at this link and tell me plants dont have fucking brains
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/biology/news-mushroom-mind-control
RyoGTO
It is not a fact that thoughts are produced by the brain, it is simply widely believed. No one can prove where consciousness comes from exactly. We can say at best that when there is a thought we can measure some electrical activity in the brain. But to then deduce that the thought, or consciousness, arises from this point is a logical fallacy. If you were to destroy a radio would radio waves cease to exist? No. In this way consciousness may simply be something that the brain receives (translates/filters), not produces. We do not understand the nature of consciousness, science does not claim definitive understanding in this department, and to say that it does is ignorance. A computer cannot operate itself, it needs a user. How then, if you compare the brain to a computer, can it operate itself? Who is the user, and from where does it come from?
Marko wilsonio
To argue about this is rididculous. What I will tell you is that organisms will repond to other organisms and their surroundings. To understand emotions is a human construct and we use human terms to confine it. This is where your sense of self holds you back from understanding how a plant or fungi or another human might express a reaction from the continuum of chemical, physical, and energetic variations. Place your self in a universal context; in other words.... Explain why and how you exist and from where you came and then you might begin to see how other organisms could have "feelings". In the meantime, big thinker, I am just going to enjoy radish sprouts cause they taste good and it's funny how they are growing out of books.
Anonymous
Dude. Plants are growing in books. Arguing on the internet is pointless to begin with, but HOLY SHIT. A five paragraph essay? Really? Plants are growing in books. Calm the fuck down.
Also you have been trolled. Best course of action at this point is to submit that response to your english teacher and jerk off instead of writing a paper on the assigned topic.
Flooi
What? You mean that animals don't go to heaven?
Voice of Reason
there is no reason to flip out and over react... people will believe what they want to believe and you can do the same. this does not make either one of you right or wrong.
so suck it up, chill out, and be happy that its awesome how these plants can grow in old manga =)
Maya de Vries
I love you
f00tfaces
i dont know about that i mean,well they cant play or run or have a payin job and other stuff.So they must not have legs or arms or a head!
[]Todd
Death, Death, Death Eternal to the root bound scum, to the hellish green dirt eating fiends. We will feed them to our brood, we will grind thier children to make our bread. We will reside within thier hollowed out corpes! No longer shall they feast on corruption, no longer shall they pollutute the Earth with caustic oxygen gas Ah hahahahaha!
Seriously people, arguing about the civil rights of bean sprouts? Did you know there are grains of sand that are being drowned on beaches everywhere? What about the sand? What about the Sand!
[]Christine
Todd! When I read your comment, I thought, This guy thinks like me! I love the way you think. I cut and pasted to like organisms. I wish we could meet. I would say, I want to have your babies! but I am too old to breed,. alas...
Whale Tale
Awesome
Tyra
Wait a minute, what was that? There is sand out there drowning?! Son of a ... and no one is doing anything about it. GAAAAH!!!! Those bastards! OMG We have to save the sand!
*runs off to find her plastic yellow sand pale with the red shovel.
GilaGone
I dont post stuff. Ever. But I hadta say your comment just made me laugh so hard I actually pissed myself. Thanks.
Angel
ROLFMAO
Ask
Your an idiot
[]Michael Earls
That's a good one. Thanks for the laugh.
Something Witty
*you're*
Also, SAVE THE SAND! Protest march coming soon to a beach near you.
KittyKaye
umm, I have a love and appreciation for all things living and such as well, but you are sounding like what every you would call the opposite of a vegan... Like do you not eat vegetables? because that is mad unhealthy. Everything in this world helps others thrive, even if they spend their time eating one another. The whole circle of life thing, yeah, that works. Come on. This is just growing plants. They are still growing and doing the job they were evolved to do. I'm sure they are not "sad"
Side note to the poison in the ink and bleach in the paper. I used to eat paper all the time as a kid, and I'm sure you or people you knew did to. Far as i know, there has been not effect. I know that it is not good for a person, but I'm sure the veggies that may be grown in the pages are fine for home consumption. And i doubt it is worse then pesticides or the weird fertilizers they use.
Anyway, I think this is an awesome idea. Very artistic.
[]Whale Tale
Be honest, your the you tube emo guy who yelled at everyone to leave britney alone.
[]Plants don't have feelings, they dont have a complex neural center in which to process that sort of thing
Althea
Maybe the person who asked was simply curious about whether or not the plants would actually grow successfully?
[]minigpowie
Well cookie lord I think that Janae is rig, plants provide us with food, basically 3 quarters of what we eat. We should at least respect them and provide them with what they need to survive. I think Janae is also not a troll but yet a very caring person and I respect her opinion a lot.
[]LostBoy
and the other quarter is I presume meat/other animal based products? The cow says "omnomnom plants"
[]basically chain goes sun > plants > animals > greedy gits... I mean humans :)
but hey, those cows are tasty :P
polar bear lover
Humans were not meant to eat cows. Humans have mainly herbivorous teeth and are quite slow. We were really only meant to eat a mainly vegetarian diet, and insects and small prey including fish. We only eat red meat because the human race is full of greedy bastards who think just because we can, we should, because cows taste good.
[]Tino
All right, who let the PETA supporter in?
nichol
Well, we're running out of fish. Pretty soon it will be the cows or nothing!
sway
Incisors (your two front teeth or "buck teeth") are used to pierce and rip food while your molars serve to grind up things. Humans are omnivores. We've been hunting and gathering for centuries. We don't have sharp teeth or claws because we have evolved to use tools instead.
"...the idea that humans are natural vegetarians has "no scientific basis in fact," argues anatomist and primatologist John McArdle. Alarmed by this growing belief, McArdle, a vegetarian, says the human anatomy proves that people are omnivores.
If people were designed to be strict vegetarians, McArdle expects we would have a specialized colon, specialized teeth and a stomach that doesn't have a generalized pH-all the better to handle roughage. Tom Billings, a vegetarian for three decades and site editor of BeyondVeg.com, believes humans are natural omnivores. Helping prove it, he says, is the fact that people have a low synthesis rate of the fatty acid DHA and of taurine, suggesting our early ancestors relied on animal foods to get these nutrients. Vitamin B-12, also, isn't reliably found in plants. That, Billings says, left "animal foods as the reliable source during evolution.""
http://www.rense.com/general20/meant.htm
littaballofun
Dude, go catch a fish, then go catch a cow. Without the aid of anything. Yeah which was harder?
airyona
littaballofun - what about killing the animal once you have it without the aid of anything. witch is harder? the fish or the cow?
[]AdelaideBen
Hmmm - what's that they say about what you find on beer-nuts at pubs... something like they typically have the urine of 10+ guys on them. I hate to imagine what you'd find on the pages of your typical manga book. ?;`)
[]husein
very nice work..
[]Keitaurin
What a great idea! Recycling AND making something aesthetically pleasing. I have some old issues of Shonen Jump that I'd love to try this with.
[]chris
Wow, this sure brings gardening to new levels as an artform... although, it puts me in mind of a comic book store owner I once knew who got in trouble for encouraging a wacky patron to eat a whole issue of a manga so they could video as a youtube stunt. Apparently the inks in most comics (especially B&W ones) are carcinogenic. I wonder if that has any effects on the plants seen here.
[]Janae
they seem to be growing quite well, so i don't see any reason for them to be affected by it at all.
[]Yolanda
Love this idea of growing something new using something old. There's something very organic about that. Makes me want to try my own!
[]Andeh
Whoa, that's pretty awesome! o:
[]Ayla
Does anyone know how to make this? I'd love to try it.
[]littaballofun
get a biggish book/comic book ect, put seeds in it, bind it with like rubberbands, soak it and put it upright. you'll need to keep it wet.
[]Boris
How does the ink not become toxic to the plant?
[]monkeydew
ink is not toxic i drink it all the time
[]f00t-faces
thats not always true i knew this guy that drank some kind of ink and 3 days later he died!
[]Steve Stevenson
The plants still die, they have no soil. This is like that experiment kids do in elementary school where they grow a seed in a cup filled with damp cotton balls.
[]HBomb187
Who says you need soil to grow? You just need a medium and nutrition. Ever heard of Hydroponics? or Aeroponics?
[]brum
This is Plant necrophilia and Cannibalism...
[]Nekogen
XD That's pretty funny. :3
[]Floramei
What, so growing in soil isn't? 'xD;
[]useless
-huh
[]Jeridel
I think these are beautiful! I remember doing a science experiment in 7th grade about growing plants in paper towels and paper, but seeing plants grown with beautiful manga pages really takes the cake for me! I think doing an installation with artist Mel Chin would bring his Revival Field idea and manga farming together in an excellent way.
[]sir jorge
that's really cool, wow, i never thought that was possible
[]Jamie
No offense, but that sounds EXTREMELY weird... and won't the books be dirty..? O_o
[]I wouldn't feel safe eating a vegetable that grew out of one of those books...
Mordoz Cookie Lord
Open your mind to new things, then you can enjoy variety.
[]You can also become more knowledgeable about said thing so you wont sounds ignorant and sad.
nichol
um there is no dirt. they might get... rooty.
[]Nintendough
Very strange idea but to bad for the plants, why not just put them in a plant bucket filled with newspaper.
[]å°é›ª
好漂漂哦~喜欢~^^
[]neens
I'd like to see the roots tearing through the pages, or see what it looks like if the plant didn't die and a full radish was grown.
[]RedDot
That is awesome wish i had one for my own.
[]shahiful
graet idea and may need further improvements.
[]leo
Las bibliotecas serán aún mas hermosas cuando la vegetacion retome el lugar de los hombres tal como sucede entre las paredes de las ciudades en ruinas
[]thumbs up :)
D-chi
WHOOOOOOAAAAAA he's using Jojo? WHY?
[]Tak
I think that is Hokuto no Ken in picture 4 in the back, and I don't see any other jojo looking mangas.
[]Leprashaums
NIIICE *-* !!! Great Idea !
[]Taylor
I can appreciate the aesthetic quality of it... but what exactly are "old" manga? Manga you don't like?
I just don't like the idea of ruining books. :S
[]Jenny
GASP!! Waste of a perfectly good comic book !! :(
But then again that is so cool!!
[]sir jorge
i never knew! that is so cool
[]nevy
SAWEEEEEEEEET!!
[]Cara
Amazing! I would love to try that!
[]Except, not with my manga. I value them way too much to turn them into that! :))
steampunk
that's really nice!
[]andrej kupina
ahora se que hacer con la vieja guia telefonica
[]matt
that is frikin awesome! each face is one of my many sides!
[](>_<) < I got soooooooooooooo many books i could do this with.
(^_^) < time to hit the library!
(-_-) < if i had time... and seeds...
(o_O) ^_^)> < those poor books deserve a hug.
()_()
(=^.^=) < Haha! im new here. plz help him!
(''')__(''')
Gith'Ren moonpetal
On a scientific level plants have no feeling and aren't self aware, on a spiritual that is quite the opposite. But being spiritual can only get you so far in civilization.
~because none of us are as crule as all of us- ananomous ~
[]STARVE
haha i like that quote
~because none of us are as crule as all of us- ananomous ~
nice one Gith'Ren moonpetal
[]citizenterryk
wonder if manga could be used to grow(ahem)"something else"......
[]Rob
Very cool idea - but I'd prefer to be reading those.
[]MariaClariza Colinayo Espela
It is really great that the wet paper material like books, magazines, newspaper are creative artworks, that a plant could live with, What is those plant or green leafy leaves doing there?...I could'nt be shocked at all if it is dipped with the water transparent container, the works of art is great translucent seen so clear the reading materials, i will give it a 5 stars^ ^;...
[]george
is this true? things could grow out of magazines?
[]Lacy
Wow, totally gonna try this out sometime!
[]I wonder how it would go if you used a razor blade to cut out a section in the middle big enough to put dirt in.
This is totally experiment worthy!
Kait Flaccid
This is a really neat idea, I'm going to try it with some of my own old manga.
[]Tai
The little boy's shirt says Oregon duRT duRT lol
[]JBantha
that kid isn't lookingt at the plants! i looking at the boobs of the girl in the manga-zine!
[]Chris
even though i think this is pretty awesome. I would never think of doing this to my magazines especially my old ones. I wouldn't mind buying two new ones and using one of them for doing this but I'll probably never do it.
[]Lanthus
there are fools out there suggesting that manga is bad for plants?!?!
[]hogwash, manga is good for everything! those plants will grow to be super-plants >:3
fernando
how can i fixed the plants on the book's page
[]treknas
great innovative idea...but those comics could have been donated instead.......!!!!!!!!!
[]Flooi
This is very beautiful but also a little sad. I love manga but can't own any. So here is someone who has manga but instead destroy it to plant plants
[]suomynonA
First!
Oh, wait.
[]friendlyocelot
<.< wow, lotsa people fighting. ...
I just wanna know how they do that...
[]Rawr
Wow everyone is way overreacting to this.
[]Jessica Snow
Wow, I Stumbled onto this page almost forty minutes ago. I've been reading the comments. I think I'm gonna go re-submit this to Stumbleupon under the Debate category.
This has made my day ^_^
[]darkoverlord9348
what a waste of good manga books I hate when people treat books this way
[]troll
Okay anyone who calls anyone is a troll okay? Which means im a troll but i just called myself a troll and i hence forth made a paradox ^-^
[]plumber
I have to say that for the last couple of hours i have been hooked by the amazing articles on this blog. Keep up the great work.
[]Ortorin
So the plants growing in books thing did not interest me at all... but the comments are great!
[]Nadav
I'm not sure if it's better than recycling the old manga, but it is an original way to use it nonetheless.
[]Sandra
Woah What an awesome Idea
[]Jessi-Bell
It's funny... You find an article, and it grabs your attention, but then you spend almost an hour engrossed in the comments. XD i love human stupidity... it'll be the death of us yet but until then it provides me with a great laugh :) as for the actual idea: i think it's very innovative but it's a waist of good manga. as to the idea of plants having feelings: i think Janae is very cute with the idea. and it's always something to look into. and anyone who doesn't agree can suck it. just because science hasn't completely proven the idea to be fully correct, they also haven't disproved it. If you want to be an overreacting, scientific, obnoxious prick about the idea like mr Cookie Lord up there, do your own tests! And don't criticize people for having their own ideas. People having their own ideas is the whole basis for science. And don't bring religion into it. Science is to IMPROVE our living and ideas of the earth. You don't get anywhere by putting people down. and if you constantly put people down then i hope run into someone who will take you down a few pegs. That is NOT cool. to each their own dude. everyone likes what they do and thinks what they want to. You don't have to put someone down for it. That is one thing that just gets on my absolute last nerve. And i have very few of those left. Simply because of human stupidity.
[]