Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung describes the anima as an archetype symbolizing the unconscious female component of the male psyche, whereas Austrian philosopher R.Steiner states that ‘a woman has a male ether body, and a man has a female ether body’. These ideas led me to conceptualize my new definition of the anima as a form of masculinity.
This alternative definition denotes the kind of femininity that male spectators discover in a woman who plays a female role and yet exudes an inner masculinity. The traditional Kabuki, Baroque and Chinese operas, in which male actors often perform female characters, also resonates well with audiences.

When the anima—an inner male figure played by a female model as an expression of femininity—becomes the subject of an artwork, this paradoxically triggers a fascination in masculinity through the medium of femininity. I hope viewers of The anima’s talent, produced in collaboration with Akina Minami, keep this premise in mind.
-- Noritoshi Hirakawa