The Wild Universe Parallel: How a Japanese TV Show Has Been Mirroring My Art for a Decade
For the past 15 years, I have been tucked away at my kitchen table, bringing tiny mechanical insects to life. Since I started crafting my steampunk light-up insect jewellery back in 2011, my routine has been the same: twisting wire, setting gears, installing tiny lights into the abdomens of fireflies, wasps, and bees and filming them with backdrop of whimsical, ethereal classical music.
I always thought I was operating in my own little niche bubble.
But earlier today, a single comment on one of my videos blew me away. A follower from Japan commented that my work reminded them instantly of something called Musica Piccolino!
Curiosity got the better of me, so I started digging. What I found left me absolutely floored.
The Show I Didn't Know Existed
As it turns out, Musica Piccolino (ムジカピッコリーノ) is a massively popular, high-concept educational children’s television show produced by NHK (Japan’s public broadcaster). It ran for a staggering 10 seasons, airing from 2013 to 2023.
The wildest part? Our creative timelines are almost identical. I started selling my jewellery in 2011; they filmed their pilot in 2012. And for the exact decade they were on the air, we were creating the exact same visual universe across the world from one another.
A Shared Steampunk Mythology
If you look at the premise of the show, it is eerie how much it mirrors my work.
In the world of Musica Piccolino, the main characters are "music doctors" who travel around in retro-futuristic steampunk airships. Their mission is to find and heal “Monstros”- giant, whimsical, mechanical creatures made of heavy brass, clockwork gears and exposed rivets (not that I do any of this, except for maybe dressing in steampunk attire occasionally.)
The creatures are frozen and dark because the world has forgotten their music. To revive them, the doctors play beautiful, sweeping classical music. As the melody builds: The gears inside the mechanical beasts start to turn, vacuum tubes and lightbulbs inside their bodies slowly throb and pulse with light and once fully healed, the glowing mechanical creatures flap their wings and fly away (flapping wings is something I’m working on at the minute!).
My Fireflies, Bees, and Wasps in Real Life
When I found clips of the show, I completely understood why that Japanese follower made the connection. My three most popular designs - fireflies, bees, and wasps - are basically the main characters of their universe. In the show, the mechanical fireflies light up softly to atmospheric, magical strings. The bees buzz to life using hyper-intricate clockwork pieces synced to fast-paced classical tracks like Flight of the Bumblebee. To a viewer of that show, looking at my video of my work glowing to the sound of an ethereal classical soundtrack isn't just looking at jewellery, it looks like a real-life prop pulled straight out of their favourite kids television show.
The Magic of Shared Imagination
Art is a funny thing. It proves that ideas are floating around out there in the ether, waiting to be caught. While a team of brilliant set designers, musicians, and producers in Tokyo were building a fantasy world to teach children about the magic of music, I was sitting at my kitchen table, building the exact same aesthetic one tiny gear at a time.
Discovering Musica Piccolino feels like finding a long-lost creative sibling. It’s an incredible compliment to know that my jewellery brings that exact sense of televised, nostalgic magic to people halfway across the globe.
