2027 Hobonichi Techo Weeks Hiroko Kubota: Meteor Shower in the Light Blue Forest

This Weeks features a fantastical landscape painted by illustrator Hiroko Kubota. A pale blue forest stretches out in quiet stillness, and a lake reflects a night sky full of stars, like a window into the cosmos.

Two white cats sit in a small boat, peering through a telescope as if waiting for something to appear. Hiroko Kubota shared this poem to accompany the illustration:

A pale blue night like the midnight sun,
on the lake in the light blue forest —
scatter stars and they will come:
a gathering to watch the golden fish.
Sometimes the stars collide,
and the music they make is so soothing
that drowsiness sets in,
and before long, the usual morning arrives.

On the far shore, a white cat gently scatters tiny particles of light. The arc of a great fish swimming toward that light is rendered in shimmering aurora foil, which shifts and changes like light wavering beneath the water — a splendid sight from every angle.