Yuuki Kikuchi, creator of “A Crocodile Who Will Die in 100 Days,” presents a new mode of expression at Goyo Gallery

A new exhibition, “fRIEND” by Room mate, showcasing canvas works and a gallery-scale installation

Goyo Gallery (TERRADA ART COMPLEX II 3F) is pleased to present “fRIEND” by Room mate, a solo exhibition by Yuuki Kikuchi, from May 16 (Sat) to May 31 (Sun), 2026.

Yuuki Kikuchi made his debut as a manga artist in 2016 with SUPER Doubutsu-zoo. In 2020, his four-panel comic A Crocodile Who Will Die in 100 Days, serialized on X (formerly Twitter), became a major social phenomenon, winning both the Most Retweeted Award and Most Liked Award at the Twitter Trend Awards 2020. The book edition has sold over 350,000 copies and has been published internationally in Taiwan, China, Korea, Thailand, and Spain, as well as adapted into a film.

Since then, Kikuchi has continued to release works such as The Seal That Will Fly Away If It Doesn’t Hold Onto Something and A Mouse That Will Die in 100 Days (×), while expanding his practice across various fields including visual production for NHK E-Tele programs, collaborations with companies, exhibitions at Comic-Con and department stores, and live painting performances.

The “Room Mate Project,” in which Kikuchi participates, is a global initiative that transcends genres such as fashion, music, art, and lifestyle. It brings together like-minded creatives who share their individuality and values while generating new culture.

A key highlight of this exhibition is a new body of canvas works—an expressive development for Kikuchi—emerging from the extension of his diverse activities. How will his distinctive character expressions, where familiarity coexists with sharpness, and lightness with urgency, take shape within the gallery space? This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to witness the “next step” of a widely recognized artist.

Kikuchi’s work depicts loneliness behind humor, anxiety beneath kindness, and subtle emotional fluctuations that unexpectedly emerge in everyday life. How will the sensibility that has captivated audiences through social media and publications transform when embodied on the material surface of canvas? This exhibition invites viewers to reconsider and update their perception of Yuuki Kikuchi.

A widely known artist, presenting an unseen expression.

Through this exhibition, Goyo Gallery seeks to reveal the artist’s deeper identity beyond his popular recognition.

▼Statement

“A Crocodile Who Will Die in 100 Days.”

A four-panel comic updated every day.
A death announced in advance.
The repetition of ordinary daily life.
And the inevitable end waiting beyond it.

People continued to watch it, as though checking in on time itself each day.

A single crocodile.
Although its death was “fiction,” people entrusted it with real emotions, sharing their loneliness and anxieties through its existence.

The character was no longer merely a fictional figure, but had become a vessel onto which people projected themselves, a contemporary object of belief through which identities and emotions could overlap. Perhaps some of the roles once fulfilled by religion and community are now being replaced by content and social media.

At the same time, the frenzy surrounding the work, followed immediately by its rapid consumption and forgetting, became a phenomenon symbolic of contemporary society.
Emotion circulates instantly, becomes shared and commodified, and is then replaced by the next topic.

This exhibition does not seek to judge whether that is right or wrong.
Rather, through this phenomenon, we attempt to examine the very structure of human emotion in this era, after social media.

Through practices situated at the intersection of contemporary art, craft, urban culture, and Japanese sensibility, Goyo Gallery has continually engaged with the question: “How do people find meaning in the world?”

This exhibition focuses on the crocodile and mouse characters from A Crocodile Who Will Die in 100 Days.
What is explored here extends beyond the work itself to the structures exposed behind it: contemporary Japanese perceptions of life and death, SNS-based communities, the consumption of emotion, faith placed in characters, and the accelerating mechanisms of content capitalism that circulate these phenomena.

How do contemporary people share loneliness, how do they observe death, and how do they consume emotion?
This exhibition is conceived as a space for observing those unconscious and confronting life as it exists today.

▼Artist Statement

As time passes and as I grow older, I find myself thinking more and more about what a “friend” really is.
There are people who I once considered friends, yet I haven’t seen them for many years.

“What does it really mean to be friends?”

Then, by chance, I reunited with a friend after several years. Even though so much time had passed, our conversation and the atmosphere between us felt completely natural, as if no time had gone by at all.

Within that space, there was a genuine sense of comfort.

“Maybe friendship is this feeling of comfort and reassurance.”

Being able to talk about meaningless things or have slightly silly conversations, and even forgiving me for accidentally making only the “f” lowercase.

A presence that gives that kind of reassurance made me feel truly grateful.

For this exhibition, I wanted to create a space filled with that same sense of comfort, which is why I chose the title “fRIEND”.

Every day we continue living while carrying many different things within us, but I hope this exhibition can become a space where people can feel even a little at ease.

Thank you very much for reading this far.  I sincerely appreciate your support.

▼Artist

Yuuki Kikuchi
(https://www.instagram.com/yuukikikuchi)

Debuted in 2016 with SUPER Doubutsu-zoo. In 2020, A Crocodile Who Will Die in 100 Days, published on X, became a social phenomenon, leading to book publication, international editions, and a film adaptation.

• A Crocodile Who Will Die in 100 Days: 350,000 copies sold, international editions, film adaptation
  
• Other works include SUPER Doubutsu-zoo, The Seal That Will Fly Away If It Doesn’t Hold Onto Something, A Mouse That Will Die in 100 Days (×)
  
• Exhibitions at Shibuya PARCO (OKOK), Isetan Tachikawa (GO!), BARNEYS NEW YORK Roppongi (ROOM MATE SHOW)
  
• Visual production for NHK E-Tele Oha! Yo~i Don!; official collaboration character for SEGA SHINOBI
  
• Continues to work across manga, character design, advertising, collaboration projects, exhibitions, and live painting

▼Exhibition Information

【Date】2026/5/16(Sat) – 5/31(Sun)
【Open】12:00 – 19:00
【Close】Monday
【Location】TERRADA ART COMPLEX II 3F, 1-32-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0002