藤本幸弘オフィシャルブログ
Tarzan magazine, January 22, 2026 issue.
A feature on annual training plans has been published, including an interview with me about improving diet and nutrition.
If you’d like, please take a look!
紀尾井町オーバカナルに、午年の書き初めが貼ってありました。
中でも僕が気に入ったのは「万事午く行く」と書いた絵美さんの作品。
午い！
— True Rejuvenation Without Losing What Makes You You
In my daily clinical practice, I have come to recognize that even among people of the same age, there are clearly identifiable patterns in how faces age. To make this easier to understand, I broadly classify facial aging into two types—what I call the “tanuki-type face” and the “fox-type face.” For each, I design a different and appropriate “aging brake.”
People with tanuki-type faces typically have rounded cheeks, gentle eyes, and soft facial contours. In youth, this type often appears naturally youthful, but the direction of change with aging is quite distinct.
• Direction of aging: “Downward aging”
Sagging of the cheeks, deepening nasolabial folds, and a blurring of the jawline are prominent, gravity-driven changes.
• The correct aging brake:
What matters here is not adding volume, but supporting structure. Simply adding volume can increase weight and actually worsen sagging. The key is to rebuild and reinforce the deep support structures—designing a solid foundation that minimizes downward descent.
Fox-type faces, by contrast, are characterized by narrow, elongated eyes, high cheekbones, and sharp facial lines. They convey a refined, mature elegance, but their aging concerns are the opposite of the tanuki type.
• Direction of aging: “Hollowing aging”
Sunken cheeks, hollows around the eyes, and increased skeletal prominence lead to a gaunt or fatigued appearance.
• The correct aging brake:
The most important point is not to over-tighten or over-reduce. Pursuing excessive sharpness by reducing volume too aggressively can paradoxically accelerate the appearance of aging. Maintaining appropriate volume and improving skin quality—a design that does not subtract—is the most effective brake.
This is where many people fall into a common trap: confusing making a young-looking face with rejuvenation.
1. The “overwrite” approach: creating a young face
This approach attempts to forcibly recreate youthful features—larger eyes, higher cheeks, and so on. While the short-term impact may be dramatic, it often creates disharmony with the individual’s natural bone structure. Over time, expressions can look unnatural, and a sense of artificiality (“the worked-on look”) tends to become more pronounced.
2. The harmony-based approach: true rejuvenation
True rejuvenation, as I define it, is a state in which a person’s inherent facial features, habitual expressions, and overall presence remain intact despite the passage of time.
It is not about fabricating a face from one’s twenties.
It is about ensuring that who that person is has not been eroded by time.
This is what genuine rejuvenation truly means.
Aging comes to everyone equally. However, it is possible to slow its pace and control its quality.
For tanuki-type faces: support so it doesn’t sag
For fox-type faces: preserve so it doesn’t diminish
By understanding your own facial type and resisting the urge to “overwrite” your appearance with forced youthfulness, instead applying the right brake to protect what you already have—this, in my view, is the smartest and most beautiful approach to anti-aging in 2026.
From February 4 to 9, 2025, a ceramic exhibition by Kawamura Kifumi will be held at the Art Gallery on the 6th floor of Nihombashi Takashimaya. It is a great honor for me to have been invited to write the introductory greeting for this exhibition. On the previous occasion, the text was written by Ven. Yokota Nanrei, Chief Abbot of Engaku-ji Temple. I would be delighted if you would take a moment to read it.
Kamakura is a place where sea and mountains draw close to one another, and where the light of the four seasons becomes the very temperature of daily life. For me, it is the land where I was born and raised, and the time I spent facing clay under the guidance of Professor Kawamura was a precious interval that quietly brought order to my daily reflections. The weight of the clay conveyed through the palms, and the subtle rhythm of the spinning wheel, resonate in some way with the landscapes of Kamakura that have been familiar to me since childhood.
The endeavor of sublimating the memory of this land into vessels has been carried on for three generations at Kichūyo, led today by Professor Kawamura Kifumi. His grandfather, Kawamura Kitarō, inherited Rosanjin’s climbing kiln in Kita-Kamakura and quietly preserved and handed down its spirit. That lineage continues to breathe unmistakably in the works of today: in the shadows and patterns on their surfaces dwell, with gentle presence, the humidity unique to Kamakura, the light that filters in, and the textures of its wooded hillsides.
I hope that in this exhibition you will take your time to savor the story of clay woven by three generations of the Kawamura family, together with the profound atmosphere that the land of Kamakura itself holds.
— Takahiro Fujimoto, MD, PhD
Director, Clinic F
Doctor of Medicine, Engineering, and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Sunday, January 18
Last night, I visited Kichuyo kiln, run by Mr. Kifumi Kawamura, who carries on the tradition of Rosanjin’s noborigama (climbing kiln) in Kita-Kamakura, to pick up the pieces I had made in the latter half of last year.
When I gently unwrapped the newspaper-covered vessels at the clinic this morning, they revealed expressions quite different from those they had immediately after emerging from the kiln.
Depending on how the light falls, the surrounding space, and where they are placed, the vessels begin to speak—surprisingly vividly.
—Yes, pottery-making truly is a joy.
On Sunday, January 18, we will be holding a pottery workshop led by Mr. Kifumi Kawamura at the Golf Medical Science Institute in Hanzomon.
Touching the clay, shaping it by hand, and allowing it to fully emerge only after firing—this is the beauty of utility (yō no bi). Spending time within a rhythm different from everyday life quietly recalibrates the senses.
Workshop details
Duration: Approximately 2 hours
Sessions:
1:00 PM –
4:00 PM –
Fee: ¥20,000 per session
Credit cards accepted
Receipts provided
Number of works: Up to 2 pieces per participant
Eligibility: Beginners welcome; elementary school children may also participate
We are currently still accepting participants.
If you are interested, please take this opportunity to join us. Send me a message, and I will invite you to the January 18 pottery thread.
A vessel is completed through use.
And the time spent creating it is already, in itself, a richly rewarding experience.
