Original subtitles

Araki's photographs come from God.

Araki is like a dirty uncle.

You don't expect it, but he's a gentleman.

He emanates energy.

He's really shy.

ARAKIMENTARI GENIUS ARAKI'S BELOVED WIFE'S STORY

He has incredible power.

Master collaborator.

He's one of Japan's greatest photographers.

It's hard to deal with his power.

- Enormous monster. - That man is a monster.

I brought extra cameras today.

I'll go tell them what we're doing today

and describe the series.

This is Shukantaishu, "Weekly People", a magazine I have a series in.

That's what we're shooting today.

Here's my section.

This is one side of my work. Very nice, isn't it?

I've shot housewives for them, and today I'm doing another one.

And, to celebrate the 200th, anniversary telephone cards!

I do them all. Fat, small tits... From all over Japan!

Even the stretch marks. Everything.

I don't discriminate. I'll accept the challenge.

As you might know, I shoot a variety from art to porn.

Shooting Erotic Housewives is part of my life's work.

You're from Kyoto? You've got a nice body!

Come over here and lean against this.

Can you move a bit closer to the vase?

OK, that's it.

No! No way! Top secret project!

Could you hold this vase?

- Just think of it as a penis. - It's kind of small.

You think that's small!? It's a wee-wee!

OK. Now undress.

- Are you wearing a bra? - No.

- No bra? Right. - My nipples are hard.

Hard nipples? OK, then, take it off like this.

OK, let's roll.

It's hot today... Wait! Not yet!

Wait! Wait!

- Not yet! - I got carried away.

Carried away! Ha ha!

OK, drop it.

That's it!

Good.

This baseball team might get upset.

I bet you like being on top, right?

What's your favorite?

- You have him on top? - "Spread Eagle".

"Spread Eagle"!

Let's see your Spread Eagle! OK, Spread Eagle!

When we start shooting, those wives go wild.

This is amazing!

Too bad we can't publish it.

- I really wish we could publish it. - I wish I could show my pink!

What've you got?

Let me see.

- It's pink! - Pink!

Araki is friendly, funny, and speedy. It was a bit like doing martial arts.

I sweated a lot today.

From the moment Araki walks in with his camera,

the subject is affected.

With me, they'd laugh, "Oh, Takeshi!" They wouldn't smile the same.

Araki's shooting style is special because he relaxes his subject

so he can create his own world.

This girl here, this is my first shot from one year ago.

- Hotaru! - You see?

This is her, a year later.

This is Hotaru.

When I first saw her, I immediately fell in love,

so I started shooting.

But I didn't try to attack her.

For the whole year, no sex.

I use my camera instead.

Right?

Are you happy with the story I just told them?

You're so precious. It's incredible you're still a virgin.

Usually I sleep with the girls I work with.

It's amazing you've held out until now.

OK. I'm going to shoot you with this 700,000 yen camera.

My brand-new camera!

Good!

Isn't he different when he starts shooting?

- That's not true. - He is, a little bit.

Lies. All lies.

I'm going to caress you with my lens.

Living as a very intense artist is...

it's almost dreadful.

But that's his character.

I once met his wife, Yoko.

It made me really wonder what she felt

while she was living with Araki.

Her true feelings, can I say?

Oh, this is hard to explain.

To sum up the nature of his character, his ability,

you can call him a huge monster.

Oh, yes.

Move, move! Right!

Good.

Can you change that? Good.

You're sitting there by yourself. Alone... Yes...

Good. Show me a sad face.

There's a Japanese saying that says...

"A photograph steals part of your soul. "

That's exactly how I feel with Araki.

The more he shoots,

the emptier I become. I stop thinking.

Almost done, almost done...

That's good. Yes, good.

Drop your right leg a bit.

Yes! That's it. This is unbelievable!

Yes. Great.

Is everything OK? Let's go!

Let's go!

I think it was his Act Tokyo exhibition at Camera Austria, Europe.

His bondage and erotic photographs

created a huge controversy.

The female guards at the museum started some sort of strike,

saying that they didn't want to be involved with the exhibition.

Some critics lambasted his bondage work

as sexist and degrading, from a feminist point of view.

His photographs can stir up

hidden cultural conflicts.

Obviously, it's because of the power his photographs have.

This is great. Check it out.

This could get dangerous!

Let's do an instant exhibit.

That's enough. The cops will show up!

Araki's bondage photography gets a lot of criticism in America

from feminists and groups like that.

However, I heard a story from one of his bondage models.

She first saw a bondage magazine when she was in school.

They were the first erotic photos she'd ever seen.

After seeing the magazine,

she knew that was what she wanted to do.

She wasn't doing it for the money,

or being forced to do something she didn't want to do.

The desire must have come from somewhere else.

Some women have the desire to do those things.

Sexually and unconsciously, I find myself drawn to women.

I guess I just love it.

I like its gumminess, its changing shape and curve,

the temperature of the skin.

All these things, right?

The origin of visual art lies in the vagina.

I think women have more admirable qualities than men.

Whether physically or mentally, women are superior.

We learn from them somehow.

There is always the element of "mother".

If you ask me why...

We all came from women. We can't beat them, can we?

For example,

although I can't remember my childhood very well,

I once saw my mother crying out loud.

It was my most shocking memory. She'd never shown her tears.

The memory has always stayed in the back of my mind.

That's why...

It's like I tried to conceal that memory. I took the picture of her death.

When I found the angle, I shot.

That's how strongly I felt about my mother.

Not just the usual mother-son influence.

It was much more personal than that.

In the '90s, the direction of Araki's popularity started to change.

People recognized that he was more than just a naughty photographer,

and that he shoots a wide variety of quality work.

He started doing solo exhibitions at large museums

and getting wider recognition.

That's when his reputation was cemented

as one of Japan's greatest photographers.

- What about address? - Just your name is OK.

Oh, thank you so much.

Can you change that green one?

That red one.

Wait!

These crews are from New York.

We need to show them the good-looking guys of Kabuki-cho!

That was great!

- Wait, where are all the girls? - Your hair is amazing!

- All the girls are inside. - Inside?

This shows the spirit of Kabuki-cho!

Kabuki-cho couple!

Ok, let's do some art.

Art! See? It'll flash.

The first thing I think of when I think about Araki is that

he knows everything there is to know about photography.

That's the first thing about him.

On the surface, because of his popularity,

everyone thinks he's a superficial entertainer.

But he actually understands the true essence of photography.

How do I put this?

He knows how photography functions in the world.

Right now, I'm shooting Japanese faces.

I started in Osaka and shot over 1,000 portraits.

Isn't this interesting? Human faces are wonderful.

Oh... Isn't it nice?

To do these photos,

I shot a new person every five minutes, one by one.

This is a facial X-ray. I can shoot a person's interior.

Beautiful.

I want to shoot every Japanese face, but there's too many.

- How many people in Japan? - 100 million.

That sounds impossible.

Even if I drank a Chinese energy drink, I might not make it.

Oh, look at her.

I was shooting her face,

but she said, "I'll take off my clothes!"

There are girls like that.

There's a shot of her totally naked, but I won't show you!

I'm thinking of choosing the cover from one of these.

This is a new book series I've started.

What should I call it? Soft porn?

The series is called Koi-jikan in Japanese...

or Love Time.

All the girls are beautiful to me.

I fall in love with them during the shoot,

but then I say "bye".

If she's nice, she'll come with me to a "love hotel".

- That's one's nice. - Yes, that's right.

Here's the fashion book I did with Helena Christensen.

She wanted to work with me, so we did this.

I'm also good at fashion photography.

Isn't it beautiful?

I have to show them that I do this kind of photo, too.

Now it's time for Araki to make his entrance.

Somehow I always want an exposure in the frame.

It's a masterpiece.

Here, there are shots of me walking.

What makes me admire Araki is

the sheer amount of books he's published.

He doesn't care about what art is, or those kind of things.

For him, photos are simply just photos.

That's how he sees things and how he takes pictures.

That's why the books keep coming, one after another.

Let me use this example.

Let's say this point is a fulcrum.

If a hanging object starts to swing back and forth,

how shall I put it... a cycle is created.

For me, I do film, comedy, all complete opposites.

Violence, etcetera. I swing around.

Araki, on the other hand, just watches me from the fulcrum.

Where did I put it?

When I first started out, I shot people's faces.

Look at the photos here.

I took them on the streets.

I was 25 or 26 when I did these street snapshots.

I'd skip out on work at Dentsu, the ad agency.

Then I made prints.

I made this album myself.

I've never shown these photos in public.

I wanted to turn these ordinary snapshots into unusual images of life.

I wanted to create an artificial space.

I wanted a human face without a background.

First, I captured the energy in the streets of Ginza.

Then I got rid of the background so you focus on their face.

I was already doing these things.

And this book,

I titled it '70s Faces because I shot it in the '70s.

"Araki's Photo Book Number One '70s Faces".

Again, I keep shooting the same thing.

See?

Xerox didn't really work back then,

but that's why these images express that era.

Feelings of sadness and loneliness. Their lives show in their faces.

I was already obsessed with faces then.

It's continued from the '60s to now, come to think of it.

That's how I worked back then, and it peaked...

Where's that... the original?

Then, I was ready for Sentimental Journey.

It's in one continuous tone. I have an original somewhere...

To me, marriage is a sentimental journey.

Right? A journey through life.

I wanted to show that photography is also a sentimental journey.

This was my official declaration as a professional photographer.

This is my honeymoon.

I did all of the layout and editing.

I consider this as the beginning of my photographic career.

This is my most famous book.

This is a garden.

This stone bench looks like a coffin. It seems like a journey into death.

Things seemed very understated back then.

Oh, look. This one.

It looks like she's crossing the River Styx.

Actually she was exhausted from too much sex the night before.

This is one of my masterpieces.

She's curled up like a fetus.

Our honeymoon was a journey to death.

This piece is well known.

We were both working at Dentsu back then.

She brought copies to work,

and sold her colleagues them for 1,000 yen each.

We had 1,000 copies.

That was the beginning of my career.

It's possible to communicate feelings without talking.

That's what I believe in, I mean, that goes for the camera as well.

In this place, you don't have to talk.

A village in the middle of the city. I can almost feel the spirit of Japan.

If not Japan, it is...

the organic essence of woman.

That's why I shoot here.

Wow! That's good!

You almost look too good!

- You brought more? - We don't have to use them.

You didn't have to.

Damn! I forgot the rope.

This girl here...

I've been shooting her for a while.

Last year in August...

Last August, she came to see me.

From New York, to see me in Tokyo.

She told me to make her a woman. It's the truth!

She came on August 2nd last year,

and we started to shoot then.

We've been working together intensively all this year.

But she will go to Italy next September. She's a gypsy!

She wants to run away from me!

I was going to tie her up today

so she couldn't run away, but I forgot the rope!

I'll just have to wait for another chance.

I've been shooting her for a while.

So, at the moment,

she's like my muse.

Well...

Araki is just like what I expected from TV and magazines.

He's cheerful and happy, not scary at all.

He has a warm heart.

But he also understands Japanese emotion, elegance,

the old-school Japanese attitudes and values.

He treats women well.

He's a complete gentleman.

You wouldn't expect it, but he really is.

I want to have a story-like feel.

This is where we first worked together.

So today, we are going to shoot here again.

Isn't it interesting?

This is where it all began.

So we're going to re-shoot today.

Although it's not the end, and we'll continue.

It's the same place one year later.

I want her to stand in the same place,

to see if anything has changed.

Look that way. That's right!

Are you looking into the past or future?

Looking into the past? OK.

Now stand up.

That's right!

Now reveal the relationship. Good.

That's right!

Good! Now sit down!

- Let's do dirty. - Dirty?

Sit and spread your legs.

He's looking at you. He's staring right at you.

Mr Crab is watching you.

Mr. Crab is watching you.

Yeah, I got it! He's looking at me.

Sexuality is oppressed in Japan.

You can't express yourself.

You shouldn't take off your clothes or be nude.

"For a woman, being naked is out of the question. "

That's the social expectation.

That's why Araki has such a big influence.

Araki's photography embodies

the classic wood-block prints of Utamaro or Hokusai.

It's like updating traditional Shunga as "neo-Shunga".

He is remaking this ancient art form.

Rediscovering Japanese sexuality with rich emotions.

We had it in Japan in the past, but it's disappeared.

Now, that sense of emotion is returning.

That sense is almost specifically Japanese.

It's not like, "Here I am" or "Ready to go".

It's more traditional, something exactly like Shunga.

One more time.

At home...

- you're alone practicing. - Practicing?

Occasionally look out of the window thinking of your lover.

Or how you might leave him. Something like that.

It's going great. Wonderful.

I believe that we're creating erotic art together.

In that moment, I personally feel like some spark forms.

That's when we both express ourselves 100%.

Then he captures our relationship and realizes it as art.

You'll sense something more private, instead of me doing a job.

It makes you wonder what's on the next page of his books.

"Are they really fucking?" Pardon my language.

He makes you imagine the erotic.

What people fantasize about but can't actually do...

Araki expresses it for you.

But he doesn't do it privately because he's not that kind of guy.

Araki is purely creating art.

A feminist group might look at his work and get upset.

Thinking it's real, it's horrible,

and it should be banned.

But personally, I think it's OK. Because it's art. Really.

Araki is the one who can enjoy his work, more than I do.

That's what it looks like to me. I don't think he suffers much.

In my case,

I suffer a lot even when I enjoy the work.

I sometimes wonder if I really like my job.

Araki looks like he's having a really good time.

That's the difference.

His work is so good because he enjoys it so much.

It's not the same for me.

I don't think my work is as great as people say it is.

In short,

photography is about a single point of a moment.

It's like stopping time.

As everything gets condensed in that forced instant.

Photography has a kind of...

a reality which is almost illusion.

Shooting makes you aware of this.

But if you keep creating these points,

they form a line which reflects your life.

That's what I'm unconsciously thinking,

while clicking the shutter, gathering these points.

Fresh off the press!

This is a new book, Rebellious Eros.

I really did a good job.

- Oh! - The faces of the '80s.

Great.

This kind of thing's in here. When is it published?

Early September.

Good, while it's still hot outside.

It's for mid-summer.

These are photos of mid-summer heat.

My God, what do I do with these?

I think I should just stick to taking photos of the sky.

Look at all this!

The era of heat.

The '80s was a very raw era.

These photos are so energetic!

You insert and remove the watermelon, leaving behind the seeds.

Then you suck out the seeds!

In the '70s, I was growing far too conservative.

So I rebelled against myself. I had to destroy the past.

I'd lost touch with my dirty side, so I had to revisit the erotic world.

Oh, you made it vertical, that's the way it should be.

This is a vagin-eye.

Look, it's Tani!

That decadent feeling...

That bubbly era of promiscuity is captured

in his book Tokyo Lucky Hole.

A good photographer's work

always reflects the society of the time.

That's the fate of photography.

It's so great!

- Is this OK? - We've censored it here.

Right? He's a censorship veteran.

- That was 15 years ago. - Not the current censorship!

We used five techniques.

- That's right. - Oh, yes.

This is when I got arrested.

It was on the front page of Shukanshincho.

It's me with their ad for the issue.

It says "Araki Got Arrested!"

Araki was getting a lot of media attention before he got arrested

because his art was getting more provocative.

The police could get great publicity

if they arrested someone as famous as Araki.

That might be beneficial for the police.

I did this painting at the police station

when I got arrested.

An arrested whore I met in the lift.

I couldn't take a photo so I painted her instead.

I think Araki changed the law against pubic hair in Japan.

Before that,

a photo of a naked woman was either one of two things.

Either it was categorized as a piece of art,

or as dirty pornography...

which you could only see in certain places.

But Araki rejected that idea completely.

They are not two separate things. He combined the two beautifully.

Wow! Look at all the black flowers!

- Black, black... - Black, black...

Oh! It's supposed to be a penis.

A penis under the snail!

They should have censored this apple. It would have been funny.

It's all black!

Everyone will think Japanese girls have black pussies.

It's gone too far.

- Is it all censored? - Just the Japanese version.

Only in Japan.

I thought the way Japan dealt with expression then was very corny.

They didn't consider how his work was accepted

or that it contributed to society...

or how Araki's work was seen internationally.

They censored blindly when he went beyond their limits.

If he didn't, they wouldn't.

It really gets me upset the way they checked.

I called this Spermanko because I ejaculated on the photos.

I say ejaculated because the photos excited me so much.

I poured white liquid on top of them.

To be honest, I did it to censor my work.

Covering parts.

The jism is dripping. Spermanko!

Wow. This really takes me back.

It should be OK. Go!

It made it better.

It's really nice!

How can I explain this?

Instead of focusing on creating something new,

I realized it's better to destroy something that already exists.

Then I can discover or create something new and original.

That's the nature I'd recognized.

For example, in my housewives series I take pretty photos for a magazine.

I'm trying to make the models and readers happy.

But I'm also shooting with a variety of cameras.

It is to destroy the pretty photos even while I'm creating them.

The different cameras let me do this simultaneously

at the same moment, with different cameras.

When I see these photos later,

there are faceless, horrible ones.

I don't show them to anyone then.

Although it's all simultaneous...

it's my hidden betrayal.

That's why I've got five cameras.

You got me!

- You are a monster. - Exactly!

Araki is actually very scary yet he looks cute. Right?

That's his privilege.

What I mean by scary is not like he would do anything.

I mean his essential character.

His amazing existence and the way he thinks.

But he envelops those qualities with entertainment.

He hides it with his sweetness.

Do the peeing thing!

- Oh, this is mad! - Yes, that's right!

Now get your tits.

Araki's reputation makes you think

that he sleeps with all of his models.

That's his public image.

However, it's not true.

He hardly ever does those things.

But he would tell me to say that we'd slept together.

That's why I think he's so cute.

I understand his predictability.

Araki was born in downtown Tokyo,

a place which fosters traditional humanity.

He has some traditional values,

how men lived in the past dating from the Edo Old Tokyo period.

Araki treasures those classical qualities of men.

That's how I think of him.

It's very rare nowadays to find a man with these classic male qualities.

Yet he's not patriarchal...

or male in an authoritarian way.

He's more childish than that.

But I mean that in a good way...

like the spirit of a young boy.

- Here! - Thank you very much!

See you!

We both come from the same area.

This makes me think he's very shy.

But his shyness drives him...

or it becomes a vehicle

which leads to a brash boldness.

Otherwise it's impossible to shoot Mukojima's old downtown.

His framing captures feelings

which remind me of where I grew up.

Sacchin. These are some of the first photos I ever shot.

I got the Taiyo Award for these when I was 23 or 24.

At that time, I was inspired by Italian realism.

I used to go downtown,

where all the young boys were really rowdy.

I might have seen part of myself

reflected in this boy, Sacchin.

That was my insight.

This is my heat development series.

I did them around the anniversary of the atomic bombing.

It's like dropping the atomic bomb again.

That was my inspiration.

I developed them in boiling liquid.

Then, photo paper wasn't very good.

I'd stop processing when the emulsion floated off the paper.

That's one way I'd destroy my work.

We've got 15 minutes.

Well, I mean...

Flowers and the city.

These are the themes we're working with.

Tokyo...

In the near future where everything is desolate,

yet flowers are blooming everywhere.

It's almost an illusion.

When I see Araki's photos,

they inspire me to dance.

Well...

He shoots nudity, flowers...

as well as street life.

Our dance is just another subject.

It means...

Araki's main themes are the erotic and death.

I don't know if he's aware of it or not. Of course he is.

Photo after photo, all his movement...

He seems to be just playing around, but there's a deep spiritual side.

That's what I think he's doing.

He doesn't just snap a photo.

He has this ability to capture everything in the moment.

It's a monstrous ability to do that.

My playground was a cemetery.

There was this graveyard in my neighborhood.

The graveyard was

very special.

It was next to the Yoshiwara, a whorehouse district.

Those whores without families, when they died,

their bodies were thrown into a mass grave...

piled up without gravestones or names.

That was where I learned about...

the erotic, life and death, and how they're mixed together.

That concept was burned into me at an early age.

And it's remained with me forever.

That's the core of my Tokyo...

a place where life and death exist side by side.

That's great.

You walk down a busy street filled with noise and full of life.

But then you turn a corner and find a quiet back alley...

as still as death.

That mixture of life and death exists all over Tokyo.

I feel drawn to it.

That's why I don't ever want to leave Tokyo.

I mean...

the way I live my life.

I'll enter the world of monochrome

and experience death.

Then I enter the world of color

and experience life back and forth.

What I'm doing is drifting between the two.

Now we're shooting real life. Here we go.

I'm already 49 years old,

so I'm doing this to commemorate my 40s.

All of the nice lines of my figure are gone,

but I think I look better now than I will in my 50s or 60s.

That's why I'm doing this.

I thought it would be nice to do some nude photos.

Minowa's a town close to Asakusa.

- Minowa? - That's where I was born.

- I used to live in Minowa. - Did you? This could get dirty!

- I'm the son of the clog shop owner. - In Minowa Ginza?

Almost. Don't you know that huge sign for clogs? It's gone now.

Let's roll.

Open it. Yes.

Yes. Good!

- I want to take it. - You want me to take it off?

No, no, no. To take photos of it. It's a fashion!

It looks good. Yes!

Today we'll treat with Shabu-Shabu! You're showing too much.

No, it's OK. It's wide angle. Let's go!

Ah, beautiful. This looks good!

Although Mr Araki's body isn't very large,

Although Mr. Araki's body isn't very large,

If I do exactly what he says, everything is fine. I feel so secure.

That's how I felt during the shoot. He possesses a mysterious power.

When I shoot Erotic Housewives,

the photos are an homage to love and beauty.

However,

those women also reveal their less attractive side, the cruelty of life.

I actually shoot that as well.

I treat it all the same behind the camera.

In Japan, there's a Buddhist statue called Senjukannon.

It's great, it has 1,000 arms.

I want to make him hold 1,000 cameras...

and shoot!

These cloud photos...

After Yoko died, for about a year, I only shot the sky from my balcony.

Can you see the difference from usual cloud photos?

Everyone feels that sense of sadness in life.

That's why photography is a sentimental journey.

Some of the first photos I saw were of his wife...

while she was in the hospital with tubes in her arms.

The photo of him holding his dying wife's hand

made me cry uncontrollably.

For me, that was the pinnacle of reality.

Therefore I think...

his shocking images are just a small slice.

Every photo he takes revolves around that core.

Whether it's flowers, the sky, or the city...

everything has that basic feeling of human warmth.

That was my first impression.

Winter Journey...

At Yoko's funeral, Araki read something he had written.

I was listening and...

Usually funerals are for everyone to mourn the death of the person.

But at that moment I suddenly realized...

we were at the last meeting for Araki and Yoko in this life.

It made me realize the importance of sharing your life

with someone you love.

For me, Araki is almost...

He's the person who taught me the important things in life.

It wasn't just his photography. It was him.

In this photo,

I'm rushing, taking a shortcut to the hospital

with flowers that haven't yet bloomed...

because she was in critical condition and about to die.

The flowers bloomed a few hours later.

Just when she died.

Here's that flower.

The essence of these meanings

forms the foundation for all of my work.

With flowers. See?

I put the flower in her coffin.

She was really looking forward to my new book about our cat.

She didn't make it, so I also put that in her coffin.

When I returned home,

Chiro was sitting there alone.

There she is.

And here again.

She would roam around aimlessly

or sit there by herself, in the room with two beds.

This is the last scene from Winter Journey.

Chiro suddenly leapt up,

jumped and rushed outside.

As if to tell me, "Don't sit still in one place".

She wanted to show me that. That's the last scene.

Maybe she was telling me to focus on what's alive...

or maybe Yoko was telling me to move on.

That's the last shot from Winter Journey, in the snow.

Chiro taught me not to stay still.

That's the story.

A man should never show his sadness.

Even if you feel pain, don't show it. You shouldn't do that.

Whenever a man feels pain or sadness, he should keep it inside.

You should erase those feelings by taking photos.

Just like that, it goes away.

- It's cool. - Don't be sad and pathetic.

Welcome!

- Welcome! - Please come this way!

You've been a virgin for so long,

I brought this white lily for you to stain.

- I've seen it. She's great. - Was it a nude photo?

Nude with shaved pubes and a tattoo.

- Oh boy, here we go again. - A fig leaf tattooed on her vagina.

My hair was long and flowing.

Try and remember what happened in your miserable past.

Remember it all.

I'm going to erase it with the sound of my shutter.

All of your misery. This way please.

Listen, compared to love,

affection in life is higher and much more important.

Love is difficult.

Love is about your father and mother, right?

While romantic affection is the feeling that you create for yourself.

I think love is inescapable.

Something like the death of your wife. That's what it becomes.

But affection is nicer.

- It's all about joy, isn't it? - Exactly. You can fly away.

That's the feeling. You should think that way.

Because love is tiring.

His pronunciation is good!

Why do you always make jokes about sex?

- Because life is sex. - You might have a point there.

No, I was just making it up.

Life is sex, isn't it?