The Origami Forum

My copy of Maekawa's new book, Genuine Origami, the English version just arrived today. It looks amazing. It has diagrams for 43 works from simple to complex, along with detailed commentary on each. The diagrams are great and have some very creative and fun sequences. Each work has a theme, such as miura-ori, irregular shape, crease pattern, repeat on the other side, etc., and this book even touches upon fractal/tessellations, grafting, some molecules, and a bit of the math, such as explaining the 2:1+√2 reference point and the theorems of flat-foldabilty. Also, Maekawa's style is one of clean lines and no excessive shaping. And the book includes perennial favorites as his peacock, turkey, flying samurai helmet beetle (remember this was the original), and of course is infamous devil.

And at such a low price ($16.47) this may be the best deal I've ever seen on an origami book.

I would have liked to have his Swiss Army Knife diagrammed in here. That would have been cool.

Sorry if this sounds like advertising. I'm just totally thrilled with this book. And I HIGHLY recommend it.

origamimasterjared wrote:Also, Maekawa's style is one of clean lines and no excessive shaping.

Yes. Superb models. I did a search and found the link to the review in Gilad Aharoni's site:
http://www.giladorigami.com/BO_GenuineOrigami.html
I'll be ordering it soon. Thanks.

I Agree, this is a great book. I'm most fo the way through mine and the models are all fantastic, with some fun folding sequences. Its no ODS, but the design insights are really interesting.

Also, the fact that (most) of the models can be folded from regular origami paper is so refreshing!

Are the text parts worth buying the English version if I already have the Japanese one?

Interesting question.... My first response is Yes !

However, if you have already read and fully absorbed Lang's ODS, and CPs are a simple matter, then you may not learn anything new. But, for $16USD, I think it is an excellent addition to your collection.

I consider it to be a good, accessible intro to Origami, leading from simple through complex folding, with a taste of CPs and design techniques.

Go for it... and if I am wrong... that will be a good indicator of the value of my advice

- Hank Simon

Absolutely. The text is what puts this book over the top. It's kind of like Jeremy Shafer's or Satoshi Kamiya's book.

Now if only we could get Kawahata's stuff in English...

By the way, I personally find Kamiya's book (and now Maekawa's too) more helpful for creating your own origami works. Especially if you have any regard for foldability, or prefer to work exclusively with 22.5, 15, or 30 degree flaps, as do Maekawa, Komatsu, Miyajima, Quentin Trollip, me, etc. The main things I got out of ODS were grafting and the notion of a point split.

I am amazed that there have been no replies over a bit over a year and a half
'course, i got the hang of grafting using ODS, but i just couldn't understand tiles.Mainly my focus is on Box-Pleating, but I saw no mention of the techniques in there, so I just learned by folding cp's.........

Genuine origami is my favourite book. Jun Maekawa us my favourite creator. Genuine Origami was my first origami book. It basically taught me how to fold. My copy of that book is very special to me.

I just recently finished folding every model in Genuine Origami. Maekawa has elegant folding sequences, and it was a good book to get me back into folding origami. Only the Samurai Helmet Beetle and Eastern Dragon featured difficult folds, which set me up well for Passion Origami which has closed sinks almost from p 1.

Anyway I used to see Maekawa is the devil guy, but now I see that most of his skill and genius are in his intermediate models. My favorite model is the bunny.

Genuine Origami and Viva Origami are among my favorite origami books. When a new Tanteidan Convention book is released, I expect to fold a model by Jun Maekawa.