"Kamen Rider" and "Super Sentai Series" -- two long-loved series in the tokusatsu sci-fi superhero genre -- continue to add new works every year, even now in the 21st century. But neither the very first "Kamen Rider" nor the first Sentai Series production, "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger," might have been made if it had not been for a certain apartment building.
And it's not only tokusatsu superheroes who owe the building a debt. Without the apartment, popular manga and anime characters such as "Doraemon" and "Tensai Bakabon" might not have been born either.
The Tokiwa-so apartment building stood in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, from 1952 to 1982. It had a two-story wooden structure, which included a communal kitchen and toilet. Each resident lived in a small room of 4-1/2 tatami mats, or about 7 square meters.
Great manga talents lived in the apartment house, working in friendly rivalry with each other, when they were young. At the top of the list is Osamu Tezuka, widely regarded as a god of manga, followed by Fujiko Fujio -- the pair of Fujiko F. Fujio, the author of "Doraemon," and Fujiko Fujio A.
There was also Fujio Akatsuka, the author of "Tensai Bakabon," Shotaro Ishinomori -- the original author of "Kamen Rider" and also the founder of "Super Sentai Series" -- and Hideko Mizuno.
How they honed their art while living there is depicted in the manga "Tokiwa-so Monogatari" (The story of Tokiwa-so) and other publications, and has been dramatized on TV. In a way, you could say it was the most famous wooden apartment house in Japan.
In time, the manga artists left Tokiwa-so as they found success in their careers, and the house deteriorated and was demolished despite people lamenting the loss.
A plan is gaining steam to replicate Tokiwa-so in the nearby Minami-Nagasaki Hanasaki Park as a symbol of Japanese manga culture. The project is led by Toshima Ward, which has declared itself to be an International City of Art and Culture and is seeking regional development with the cultural aspect as one of the pillars of its strategy.
The ward aims to rebuild Tokiwa-so and open it in March 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. It is tentatively called "Manga no Seichi Toshima Museum," literally meaning the "holy land of manga Toshima museum." The ward started collecting donations for the project in February. So far, the ward has received more than 200 donations not only from people inside the ward but outside Tokyo as well. The total amount has exceeded 10 million yen.
I am the ward's International City of Arts and Culture producer and a promoter of the donation drive. I think this is a pretty cool project.
Historical source materials on anime and manga have tended to be scattered and lost. Building such a core facility gives us a place where we can bring them together and pass them on to posterity. Facilities like memorial museums are often built for novelists and painters. I think it's significant that this sort of museum will be built for manga artists, who are also authors of stories for anime and tokusatsu works.
Moreover, the donation is treated as so-called furusato nozei, or a tax-deductible donation for a local government. Donors of more than 2,000 yen can get a tax reduction. If you donate 30,000 yen or more, your name will be engraved on a plate to be placed in the museum or the park. The furusato nozei system has been seen as problematic at times, for some local governments offer overly expensive gifts to donors. But the ward's gesture of appreciation is nice and smart, I think.
Manga, anime and tokusatsu are cultural elements that Japan proudly presents to the world. To properly hand them down to future generations, I hope that Tokiwa-so will be steadfastly resurrected.
Suzuki is a Yomiuri Shimbun senior specialist and an expert on tokusatsu superhero films and dramas.
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