Leiji Matsumoto was just 7 years old when World War II ended. But the manga legend, whose works include "Uchu Senkan Yamato" (Space Battleship Yamato) and "Ginga Tetsudo 999" (Galaxy Express 999), still vividly remembers his wartime experiences.
Born in 1938 in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, he made his debut as a mangaka during his high school days and then came to Tokyo.
Matsumoto recently shared his wartime memories with Yomiuri Shimbun readers as this summer marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the war.
Matsumoto: I was 7 when the war ended. At that time I lived in Niiya (now Ozu) in Ehime Prefecture, where the house of my mother's parents was. I used to watch swarms of B-29 planes flying from the direction of Uwajima in the south every day. I ran under machine-gun fire as well. Grumman planes would swoop down from the other side of the mountains and fired on the paths between rice fields, making rat-a-tat noises, which were terrifying. There were splashes of water, pebbles flying around and holes everywhere. Being a little child, though, I would go to those areas later to pick up the bullets and make them my treasures.
Aug. 15 was during summer school holidays, and I was swimming in a river. A man in the neighborhood came running on the bank, screaming, "The war is over!" So I went home, and my mother and grandmother told me that Japan had lost. A few days later, I saw a large formation of Japanese military fighter planes fly toward Honshu island, reflecting the setting sunlight. That was the last time I saw Japanese military planes. I was standing on a bank, feeling dazed. It's a really strong memory.
My father, Tsuyoshi Matsumoto, was an army major and the captain of a fighter unit, which fought major aerial dogfights with U.S. Air Force planes over Negros Island in the Philippines. The unit lost many members, all young men. They were immature as pilots, so one day my father was ordered [by his superior] to select members for tokkotai [a suicide squad]. My father couldn't submit the names of his men, so he drew a circle around his name instead. Then the superior got angry and told him, "The unit won't work without the captain," which made my father go through hard times. He came home one or two years after the war.
The Yomiuri Shimbun: What did you learn from your father?
Matsumoto: He taught me to make decisions with my own will. He also told me, "Don't run away once you've made up your mind." He was absolutely right, I thought, even when I was a little child. After I graduated from high school, I started serializing manga for a magazine. When I left home for Tokyo, I told my father: "Now that I've made up my mind, all the responsibilities are upon me. I won't come back even if I die." And I traveled from Kyushu to Tokyo on a steam train, taking 24 hours.
Q: Please tell us about your thoughts on the war that you integrated into your work.
Matsumoto: Captain Juzo Okita in "Space Battleship Yamato" is modeled on my father. He looks exactly like my father, too. Once I told him, "I want to become a pilot and fly a fighter plane," and he scolded me, saying: "Because everyone says such things, such a war occurred and many people died. You must never, ever start a war again."
I drew that episode in my manga. In any case, fortunately, missiles didn't drop near me. I saw many times that they fell in other places and caused clouds of dust and pillars of fire. I also saw U.S. fighter planes crashing down and U.S. soldiers parachuting down. I understood very well that [both sides] were fighting, ready to die. There were no allies and foes. I was very young but thought, "They have moms and dads, too, maybe even kids."
Q: What would you like to tell people now, 75 years after the end of the war?
Matsumoto: How miserable it is to be defeated in a war. Men from the occupation army were walking down the streets in Kokura (in present-day Kitakyushu), while I was wearing a pair of geta sandals, hungry and only drinking baby formula. I tasted the bitterness of what it is to be defeated. That's why I have conviction that we'll never be defeated again and we'll never battle again. And the question, "What can we do to not fight?" has become the biggest theme of my life. Perhaps young people today may not understand, but I hope they will live for the goals they've set by themselves while also imagining what it's like to live in those extreme times. There's no other way but to live for the goal you've set by yourself. That's why it is my belief that you must never run away."
Matsumoto said he lived in what is now Iruma, Saitama Prefecture, from age 4 to 5 because of his father's job as a military pilot.
"The place was full of green. I would look up at the sky while running down a path between rice fields," he recalled.
A Seibu Railway train adorned with pictures of characters from "Galaxy Express 999" ran from 2009 to March last year, with some interruptions. Iruma was on the course that the train ran.
"It's very touching that a train I designed ran in the place filled with my memories. I worked very hard for the project because I thought it had to be a happy, radiant train. It was fun because what I had dreamed came true," he said.
He made headlines last November when he fell and was hospitalized in Italy for about three weeks.
"I was taken in by a beautiful landscape and slipped on a frozen stone pavement," he said. "It was so cold that I had also caught the flu. I was watching Italian landscapes from the hospital every day. It was really nice."
Asked for his thoughts about the new coronavirus, he said: "This is something we have to tough out, but patiently. Still, I really feel sad for the people who have died from the disease and their bereaved families. The war was harsh, but so is this."
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