"Tokiwa-so's Youth" The light and shadow of young manga artists drawn in a legendary apartment (Part 1/Planning part)

The reason why a manga artist lived in Tokiwaso

Tokiwaso, completed in December 1952, is a two-story wooden mortar apartment building. The toilets and kitchen are shared on each floor, and there are no baths. There are 22 rooms, and each room is four and a half tatami mats in size. The rent was 3,000 yen at the time of completion, and electricity, gas, and water bills cost around 500 yen.

Looking at it from today, it doesn't look like an easy-to-live-in environment, but Tokiwa-so was built two years after the Land Rent Control Ordinance that controlled rent increases was revised, and as a result, new buildings were finally built. This was around the time when the number of apartments began to increase.

Even in 1966, 14 years after Tokiwa-sou was completed, 77% of apartment residents in Tokyo lived in one-room apartments, of which 68% lived in four-and-a-half tatami rooms and 27% lived in six-tatami rooms. It can be seen that living in the area was a privileged environment at the time.

But why did Tokiwa-so have to be the apartment where young manga artists live? Its origins lie in Osamu Tezuka and the monthly boys' magazine Manga Shonen published by Gakudosha. Tezuka serialized `` Jungle Emperor '' in the same magazine for a long period from 1950 to 1954, but he was also busy with other serials such as `` Astro Boy .'' Since the editor was in and out of the second floor of the fruit and vegetable shop in Yotsuya, where he had been boarding in Tokyo at all times, he was forced to move to a solitary apartment.

   “Tokiwa-so's Youth” ©1995/2020 Culture Entertainment Co., Ltd

When Tezuka asked the editor of Manga Shonen to help him find an apartment, he set two conditions. It was a place along the Seibu Ikebukuro line, near Gakudosha. This was because many manga artists lived along the Seibu Ikebukuro Line, including veteran Keizo Shimada, a member of the Tokyo Children's Manga Association, of which Tezuka also participated, and his ally Eiichi Fukui. The reason he wanted a location near Gakudosha was because he admired Kenichi Kato, the company's publisher and known as the famous editor-in-chief of ``Shonen Club'' before the war. When Tezuka arrived at Tokyo Station, he went straight to the editorial department, and he often went in and out of Gakudosha.

However, matching these two conditions is an extremely difficult task. This is because Gakudosha at that time was located in Iidabashi, far from the Seibu Ikebukuro Line. Tokiwaso, which barely met the requirements, was located a 10-minute walk from Shiinamachi Station, which is the station next to Ikebukuro Station on the Seibu Line, and a little over 20 minutes on foot from Mejiro Station on the Yamanote Line. For Tezuka, who seems to have often used taxis, Tokiwaso must have been ``a place along the Seibu Ikebukuro line near Gakudosha''.

According to Tezuka's recollection, Tokiwaso was discovered by the editor of Manga Shonen, and the editor-in-chief, Hiroyasu Kato, accompanied him for a preliminary inspection. Hiroyasu is the second son of Kenichi Kato. With his father's return to Kodansha (1952), he left the Sankei Shimbun and joined Gakudosha. In fact, he was the first manga-related person to move into Tokiwa-sou, and he was just a newlywed in his apartment. Therefore, it is believed that Hiroyasu, who was already a tenant, recommended Tokiwaso to Tezuka.

The reason why this theory has high credibility is that while working as the editor of Manga Shonen, Hiroyasu is a manager who coordinates the order of writing with each magazine and communicates with the editors in charge of Tezuka. This is because it had become.

In early 1953, Tezuka became a resident of Room 14 on the second floor of Tokiwa-so. However, even after moving in, he spent a lot of time at the inn, only stopping by the room once or twice a week. ``I only had the minimum necessary daily necessities'' (`` Tokiwaso Seishun Monogatari '').

In fact, in ``Weekly Asahi'' (April 1, 1954 issue), which covered the period when Tezuka lived at Tokiwa-so, the state of the room was described as follows.

``This ``star writer'' is writing late at night in a 6-tatami room in a rickety apartment with only a desk and a bookshelf.''

This interview was conducted because he was the first manga artist to become the top artist in Kansai's richest person ranking (annual income of 2.17 million yen), but Tezuka seemed to be offended by the way this was written. ``I didn't really mean it, but I figured it would be a good idea to leave something valuable behind'' (``I'm a Manga Artist''). Perhaps for this reason, in the fall of 1954, he and Hiroyasu moved to Zoshigatani's Namiki House, which was larger and more luxurious than Tokiwaso, where he equipped himself with a large TV, piano, and other equipment, and worked to maintain his appearance.

On December 31, 1953, a second manga artist moved into Tokiwa-so. This is Hiroo Terada. It was Hiroyasu who introduced Tokiwaso to Terada, who went from being a regular in the reader-submitted manga section of Manga Shonen to becoming a professional. Terada moved into room 22, directly across from Tezuka's room.

There was also a project that seemed to have come about because Tezuka, Terada, and Kato lived in the same apartment. ``Manga Tsuushinbo'', which started with ``Manga Shonen'' (March 1954 issue), is a renewal of the famous reader-submitted manga section of the magazine that has produced many manga artists. Hiroyasu selects the submitted manga, The concept was that Tezuka would write reviews and Terada would create the structure of this column and draw sample comics. For projects like this, it can be difficult just to send the manuscripts, but if three people live in the same apartment, they can be handed over at any time.

However, according to Terada, ``from about the third time onwards, everything was left to me'' (Estoria Quarterly No. 2), and ``the author of the series was... In order not to disappoint, ``Manga Tsuushinbo'' was written by the Manga Shonen Editorial Department and the composition by Hiroo Terada, but I was in charge of everything.'' (``Manga Shonen History'') However, through this series, Terada came to be respected by aspiring manga artists.

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