Review: Kurayami Godan

Hiro Terada (1931-1992) was one more of the artists that lived at Tokiwa Manor and worked as Tezuka's assistant during the magical period between 1953 and 1954. In the interview on Comi Press with Fujio A. Fujiko, Terada was described as being very strict regarding how he thought children's manga should go, disliking violence in the stories. He was also nicknamed "Terada-bank", for his willingness to loan money to the other artists unable to pay their rent at the end of each month.


(Sportsman Kintaro. Link to amazon for review purposes only.)

He had a particular, simplistic style that featured thin lines and big eyes. Rather than being known for his elaborate drawings, Terada focused more on the story and pacing. His manga aren't as eye catching as that of Fujio A or Hideko Mizuno, but that wasn't what he was going for. Terada has 14 titles listed to his name in the Japanese wiki page, including "Sportsman Kintaro" (1959-1963), the baseball story "Sebangou 0" ("Number 0", 1960-1961), and "Wanpaku Kisha" ("Naughty Reporter").



Kurayami Godan, vol. 1, by Hiro Terada, Grade: B
Kurami is a fourth degree judo black belt. He starts out the story as one of Kumade's three henchmen. Where Kumade, a 5th degree black belt, is a big, square-jawed hustler, Kurami is a smaller, better-looking gentleman. Kumade takes his crew to various dojos to challenge their top students to one-point (ippon) matches, loser has to pay the winner a stiff fee. Kurami manages to defeat the various defenders single-handedly. When Kurami returns to his own dojo, he's greeted by Oni-hime (Demon Princess) and her grandfather Gofune (owner of the dojo). Gofune is getting up in years, and had helped raise Kurami after the boy's own parents died. Not only does Gofune see the boy as a member of the family, but he wants Kurami to make 5th degree black, marry Oni-hime and take over the dojo. A few weeks later, at a major tournament, Kurami easily sweeps the field and makes 5th rank.

Suddenly, Kumade is feeling threatened. Kurami has the same status, and Kumade is looking at losing his shot at taking over the dojo he's been training at for so long. He sets up an ultimatum, where the winner of the next top tournament will win control of Gofune's dojo. Gofune agrees, and Kurami starts training harder, not realizing that Kumade has ordered the other two henchmen to tagteam him, alternating turns at keeping Kurami busy practicing 16 hours a day. After 1 week, Kurami has been run ragged and is ordered by Gofune to take a rest day. This is what Kumade has been waiting for. On false pretenses, Kurami is lured out into the mountains, where Kumade and the other two give him a choice - take a suitcase of money and skip town until after the tournament, or face being beaten to a pulp. Kurami slips off the mountain and crashes into the river below. Thinking that the boy's been killed, Kumade mails a letter to Gofune written in Kurami's hand, claiming that the boy couldn't take the pressure anymore and ran away. Kumade returns to Tokyo, Kurami fails to reappear, and Gofune curses the boy for betraying everything he's done for him. Oni-hime doesn't know what to think, but is suspicious at the way Kumade is suddenly spending more time in the dojo.


(Joining a dojo after recovering from the river, with Matsuge watching on.)

Meanwhile, the boy has been fished out of the river by an unemployed former judo student and his daughter, Matsuge. They nurse him back to health, but there are two problems - Kurami has lost his memory, and he's now blind. When asked for his name, the boy just repeats "Kurayami Godan" (Darkness, 5th degree). Time passes, the big tournament comes and goes and Kumade is now the new lead student of Gofune's studio, and he's filling the dojo up with new students to force the old ones out. Oni-hime is upset with the changes, but Gofune doesn't care anymore. "Kurayami" quickly recovers from the injuries to his head, arm and leg, but that's about it. He does drift back into judo out of instinct, visiting the closest dojos and easily defeating everyone else without being able to see them, but he dislikes imposing on Matsuge and her father for taking care of him, and he runs off to start a new career as a blind masseuse. Unfortunately for him, a similar group of delinquent judo masters come to terrorize his current dojo, and they want revenge later on after they're humiliated. The delinquents call Kurayami out on a fake request to provide massage services and attack the boy in a park. Kurayami defeats 3 of the 4, but the leader grabs an empty sake bottle and uses it as a weapon.


(Sportsman Kintaro. Link to amazon for review purposes only.)

At the last minute, the leader is hit in the back with a rock and Kurayami throws him to the ground. The question is, where did the rock come from? The answer, a master judo student called Black Beard had come to Tokyo some weeks before and had seen Kurami, on Kumade's orders, defeating various dojos for money, and decided to teach the boy his own style of combat-level judo. Black Beard had lived at Gofune's dojo up until Kurami had made 5th degree black and he'd then left to go back to Hokkaido, which is when Kumade had made his move. Black Beard came back to Tokyo, discovered that Kurami was missing, saw "Kurami's" letter, and set out to find the boy. To Black Beard, the person in the letter didn't match up with the one he'd trained on the mats. In fact, Black Beard had located Kurayami a day earlier, but the boy didn't remember him and blew him off. When Black Beard rescues Kurayami from the remaining delinquent, the boy decides that he wants to learn more about his life prior to falling into the river.

End of book 1. Resolved in book 2.

As mentioned, Terada has a simplistic style. There are no elaborate backgrounds, no detailed close-ups of people reacting in shock. No dynamic, movement-filled panels showing the various throws. Instead, "Kurayami Godan" is a story-driven manga where things continue to take turns for the worse. Obviously, there is a resolution to all the various plot lines at the end, but how things will wrap up is not clear in the last chapter of book one. This is not one of the greatest manga in the world, but it is a good read, and a decent introduction to judo for anyone interested.

Summary: A promising up-and-coming young 4th degree black belt looks poised to take over the dojo and marry the master's granddaughter. After being betrayed by his friend, Kumade, the boy is fished out of a river, blind and with no memories. Starting over under the name Kurayami Godan, the boy makes new friends, new enemies and a new career as a masseuse, while never really being able to escape the pull of the judo dojo. Recommended if you're a student of manga history.

Fujio A Fujiko

("Black Humor")

Fujio Fujiko may best be remembered as the manga duo that created "Doraemon" before breaking up in the 1980's and going their separate ways. So, it may seem odd that one half of the team would draw manga that's the polar opposite of the big, blue robot cat.


(Fujio A's book cover featuring some of the Tokiwa Manor members.)

Fujio F Fujiko, and his partner Fujio A Fujiko, both lived and worked at Tokiwa Manor as Tezuka's assistants in the early 1950s. Unfortunately, they'd decided for one reason or another to start ignoring their deadlines and the manga magazines refused to carry them any more. Later, they did make a come back, which ultimately led to the development of "Doraemon". But, that title pretty much belonged to Fujio F. Fujio A went on to create "Ninja Hattori-kun", "Smiling Salesman" and a number of other macabre works.



Which brings me to "Black Humor". This is volume 1 of the series - a big 376-page collection of manga and written short stories all in the "Outer Limits" vein. With the exception of the 2 "Hitler" stories, these are all stand-alone 20 page one-shots that are indeed "black humor" pieces. The artwork is largely crude and cartoonish, interspersed with the occasional high-quality sketch, or a touched-up photo. There are recurring character designs, similar to Tezuka's "star system", but the characters themselves are unrelated across stories (which were printed between 1969 and 1972).


(A young man falls under the influence of Rene Magritte's "Stone Castle" painting in a collection of Magritte's artwork, then becomes incensed when the bookstore owner sells the book to someone else.)

Most of the stories have at least one person die in some strange way, and although Fujio A manages to avoid being gruesome, his twist endings tend to border between being funny and just being sick. Some of the stories are: A Japanese tour group visits a restaurant that serves Peking duck, and later learns about the off-menu item "Peking human". A young businessman being bullied by a co-worker has a crush on a beautiful woman that really likes "water flowers"; both the bully and the woman meet the same fate. An office worker develops a crush on a random woman that he accidentally sees on the street, and turns into a stalker (back before there was a name for this behavior). A man that looks a lot like Hitler, but isn't, comes to a small town in Japan and turns the townsfolk into black-jacket wearing followers. A man who fails his driver's test 20+ times decides to get vengeance on the driving instructor who still can't get his name right.


(Smiling Salesman)

Smiling Salesman was turned into a late-night TV anime back when I first came to Japan. It was a weird show, and it's only now that I'm starting to understand it. Black Humor is even more twisted and off-the-wall. Which is interesting, because Fujio A, Tezuka and Jirou Tsunoda all published similar stories at about the same time (Fujio's "Black Humor", Tezuka's "The Crater" and Tsunoda's "Kyofu Shimbun"), although Fujio A was the only one that really got carried away with knocking off his victims with such regularity. I have the vision of Fujio routinely sitting in his room with the light off, watching "Sweeney Todd" and reading Edgar Allan Poe before breaking his inks out.

I think that of the manga that I'm familiar with right now, I'd recommend "Smiling Salesman" over "Black Humor". The main reason being that "Smiling Salesman" has two continuing characters that lend some sort of consistency to the stories, where as "in "Black Humor" the stories are all unrelated somewhat hit-or-miss.

Review: Konnichiwa Sensei

Ok, this is going to be pretty unfair. I'm not a big fan of this kind of shojo manga, and I've only read the one volume from the series, so I can hardly be expected to make an informed opinion here. On the other hand, my main purpose isn't to review Konnichiwa Sensei, but rather to bring Hideko Mizuno to everyone's attention (if you don't already know about her).

Hideko was one of Osamu Tezuka's assistants at Tokiwa Manor, along with Shotaro Ishinomori and Fujio Fujiko, in the early 1950's. She went on to make a major name for herself as one of the most successful female manga artists of the 50's and 60's. "Fire!" won the Shogakukan Award in 1970, and "Honey Honey no Sutekina Boken" was adapted into a TV anime, known in the U.S. as "Honey Honey".


(Image from amazon, used for review purposes only.)

Her website has a reminiscence from her days at Tokiwa (in Japanese of course), and her manga is still being released. Her style is very easily recognizable, with the big glittering eyes, boyishly-good looking leading men, and big-haired girls. This is the embodiment of young Japanese girls stories.


(Cover reprinted here for review purposes.)

Konnichiwa Sensei, vol. 9, by Hideko Mizuno, Grade: B
If you're going to review just one book out of a full repertoire, you're faced with a dilemma. Should it be a collection of stand-alone stories that don't show the artist's storytelling abilities? Should it be something famous that's been reviewed before or a work that's obscure for a reason? The first volume of a series that you don't know how it will end, the last volume so you don't know how it started, or from the middle where there's at least a sense of ongoing adventure?

I picked volume 9 of "Konnichiwa Sensei" ("Hello, Doc") because that's the only book of Mizuno's available at the used bookstore. Just by coincidence, it happened to be the last volume of the series. Reprinted in 2004, it originally ran in Weekly Margaret magazine in 1964.



Our heroine is the inimitable Annie Ford, 18, granddaughter of the great oil baron Mr. Ford himself. Annie has been sent to the western town of Holdup, U.S.A., where she's expected to survive on her own under the alias "Jane", minus all of the minions and servants she's grown accustomed to, as a predecessor of the 1965 TV show "Green Acres". Holdup is a small town, occupied by the rambunctious sisters Rose and Mary, airheaded little Berry and the handsome young veterinarian Doc Holiday. Essentially a sitcom, the chapters follow a typical pattern where "Jane" fails to win Doc's attentions, or gets tired of being ignored by the backwards town people, and tries to do something secretly using her family's wealth only to have the plan backfire when one of the others don't react as expected.

One example situation takes place towards the end of the series, when Jane had dropped a diamond ring and word got out that Holdup might have a diamond mine. Berry is one of the kids that spread the rumor, and when prospectors descend on the town to dig for diamonds, Berry's misunderstanding is exposed and he gets spanked by his mother as punishment. Feeling guilty and wanting to make things up to Berry, "Jane" flies back to New York to tell her butler to buy up some statues and artwork from the museums and have them buried outside of town. Annie then sends a letter to Berry telling him to go out to the big tree on the outskirts of town and start digging. Berry sees Annie's trademark pistol stamp on the envelop and immediately thinks that she's buried a pistol there. When the Venus de Milo, a centaur statue and other things start coming up out of the ground, the townsfolk have no idea what they are and end up defacing the artwork. Berry's friends beat him up for not finding the promised pistol.

Meanwhile, Annie is on her way to the Riviera to get her grandmother's approval to marry Doc. Grandma, unfortunately, has agreed to marry the girl off to the wimpy Don Juan. And, while "Jane" is out of town, Rose makes a play for Doc. Things get really out of control when Doc flies to New York and realizes A) that "Jane" has been lying to him; and B) "Jane" comes from a really wealthy family and he hates that kind of wealth. To top it all off, when Annie does return to Holdup, she is just in time to hear the rumors that Doc is going to marry Rose, followed by Rose accidentally kissing Doc. It's enough to make a young, spoiled, head-strong girl run off to Mexico. Which she does. Actually, she only gets to the nearby town of Gunbelt, but that's good enough. Anyway, this is the last volume, so everything gets straightened out in the end and the two lovers get married on the last page. Annie gets her grandmother's approval, and she also makes Doc happy by donating her inheritance away so that the newlywed couple can remain quietly in Holdup.


(Cleopatra, the "uncatchable.)

It's a sappy story for young girls wishing to grow up to become princesses, filled with cute fish (the fish have eyelashes), cute dogs, cute men, and wardrobe upon wardrobe of disposable thousand-dollar dresses. It fits the definition of "shojo manga" to a "t".

Summary: Hideko Mizuno is a fixture in the shojo manga world, and "Konnichiwa Sensei" is what you'd expect from a 1960's young girl's artist - big sparkly eyes and silly romantic situations. Recommended for the historical value.

Review: Kyofu Shimbun

In researching the members of Tezuka's Tokiwa Mansion period, I decided to get one book from each person I could track down. In some cases, all I could find for specific artists was just one book. Since I was in the Mandarake used manga shop at the time, I was limited to whatever someone else had to sell back into circulation. I know that I could go to amazon.jp or one of the auction sites, but all I want is a representative work from the Tokiwa artists, not a complete collection of what each of them had published.



Jirou Tsunoda was a regular visitor to Tokiwa, rather than actually living there. He's not documented well on the English version of wikipedia, but there is a lot of information on him in the Japanese page. He's got 30+ titles listed to his credit, and a number of them have been animated or turned into live action movies. His works cover a wide range of genres, including children's gag manga, karate and the like. However, his later manga tended more towards mysteries and horror. The primary example of this is "Kyofu Shimbun" (Terror Newspaper), which was the basis for the 2004 Japanese movie "Yogen" ("Premonition").



Kyofu Shimbun, by Jirou Tsunoda: Grade B+
"Kyofu Shimbun" is a horror "mystery" series that first ran from 1973 to 1976 in Shonen Champion magazine (Kyofu Shimbun II ran from 1990 to 1993) for 29 stories and each story is about 60-70 pages. The artwork is fairly crude, and the characters' faces change proportion when going from full frontal to profile view. Often the body proportions also change, with the character going from tall and thin to short and stocky. There's a tendency to have pivotal characters in a scene overreact in horror to even the simplest explanations. So, from this point, Jirou has a few flaws. Since he had a staff of assistants working for him, I'd assume that some of the problems came from letting the assistants work unsupervised on the less important panels. On the other hand, a lot of the stiffness in the poses and actions is due to the age of the series. Manga drawn 30 years ago is definitely going to look dated now.



But, the "mystery" element isn't based on the artwork. Jirou had seen a UFO at one point, causing him to become a leading researcher on unexplained phenomenon. And that's what "Kyofu Shimbun" is all about. Rei Kigata is a 14-year-old school student that only believes in what he can experience directly and what science can explain. One day, he gets into an argument with some fellow students that claim to have seen a ghost. That night, loud footsteps are heard outside his window and a newspaper literally *flies* into the room to settle neatly on his bed. The front page announces this to be the Kyofu Shimbun, and the lead story indicates that one of his teachers is going to get killed. The next day, Rei takes the paper to school to warn his teacher only to discover that everyone else sees the title as "every night news". Immediately afterwards, the teacher gets hit by a speeding car and dies. Later, when Rei tries to ask other teachers for help, the poltergeist in his room threatens to kill anyone else that gets involved. To complicate matters, every time Rei reads the paper, his life is shortened by 100 days.



In the first volume, the stories include poltergeists, vampires, UFOs, doppelgangers and mummies. In all cases, they're heavily documented and accompanied by references to past news accounts. Some of the phenomena can be explained scientifically but most can't. This was scary stuff to young Japanese students in the 70's, and can still be effective even today. But, western audiences may be more skeptical (maybe not by much, though). I don't think these stories have been licensed for the U.S., and I haven't seen fan scans for it yet. I like the stories because they're fun, and the artwork's not all that bad. But if you can't read Japanese, it's going to have less of an affect on you. You can still watch the Premonition DVD, though.



Summary: A newspaper that arrives in the night and can predict various accidents and murders also causes you to lose 100 days off your lifespan every time you read it. Recommended for anyone that liked the Ring movies and can read Japanese.

Kyofu Shimbun has even been turned into a Pachislaw (kind of like a pachinko) machine.

Tokyo Anime Center

I should have done this a long time ago.



The Tokyo Anime Center is located on the 4th floor of the UDX building, just north of the JR Akihabara station. The TAC acts both as a tourist information center for people interested in visiting anime galleries in Tokyo, and as a sightseeing destination in its own right. 1/3 of the space is dedicated to various exhibits spotlighting the "anime title of the month" (this month, it's "Up", and some of the other movies from Pixar). It also contains some statues of characters from Pokemon, Evangelion and Gundam, and a couple old forms of animation ala the zeotrope.



The second 1/3 is a small seating space for watching ads and promos of various anime on the big projection screen. Mostly, the ads are boring, and they must drive the staff insane, having to listen to them day in and day out. There's an information desk and several tables with fliers and brochures.



The rest of the TAC is turned over to the gift shop and recording studio. The studio is used occasionally for taping an anime-themed radio show, and during the tapings the TAC is packed with fans of the voice actors listening in on the conversations. The gift shop has an extensive selection of toys, trinkets, canned bread, curry packages, canned coffee, t-shirts, posters, notebooks, anime cels, pencil drawings and how-to books for learning to draw manga and anime. TAC also sells tickets to various anime events, including the Tokyo International Anime Fair (at a discount if bought in advance).



If you're new to Tokyo and looking for guides to anime-related places for sightseeing, the TAC should be the first location to visit to get directions to everywhere else in the city.









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The TAC can also be counted on to have elaborate advertisements for the latest movies. I've been accumulating photos of displays for Naruto, Hottarake Island, Pokemon and Tensai Bakabon for a while. It's time to run them in the blog.

Heroes of Tokiwa Manor, stamp rally

(Stamp rally route.)

Along with the exhibit in the Worker's Welfare Hall, there's the Tokiwa Heroes stamp rally. I discovered this by accident when I went to the exhibit and started playing with one of the stamp pads just past the children's corner. The idea is to visit various shops a couple miles southwest of the center, along Mejiro Dori, and collect the 10 stamps on the main poster designed for this purpose. When you're done, finish at the Welfare hall on the 7th floor to get a souvenir clear folder. The clear folder is fairly boring, so the main reason for doing the stamp rally is to get the stamps themselves, which are nicely designed, and to visit the memorial plaque along the way. Looks like the memorial was dedicated at the beginning of this event, around Oct., 2009. At least, the sign on the fence in the background is dated Oct., 2009.



(Stamp poster.)

There are 9 stamps laid out roughly in a circle, set up on tables on the sidewalks in front of the various shops. Each table has extra copies of the stamp poster if you need them (so you don't have to go to the Welfare hall to start with).



(Banner on a street pole along the way. This is a representation of the memorial.)

The easiest path is to start out at the Ikebukuro JR station, and take the Seibu Ikebukuro train west one station to Shiinamachi. Go out the north exit and you'll see the table for stamp 1 near by. Then, just follow the numbers on the map on the stamp poster. Keep in mind that the map's not really to scale, but it is accurate in terms of the number of cross streets between stamp points.



All of the stamp tables are out in front of the shops, so you don't have to enter them at any point. For me, the trickiest one was #7, which is in a parking garage, and not right out in the open. When you get stamp 9, return to Shiinamachi station and take the train back to Ikebukuro. Walk to the Citizen's center. Stamp 10 is near the children's area on the 7th floor. And you get the clear folder by turning the poster over at the counter near the elevator.


(The "Tokiwa Heroes" memorial.)




(The park)


(The information that accompanies the memorial.)

The memorial plaque is in a small park at stamp point 8. If you try coming here after the stamp rally is over, then take the Seibu Ikebukuro line to Shiinamachi, and go out the south exit. Continue south to the first major street - Mejiro Dori. Turn right and head west about 6 blocks, past the bus stop. The road will split in a narrow Y-intersection in front of a small police box. Take the right hand fork another 6 short blocks and you'll see a small park on the left. The plaque will be on the left side just inside the entrance. Alternatively, the next station past Shiinamachi is Higashi Nagasaki, which is somewhat closer to the park.


(Ramen shop.)


(Close up of the doors.)

Along the way, I noticed that some of the shops were selling Tokiwa Manor memo pads and fans, and one place had all kinds of knickknacks from the different artists. There was even one ramen shop that had a strip on the front doors with characters from Hiro Terada ("Kurayami Godan") eating ramen (actually, it looks like the combination of Terada and Fujio A ("Black Humor")). Obviously, if the artists lived in Tokiwa Manor for over a year, they also frequented the shops in the area, adding to the local history. Although, I doubt that this specific ramen shop's been around for over 50 years...

Heroes of Tokiwa Manor, part 1, exhibit

I've mentioned Tokiwa Manor a number of times now. It's the apartment building that Tezuka lived in from 1953 to 1954, although several of his assistants continued to stay there a number of years later. It was torn down in the 1980's, but it hasn't been completely forgotten. Recently, a plaque was put up in a small park in the area, and a number of shops banded together with an Ikebukuro historical group to create a small event to honor its memory.

From Oct. 24 to Dec. 6, you can visit the exhibit on the 7th floor of the Worker's Welfare Hall, and participate in the stamp rally. Both things are free. There's also a talk show on Dec. 5, limited to the first 100 people to mail in for tickets, and a film showing on Nov. 21 and 28.


(Workers Welfare Hall.)

First, the exhibit. It's in Ikebukuro, southwest of the main JR station. To get there, take the Yamanote line to Ikebukuro, then follow the signs to the station's west exit. Stay in the tunnels, and come up to street level at the C-8 exit. You should be in front of the Jonathan's restaurant. Nearby will be signs pointing to the Art Center, the Fire Department and the Welfare hall. Go in the direction they are pointing, about 4 blocks. The Welfare hall will be at the end of the main road, just past the police station and fire department, on the left. The elevators are near the information desk. Go up to the 7th floor and the exhibit will be in front of you and winds around to your right.


(Sliding doors that used to hang in the building, decorated by the artists.)

Naturally, cameras are not allowed. This area is normally used for displaying the history of the local Toshima area and some of the artwork for it remains on the walls. The Tokiwa portion takes up 3 rooms. First there's a set of glass cases holding various manga from Tezuka, Ishimori, Akatsuka, Fujio Fujiko and the others. There's a model of the Tokiwa Manor building and a recreation of one of the apartments that one of the artists lived in. One area is set aside as a children's corner for coloring in some manga pages. The rest of the exhibit contains photos of each of the main artists, plus samples of their manga and some original pencil drawings and finished panels.


(Inside elevator. Event is on floor 7.)

The main desk by the elevator sells art cards for 100 and 300 yen, and the souvenir book (which has all of the art from the exhibit) for 1500 yen. If you're a student of manga history, this is definitely the event for you.