Introduction: Peking Sharaku (Peking Studio)

 Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd. established a studio called Peking Sharaku in Peking 15 years ago. Until then, there were many business proposals to create commercial products out of pictures of Atomu (Astro Boy) printed on T-shirts and neckties. However, we had not done so because we heard if we did that, copies would immediately appear on the market and 90% would end up being replicas from the next day.

 Since Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy) and Janguru Taitei (Kimba the White Lion) were broadcast in China about 25 years ago, many unauthorized books and goods flooded the market. No action was taken even when we complained because priority was given to the state of internal affairs in China at that time. However, we decided to develop our business based from the Peking Sharaku, hoping that things in China would change a little since it had recently joined the WTO and the Peking Olympics is coming up. Many journalists came to cover the press conference for the announcement and the 300 seats we prepared were full. Anti-Japanese sentiments were high at that time and there were repeated anti-Japanese demonstrations, nevertheless we came to know that China was very interested in Japanese manga and anime. Some journalists even said, 'We want to cover Japan. We want to see what's in the limelight today.' It seems that today's image of Japan constitutes of 'anime, manga, ninja' etc., and people are more interested in these than traditional culture, such as 'kabuki, noh, ikebana'.

　

1. 'Profound attachment to work'

 Tezuka Osamu died on 9^th February 1989. In spite of the fact that he had become extremely thin and lost his strength due to cancer, he was writing in his bed until three weeks before he passed away. Of course, he could not draw manga, but he was involved in other work. About ten days before he died, he suddenly tried to get up saying, 'Please, I beg you, let me work.'

 That was Tezuka's last words that I heard. He was really very much immersed in his work, and used to work almost 24 hours a day. He was at the company most of the time and could go home perhaps only once or twice a week. Even when he went home, his editor was constantly with him. He went to see movies and plays in secret, but even all these things he linked to creating his own works. Sometimes he used to drink, but either myself or the editor kept an eye over him to make sure he did not drink too much, because we would be in trouble if he drank and fell asleep. Tezuka himself liked drinking, but he did not have the opportunity to do so very much.

 He drew 150,000 pages of manga and made over 60 titled works of anime in his lifetime. If we divide 150,000 pages by 40 years, it comes to 10 pages a day. He traveled and was also sick at times, so if he did not draw one day, the next day he would have to draw 20 pages. In spite of such extraordinary circumstances, he still said he wanted to draw for Shonen Magajin (Boys' Magazine) or Sande (Boys' Sunday) in his later years. I think this was because he was drawing manga for adults all the time in the latter part of his life. He said, 'Forget about adults. I have to draw children's manga.' Tezuka wanted so much to convey his message to children. His workload was at a saturation point, but he still wanted to draw more. When I said, 'Surely, this is enough' he told me, 'You've been watching me for all these years and still you don't understand? I don't keep deadlines whether I have to produce 100 or 500 pages a month. So it's all the same.'

 I used to request the editors in charge not to negotiate with Tezuka directly. For example, even if they met him in a party and asked him, 'Please draw something for us' and he said, 'Yes, I will', the promise would not be kept. We rejected almost all requests from television stations for his television appearance. There was an incident once. We used to take note of all the phone calls we received. It seemed that Tezuka secretly saw these notes one day. I had a call from him on the extension line and he said, 'A television station called my house asking me to appear on their program. That program can't possibly be made without me. I have to appear on the program.'

 He thought that he must appear in the mass media when the themes were manga and anime, and when manga was criticized, he always stood in the forefront of its defense. He wanted to appear on programs about children's culture, but refused all other programs. He was extremely busy, but when he appeared on television, sometimes his work made better progress. The television station gave him a room to work in and he became more enthusiastic when there were people around watching him.

 Once we recreated his workplace inside glass walls in a display hall of a department store. The editors went hysterical when we did this, but Tezuka's work made good progress because he would try to show how he could draw quickly and displayed performances such as turning the paper upside down and drawing when people were watching him. He truly liked surprising and entertaining people. He naturally drew for autographs directly on to the colored paper. And he was very fast. Once he drew 600 pages in one month. Nowadays, magazines publish combined issues during the New Year and summer vacations so there would be a little break. But there were not so many combined issues till almost 30 years ago, and since the printing press took a holiday at the end and beginning of the year, the issue for publication in January had to be printed a little head of time. The manga authors bore the brunt of this. In those days, Tezuka had serial publications in three weekly magazines, one fortnightly magazine, and two monthly magazines, so it amounted to 600 pages in total. This was when he was drawing Black Jack and Mitsume ga tooru (The Three-eyed Boy) in 1976 or 1977.

 As that was the situation, he was always busy and could never meet deadlines. Once, an editor took off with 16 pages of a 20 page work because he knew it would not be completed in time. The 4 pages that were incomplete were part of a series and not a complete story, so they filled the remaining pages with advertisements of their own company or nonsensical manga. Even if Tezuka said that he didn't like half finished work, there was nothing he could do. Since then, as a countermeasure he sometimes drew up to about 8 pages from the beginning and then drew backwards from the last page, without drawing in sequence.

　

2. A headache for editors

 When I was an editor, I used to take just the 'name' (speeches in speech balloons and words of the narration) to start with. Since it would take time and effort to type the phototype and stick them, we used to get all the drafts and ask the phototypesetter to set the name only. I was relieved because the draft was already complete and it was just a matter of mechanically drawing on to it. At least the story has been completed, so I thought. But the finished script came out completely changed and out of 20 pages sometimes there were only 3 pages for which we could use the original name.

 Once Tezuka was going away somewhere, so I asked him to give us the names first and draw drafts with a pencil and ruler on the sheets in the car on the way to Haneda airport. Since there were no photocopy machines everywhere like there are today, I copied the speech balloons using tracing paper as I sat next to him. But it was quicker for Tezuka to think and draw than my just copying.

 However, in the end, the drafts were not very reliable and we wasted less time if he drew in the proper sequence, so we somehow stopped getting the names from him first. Even though he was fast, doing 20 pages of names would take from one and a half to two hours. In Tezuka's case, he perhaps sometimes thought of the stories while drawing the pictures in his head at the same time, and sometimes he had everything complete from the start. But in most cases, it seemed that he began without thinking much about the latter half. When the story developed on a grand scale and we wondered how he would bring it all together, sometimes the direction of the story changed as he went along.

 When he was serializing Adolf ni tsugu (Telling Adolf) in Shukanbunshun (Bunshun Weekly), he suddenly asked us, 'Should I kill this woman after this? Should she commit suicide or should I let her live?' We would not know what to say; but when the editor in charge asked him what would happen to the story in each case, he would say in case A the story would be like this, in case B like this, and in case C like this. When the editor said, 'Well then B would be good' he would then say that in case B it would continue like this and the story would come to a dead end. It would be the same with case A and case C. Then before long he would say, 'As people say, there is no use thinking when there is no idea. I should take a rest' and go to sleep. In other words, this was an excuse for him to sleep. It was rather silly since the whole discussion would take about one hour in the meanwhile. But he wanted it to make it seem that it was not his fault because he went as far as asking others for ideas but nobody could give him any. What was the point of me and the editor taking him seriously!

 He often said when he agreed to requests for serialization in new magazines or other magazines for the first time, 'The editor stands between me and the readers. He is close to the readers' sense, so I must listen to the editor's opinion.' He also said, 'I too want to be the best if I'm going to draw for this magazine. It would be pointless if I didn't ask what kind of manga I should draw to be the best.'

 He really was very much concerned about other people's reactions to what he did. Unless people who read his manga, saw his anime and came to his event were deeply moved and pleased, it was all meaningless to him. If I may add further, I think he felt that his message must be communicated when they were read and also to as many people as possible.