3. Tezuka Osamu's competitive nature

 It is often said that Tezuka Osamu was anxious of being overtaken by newcomers, in spite of being such a great artist. His editors all sensed this about him and used to wonder why he had to worry about popularity at that stage. But Tezuka's refusal to be beaten by others came from the fact that in the highly competitive and demanding world of magazines, an artist was sacked immediately when his popularity declined a little. When a new magazine was set up, Tezuka Osamu was used to convince others to contribute to it. Needless to say, Tezuka was not happy about this. He felt that as long as he was going to draw, it was pointless unless it was read and appreciated by many people. So he often earnestly asked his assistants why certain newcomers were popular and what was good about them.

 Tezuka had a system of what we called 'sending the OK'. When all the work was finished and the 'OK' given, the script was then sent to the editor. Once, 19 pages out of 20 of Black Jack had been given the 'OK' and the editor had phoned the printer to say that it would soon be complete. But Tezuka did not like it. He came and asked me and the editor, 'What do you think of this?' Of course there was no way we could say we didn't like it and we answered, 'It's good.' But he could tell we were lying by the expression on our faces and tone of voice, so he went to ask the young assistants. They had nothing to do with the extremely stressful situation that the editor faced, so they said coolly, 'Well, it's not so good.' So at 12 o'clock midnight on the day of the deadline, Tezuka suddenly phoned and asked us to wait till 7 o'clock in the morning. The editor in charge was flabbergasted and furious over the phone. 'How on earth can he finish it in 7 hours?' he said. Amazingly, however, Tezuka successfully completed an entirely new piece of work in 7 hours.

　

Hirokane: Why was he so competitive?

Matsutani: He basically hated publishing things that he was not satisfied with. On the one hand, he was very clear about some things. He paid no attention to animes for which he had simply provided rights to use his original manga version, and his attitude was 'Please do what you like.' Of course, it was different when he was making the anime himself. He had his way when it came to manga. I think he was very attached to his own works and definitely did not want to cheat children.

Fuse: You mentioned that he was wary of newcomers. What do you mean exactly?

Matsutani: There are no newcomers or veterans as far as manga authors are concerned. The readers are children and they read what they want. They are uninfluenced by the name of the author. If an author loses popularity, the serial is discontinued and he/she will not be able to publish anywhere. There is no difference between newcomers and veterans. For example, Ishinomori Shotaro published as much as Tezuka in terms of quantity, but in spite of that he always attended the board of director meetings of Association of Manga Authors. So Tezuka used to say, 'The reason why I cannot go is because of the manager.' The difference in age between him and Ishinomori was about 10 years.

Takekawa: Is it true that Tezuka lied about his age?

Matsutani: Tezuka said that he was born in 1926 (15^th year of Taisho; 1^st year of Meiji), but he was really born in 1928, so he claimed to be two years older than he was.

Hirokane: He said he was a little older than he really was when he made his debut probably because he didn't want to be thought lightly of and subsequently left it that way.

Matsutani: I think that's correct. Kojima Ko was born in 1928, and Baba Noboru in 1927. In those days there was a strict hierarchical relationship between seniors and juniors, so age was probably quite a problem when interacting as equals. Even though Tezuka lied about his age, his father, who was always with us in the company, told us about it quite casually so we knew. Nevertheless, we pretended not to know about it. When he traveled abroad, he didn't show us his passport. He put it in an envelope, stapled it down and told us, 'Please give it to the travel agent.' He was about 57 or 58 when he was nominated for the Shijuhosho medal (medal with purple ribbon). Shijuhosho is usually given to people over 60 years old, so he declined in case people came to know about his age. Well, this is of course a joke. That was not the only problem and he must have had other reasons. He was awarded the 3^rd degree national honor after his death. I don't know what he would have done if he were alive. I think it would have been good for the manga world if he had accepted.

 It wasn't that he didn't want to win prizes. He wanted prizes for anime and manga. He was just over 40 when Buddha won the manga prize of Bunshun. He was very happy. When the reporters said, 'What is the point of giving Tezuka-san a prize now?' he replied, 'I am happy to receive a prize any time.' Once he quitted from all positions as judge for awards for Shogakukan and Kodansha, saying, 'I would rather always be the candidate (for selection).' This, of course, might have also been due to the fact that it was after Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd. had collapsed, and he no longer wanted to be in the limelight and wanted to concentrate on his manga once again.

Hirokane: I heard that there was a time when Tezuka said he did not want a raise in the script payment, so the fees of other manga authors were kept as they were.

Matsutani: Once, Dookuman-san who was writing for Shonen Champion at the same time as Tezuka said to me in a party, 'Please raise Tezuka-sensei's fees. When I'm told by the publisher that Tezuka Osamu is paid this amount, I cannot say anything.' Tezuka said that he'd get no work if he raised his fees. Around 1975 when Notari Matsutaro was starting to be serialized, the chief editor of Big Comic who had gone to Chiba's studio came to us on his way back from there and said, 'I thought I would have to pay him 50,000 yen per page but I only have to pay 30,000 yen.' Tezuka was charging about 9000 yen at that time. When I told Tezuka about this and suggested we should ask for about 5000 yen more, he replied, 'I produce double the amount of Chiba (so how can I ask for so much).'

Takekawa: What was the relationship between manga and anime for him? His real desire seemed to have been to make anime.

Matsutani: He did indeed like anime very much. We cannot use this kind of language today, but he used to say, 'Manga is my wife and anime is my lover. The lover needs more money to keep.' When he was ranked among the highest earners in Japan, he was criticized, 'Tezuka is a miser and he is just saving money.' His reply to that was, 'It's because I want to make anime.'