80 Yrs On: Manga Artist Tetsuya Chiba Hopes for No More Wars
Tokyo, July 28 (Jiji Press)--Japanese manga artist Tetsuya Chiba, best known for the "Ashita no Joe" series, desperately hopes for continued peace as he does not want to see the wartime dire state again.
Ahead of the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II on Aug. 15, Chiba, 86, said he wants the country to extend its "postwar period to 90-100 years" without getting involved in any war.
Born in Tokyo in 1939, Chiba soon moved to the then Manchuria city of Mukden, now Shenyang in northeastern China, due to his father's business.
The situation changed drastically on the day of Imperial Japan's collapse. "I was thrown into the middle of war," he recalls.
Chinese people started attacking the Japanese-living area in the city in the evening. Among the attackers armed with heavy sticks and swords were men working at a local market who had often spoiled Chiba.
Together with his parents and three younger brothers, Chiba moved from place to place, including the home of one of his father's Chinese friends, an abandoned school and under a bridge.
As well as riots in the area and escalating tensions between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party, looting by invading Soviet troops was common. Winter brought severe conditions, with temperatures falling below minus 20 degrees Celsius, causing some fleeing Japanese residents to drop dead on the streets and some to sell their children to Chinese buyers.
Despite suffering malnutrition-caused rashes, Chiba managed to reach Huludao, a port city located about 300 kilometers away, to board a ship for Japan. Many on the ship, including Chiba's friends, died and were buried at sea. In summer 1946, Chiba arrived at Hakata Port in Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan.
"Once a war starts, even people of integrity turn into 'oni' (demons)," Chiba notes. "They have no qualms about killing others, and they feel nothing when people die."
Chiba debuted as a cartoonist when he was 17.
While working on the epoch-making boxing manga series, Chiba has created works about his own experiences of returning to Japan from China, as well as "Shiden-Kai no Taka," which depicts the struggles of a young man who became a kamikaze suicide attack pilot.
"I think those who traveled with me and died had many things they wanted to say," Chiba says. "I've been drawing manga as a survivor."
Other manga artists close to Chiba who went to WWII, notably Shigeru Mizuki and Takashi Yanase, have already been dead. With fewer people left to tell their stories from the war, Chiba says, "I'm nervous that I may have missed something that I need to tell (the future generations)."
He thus continues to document his experiences in Manchuria and Japan in his "Hinemosu Notari Nikki" manga series and hold lectures to emphasize the importance of peace.
"In war, there are no perpetrators or victims, because everyone is a victim," he says. "I want younger people to know that war is never OK."
"I am kept alive" to tell these things to the rest of the world through manga, Chiba added.
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