Tezuka Osamu (November 3, 1928 – February 9, 1989) has been the most celebrated cartoonist of the Shōwa era. He produced an unparalled number of remarkable works, contributing to give shape to what we commonly refer today as the “story manga”: Tetsuwan Atomu – literally “Mighty Atom” – known in English as Astro Boy, Janguru Taitei (Kimba the White Lion), Ribon no Kishi (Princess Knight), Black Jack, Hi no Tori (Phoenix) and many others, which had a huge impact on the child readers during the Showa era. This goes especially for Atom. Without Atom’s conception, we wouldn’t probably have had such a flourishing of animation and manga culture, as well as that confidence on science’s application, technology, of which we are witnessing such a development in the field of robotics today.

The exhibition, titled ‘Messages to the Future’, was a memorial of the 80th anniversary of Tezuka’s birth. It was very nice and I thought it was worth watching. It showed original artwork taken from Tezuka’s manga works, including some draft drawings, presented in chronological order.

Left: The Edo Tokyo Museum is located in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, nearby the Ryogoku Kokugikan Hall, a famous site in the Sumo wrestling field. The museum has a huge diorama built around the theme of the downtown urban life in the Edo period, around 300 years ago. It’s a fascinating way to get acquainted with the old Japanese citizens’ lives and customs. Right: A billboard of the Museum. The building in the background is the Ryogoku Kokugikan Hall.

The opening part of the exhibition features the insects’ sketches done by Tezuka in his childhood. His name Osamu 治虫 was taken from those insects, called ‘osamushi’ (in Japanese it means ‘Ground beetle’). He really loved to watch insects. Even the small sketches in his pocket notebook show the insects’ body depicted in a very detailed way. Later on, he added captions to all of the pictures and compiled them into a book.

The exhibition represented a rare chance to see his early works while he was a college student. The characters in the early works were very cute. I was not familiar with them but I was surprised to see how they looked to me like ‘prototypes’ of his later, more famous, characters. It did not just show his more famous works, such as Atom and Janguru Taitei, but many later works I was not familiar with, and unfinished material as well.

On various artwork panels it may be seen the white-outs painted to conceal mistakes and spots, and the lettering was often added later on, done on separate pieces of paper and sticked on them. By looking at the surface of the drawing paper, I felt like I could almost see how he drew the lines and refine them with the black ink. The ink was really vivid and the balance between black and white was always achieved with very beautiful results. This reminded me of the balance between forms and counters of the letter we seek in type design.

Tezuka’s mastery was not just about in his figurative drawings, but also in lettering, for which he had a fabulous talent. His vibrant title logos on the colored covers reached my imagination and enriched the story’s world. Of course, all of them were made by hand, without any computer aid. Angular logos were dynamic and powerful, they often seemed to express certain features of Atom and Janguru Taitei, of the characters themselves.

Another part depicted Tezuka’s own daily life, showing familiar everyday objects such as pens, ink, erasers, glasses and his coppola cap (widely known as his iconic trade mark), all of them showcased on the desk where he used to draw, and there were photos with his family and the related manga works. The exhibition chronicled also the history of his many residences and relocations. I know that the Tokiwa-sou apartment was in Toshima Ward, which is nearby my town. But, I was surprised to know that the Mushi Production office is very close to my home. It seems it’s just within five minutes by bike! My town, Nerima Ward, is known as a manga town because many cartoonists live in here, but I’d never have told Mushi Production was located so close to my home.

I think that the generation of japanese people most familiar with Tezuka’s works should be now at least in its 40s, or older. I used to watch Tezuka’s anime such as “Janguru Taitei Reo”, “Fushigi na Merumo-chan” or “Ribon no Kishi”, but all of them were re-broadcasted as replicas in my childhood. Unfortunately, I have hardly seen Tetsuwan Atom, because the series was old and black-and-white, and rarely reprogrammed. My generation (people which are now in their 30s) preferred to watch robot anime such as Gundam or Macross instead. Coming to manga, I loved to read Doraemon and Toriyama Akira’s manga, Dr. Slump and Dragonball. They were a huge success for children in those days.

However, Tezuka’s manga had a great influence on me. They taught me a lot of things which I couldn’t get in school. For example, although its visual language may be a little strong, Fushigina Merumo-chan featured sexual education notions, while Black Jack gave me a strong sense of professional duty, humanity and compassion. As a child, I got interested in Black Jack because I’d sometime got sick and was forced to stay in hospital. My illness was not so serious but these stories encouraged me a lot. Of course I’m fine now.

The catalog and post cards that I bought at the museum shop.

Tezuka’s work represented a tremendous influence on the following generations of cartoonists. This means that I have read a lot of the manga which were influenced, directly or indirectly, by the work of Tezuka. I guess the influence continues to be carried on today, to the latest cartoonist, and flourished as animation and manga culture, which can now be enjoyed by many people across the world. He left a thousand of ‘Messages to the Future’ through his works. I would say Tezuka Osamu must be regarded as the father of manga.

Revised on July 19, 2009.

— Gratitude. My Type Design Pen Pal Claudio Piccinini in Italy revised my poor English text after I posted it to my blog, and translated it to Italy for Italian Tezuka Aficionado’s website. Thanks Claudio! —

Do you know the name of typefaces that you can see in downtown?

A type designer Naoyuki Takeshita is a notable designer not only making his Japanese font named Take:竹, means bamboo which was named after an initial of his family name 竹下 Takeshita, was distributed by Morisawa, but also his blog titled Machide mikaketa Shotai, 街で見かけた書体 means ‘Typeface found in downtown’. He introduced a lots of typefaces and fonts which were on billboards, traffic signs or shop signs while he was hanging around downtown. He often posted photos on typefaces he found to his blog with a comment using a lot of humor. As he is a typeface designer for Japanese font, he knew almost of typefaces not only old hot metals and photo type setting but also the recent digital fonts, so he can tell what the name of the typeface quickly.

Takeshita’s exhibition titled Setagaya de mikaketa Shotai 世田谷で見かけた書体, means ‘Typeface found in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo’ was held at the Setagaya Culture Life Information Center. The project started last July by the request that Hasegawa, was the organizer of this exhibition, asked Takeshita for searching typeface in Setagaya, because Hasegawa was interested in Takshita’s blog and wanted to held the exhibition. The project has been started last August, then Takeshita came to Setagaya several times to take photos. The exhibition was compiled by the best selection. As a pre-event, he also started a blog titled Setagaya de mikaketa Shotai 世田谷で見かけた書体 from the beginning of last December, he continued to post some photos and comments in the same way he had done on his blog before until the end of last year.

Left: Takeshta talked about this project. Right: Hasegawa showed the map that they used while the research. The map was almost tattered because of overused.

The talk event had two parts, the first, Takeshita showed the typefaces which he had seen in Setagaya by category, billboard sign, traffic sign, railway sign and public sign. He introduced the typeface we don’t know, and signs we usually don’t take care about, such as a mark on the road called Doukai, 道界 which indicates boundaries to divide properties.

The second, he picked up the things which he was interested in, non-typeface letters such as logotype and hand writing letters, and introduced the food shop or restaurants he had take a lunch while he walk through downtown. ‘One of funs when I researched downtown was looking for a nice restaurant or a food which are famous in Setagaya,’ Takeshita said. ‘I didn’t search any restaurant in advance at all, I decided the shop for a lunch after coming to the research place. ‘If I found a nice billboard or facade, I tried to enter the shop and had a lunch’, he continued.

‘I found the main purpose of this project was not knowing what kind of typefaces are in Setagaya but finding  characteristics of Setagaya by looking for typefaces’, Takeshita said looking back the research. So, I asked that ‘I’ve heard you had found a lots of typefaces on signs around Tokyo before this project started, did you find the difference among Setagaya Ward and the rest area where you had ever visited? Plus did you find the specific trend for typeface in Setagaya Ward?’ He answered that ‘As I mentioned, the main purpose of this project was to know about the specific trend in Setagaya, but it was a pity that I couldn’t find it, but I found different topic. I live in Saitama prefecture (northern neighboring Tokyo), so I could find the difference that each public region has own regulation way where the public signs should be placed.

Left: The exhibition space. Right: The direct mail of the exhibition and the novelty chocolates that delivered to visitors. The chocolate imitated the mark on the road Doukai 道界.

According to Takeshita, some of who saw this exhibition wanted to see what is the situation about another district, as there are 22 wards in Metropolitan Tokyo except Setagaya. I thought it must be hard work for Takeshita. I knew he spend a lot of time to finish this project. It was not easy work at all. However, I also know he can’t stop looking for typeface in downtown, he must be going to start another project soon because he is always searching typefaces and fonts everyday. I hope he will plan another project which features area he will be interested in.

Related topic.
ICOCA Card with typeface “Take”

I got a chance to see the show room that introduced Shueitai 秀英体, is the one of originate of Japanese typeface designs and exclusive typeface design for Dai Nippon Printing Co. 大日本印刷 abbreviated DNP. Shueitai was named after the Shueisha 秀英舎 which was the predecessor company to DNP established over 130 years ago.

I got together with two type designers, the one was Naoyuki Takeshita, who was former type designer of Morisawa, related article is here and here, and the other was Yutka Ozawa, who was former type designer of Adobe Japan, at JR Gotanda station, was near the Gotanda branch of DNP, Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo. Masaki Itou and Ai Sasaki, are the staffs of Shueitai project team, invited us to show the show room. Unfortunately, it was not in public.

After check-in the entrance, and then waiting for a while, Itou came and take us to the show room on the second floor. I was astonished the show room was really beautiful. The glass-walled room and white display cases are really cool and modern interior style, which had several kinds of unique gizmos. Some LSD displays show the demo animation introducing Shueitai.

Then, Itou started introducing the history of Shueitai and he explained the three generations of the media of the hot metals, photo type and digital watching composition with three medias and demonstration movie that showed by LCD monitor. Takeshita and Ozawa asked a lot of geeky questions to Itou, but he answered everything clearly and made us sure the detail. I enjoyed their dialogs because I could get information that I’ve never known. ‘I need at least two hours to talk about this presentation booth,’ Itou said with smile. It sounded like a joke but I thought he seemed to be serious and felt like talking about it. I believed he was the last person to introduce about Shueitai, as he had remarkable ability for Shueitai. They really love to talk about Shueitai.

Left: In-use example of Shueitai Shogou for a packge of ramen noodles. I think Shueitai is very useful for the food package, especially Japanese foods. Right: The leaflet of the Shueitai revival project. The lovely duo mascot named Katsujii and Tombo-chan introduce about Shueitai.

The room in the end corner displayed a lots of stuffs for the letter press printings and some old Shueitai specimen books that DNP used to use . The show case had some drawer cases. Visitors can open them one by one. The most interesting device was the digital archive finder for transition of Shueitai letter forms. The archive showed the transition along with the time line. I could see the Shueitai has been changing its letter forms gradually. ‘However, the skeleton of the Shueitai has never been changing.’ Itou said.

After seeing the show room, Itou showed the design of Shueitai which was going on revising. DNP is going on the project called Heisei no dai kaikoku 平成の大改刻, means The revival project for Shueitai in Heisei period, to revise all of the Shueitai family includes three styles, Ming-cho, Gothic: Sans-serif and Maru Gothic: Rounded. Itou showed us the design that had been drawn before. He also showed some candidate Latin alphabet fonts for Shueitai fonts. ‘It was very difficult to choose the Latin font that suited with Shueitai fonts,’ he said, showing some specimen sheets of the candidate Latin fonts that composed with Shueitai fonts.

DNP announced that Shueitai fonts will out from the beginning of fiscal 2008 year, but the plans seemed to be delayed and the release date is not clear yet. Of course, I’ll show the Shueitai fonts for sure if they were out.

The Shueitai specimen poster contains all characters of Adobe Japan1-5. Sasaki told me that ‘You should put it on the wall of toilet in order that you can memorize where every character is while you are in the toilet every day.’