Mitsuteru Yokoyama(1934-2004)

Mistuteru Yokoyama was born on June 18, 1934 in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. As a boy, he loved reading magazine novels and manga. He got his first inspiration to draw manga after reading Osamu Tezuka's manga "Metropolis". In his own words, Tezuka's ability to write interesting stories, his graceful lines, and the fact that they were both from the city of Kobe moved and inspired him to draw manga himself. Returning to Kobe from Tottori after the war (i.e., World War II), Tezuka's "Metropolis" and the burned-down city of Kobe gave him the inspiration to draw. In his own words, he was not so good at drawing and had no confidence in his story or artwork, but from middle school on throughout high school whenever he had the time, he drew manga and sent the drafts to the publishers. After graduating from high school, he worked for a bank in Kobe. Even then he was not so determined to be a manga writer, but he kept up his periodic submission of his work to the publishers anyway. Around that time he realized that working for the bank left him little time to draw, so he quit his job after five months. Next, he worked as an advertising agent for one of the film distribution companies in the Hanshin District (i.e., Kobe - Osaka) of Japan. There he was doing art work for film fliers, but was only busy before the release of a new film. So he used his remaining time to draw and send his work to the publishers as he had always done. About half of his work was accepted and about half of it was rejected. Around that time, Japan had publishers who specialized in rental books, where book stores rented their books to customers and charged per diem. Japan's economy was still weak also at that time and people had little money to buy books so, especially for children, these books were in high demand. One such publisher, Tokoudo of Osaka, asked Yokoyama to write a feature-length manga. The first manga he wrote for this publisher was "Otonashi no Ken" ("The Silent Sword"). He was 20 at the time. The manga was well received by the audience and he soon got a follow-up order for a second manga, so he wrote a second manga, "Shirayuri Monogatari" ("The White Lily Story"). The third manga that he wrote was "Maken Reppu Ken" ("Demonic Whirlwind Sword"), and the fourth manga that he was beginning to write, "Tetsujin 28 Go" ("Ironman #28" a.k.a. "Gigantor" in the U.S.) was the one that would change his entire life forever. His parents, who at first were against him wanting to become a manga artist, slowly accepted his career choice as they saw money coming in from his artistic career. Having seen his previous work in Osaka, Kobundo, a publisher from Tokyo, asked him to draw for one of their magazines targeted for girls titled "Shoujyo". His idol, Osamu Tezuka, was one of the contributing artists for this magazine, so this request was a dream come true for him. In this magazine a modified version of "Shirayuri Monogatari" was reprinted, and he was also asked to write for its sister magazine targeted for boys titled "Shounen". He submitted "Tetsujin 28 Go", which he was originally planning to submit to Tokoudo. It was first published in July 1956 and was instantly rated as the number 1 favorite story of its readers. Osamu Tezuka's "Tetsuwan Atom" ("Mighty Atom" a.k.a. "Astro Boy" in the U.S.) had begun five years earlier, also on "Shounen", and these two robot manga stories by Yokoyama and Tezuka, respectively, became the greatest science fiction / action manga stories of post-war era Japan. Yokoyama's veracity for drawing manga was well known at the time, as he was able to draw one page in 30 minutes. He continued to expand into period manga like "Iga no Kage-Maru", which was featured in the weekly magazine "Shounen Sunday", followed by "Ninja Aka-Kage", which also became an anime TV series along with "Tetsujin 28 Go". "Tetsujin 28 Go" ran in "Shounen" from July 1956 to May 1966, when it was finished. Many of Yokoyama's other manga, such as "Mahotsukai Sally" ("Sally the Witch") which was targeted for girls, also became anime TV series. Today, Yokoyama is remembered as one of the two giants and founding fathers of the genre that we now call "manga", along with Osamu Tezuka.