By Kanta Ishida / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior SpecialistThe manga this week
Ashita no Joe ni Akogarete (In admiration of Tomorrow’s Joe)
By Sanbanchi Kawa (Kodansha)
When I was a kid, I believed professional manga artists did all of their work by their own hand. I later came to learn that popular artists hire many assistants, and some even go so far as to draw only the faces of main characters. The discovery made me a little disappointed at first, but I soon grew curious about the work of such assistants, who help manga artists perfectly realize their creations.
In the manga this week, a young man named Tanaka comes to Tokyo from Aomori in 1977 to work for Chiba Tetsuya Production, a company led by renowned manga artist Tetsuya Chiba. Chiba completed the immortal masterpiece “Ashita no Joe” (Tomorrow’s Joe) in 1973. Now, at the height of his maturity as a manga artist, he is serializing two works: “Ore wa Teppei” (I am Teppei) and “Notari Matsutaro” (Lumbering Matsutaro). Tanaka, who was inspired by “Joe” to become a manga artist, is both nervous and very excited to be able to join the team supporting the great master. Once he starts working, Tanaka finds Chiba and his senior assistants struggle day and night to complete each episode, working in a highly original way.
Tanaka actually represents Sanbanchi Kawa, this week’s manga artist, who is best known for his baseball manga “Dreams.” In his drawing style and impressive effects, Kawa is the true inheritor of Chiba’s manga DNA. His retrospective of his days as an assistant at Chiba Production couldn’t be more thrilling. He offers the first and only personal account of the master and his assistants.
Moreover, the manga goes beyond being an expose on the life of a great artist. It focuses not on the personalities of Chiba and his staff, but on the many unique drawing techniques that they developed based on their research and experience over the years. The signature techniques of Chiba and his team are displayed one after the other, from their unique way of illustrating panoramic backgrounds, to their use of knives to scratch screentone sheets for effect, and pen tips to draw lines with warm touches. None of these practical techniques can be found in any how-to manual. Being an otaku particular about manga techniques, this week’s manga gives me a unique thrill.
Over the past 30 years, the manga production process has been rapidly digitized. Now, many artists create their work only on the computer, making the meticulous manual labor described in this manga obsolete. In fact, Kawa reveals that he used digital techniques to draw parts of this manga. Nonetheless, his unrelenting persistence in drawing fine details without sparing time and effort expresses his deep admiration for his master as well as his nostalgia for the analog age.
Ishida is a Yomiuri Shimbun senior specialist whose areas of expertise include manga and anime.Speech
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