Japan Manga Initiative Highlights Huge Difference With American Comics

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A program in Japan called the Tokiwa-so Project helps aspiring manga artists and authors in the earlier stages of their careers overcome the initial obstacles of success in an aggressively competitive manga industry. Similar to a tech incubator, the Tokiwa-so Project hopes that by eliminating “every day” drudgery, artists and authors can achieve their full potential by focusing on the work of making a good manga. The support offered by the project is something rarely found for up-and-coming artists and authors in the United States, who traditionally have had to figure out own their own how to create, market and publish their work, or navigate the processes of getting noticed by a comic publisher.

The project is named after the famous Tokiwa-so Building in Tokyo’s Toshima District. During the 1950s and 1960s, the building served as the birthplace to the modern manga, being that it was home to a number of manga artists who would later go on to pen some of the most famous and iconic manga in the history of comics. Its one-time resident list included Tezuke Osamu, creator of Astro Boy, Terada Hiroo, author of Sportsman Kintaro, Shotaro Ishinomori, who would go on to pen Kamen Rider, and Doraemon creator Fujiko Fujio. The student dorm-like communal living fostered a creative environment where the artists could encourage, inspire, assist, and challenge each other to be the best that they could be. The building was demolished in the 1980s due to disrepair, but local residents and manga fans who knew of its centrality to the history of manga successfully lobbied the government to rebuild it. In 2015 the building reopened as Tokiwa-so Manga Museum focused on promoting and preserving the history of manga at home and abroad.

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