Interest

Powerless Shotaro Ishinomori Museum Entertains Children on National Holiday

NPR has posted an article and pictoral covering a Children's Day event hosted at the Shōtarō Ishinomori Manga Museum in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.

The museum, which has been without electricity since the March 11 disaster, held a stage show featuring Ishinomori's Sea Jetter Kaito character, gave away popcorn, candy and cooked food. Donated toys were also given away. A nearby field was also cleared of debris by professional J.League soccer players from nearby-Sendai so that children could play soccer. In addition to Ishinomori's characters, the stage shows also featured Cure Marine from Heartcatch Precure!, and the J.League soccer players.

The space-ship shaped museum, dedicated to the city's most famous manga creator, opened in 2001. Over the course of his career, which started in 1954, Ishinomori created 770 individual stories which were collected in a total of 500 volumes of manga. He assisted Osamu Tezuka on Astro Boy and went on to draw and write such manga as 009-1, Cyborg 009 and The Skull Man. Ishinomori, who passed away in 1998, was also the original creator of the Kamen Rider live-action television series and its dozens of sequels, spinoffs, and successors. In 2008, the Guiness Book of World Records named Ishinomori the world record-holder for the "most comics published by one author."

The March 11 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami left approximately 26,000 dead and missing in Miyagi and neighboring prefectures.

Children's Day (Kodomo no hi) is a Japanese national holiday held annually on May 5th and is part of Golden Week.

Images of the damaged museum and clean-up efforts can be seen at the museum's blog.

The Shōtarō Ishinomori Manga Museum prior to March 11
Image source: Searobin's file