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Contemporary Manga Library Founder Toshio Naiki Passes Away
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The Contemporary Manga Library founder Toshio Naiki passed away due to pneumonia on Friday. He was 74.
Naiki was born in Tokyo in 1937. He opened the Yamabuki Bunko rental library in 1955 and established the Contemporary Manga Library's "Naiki Collection" in 1978. Naiki collected manga for more than 50 years to preserve the art form's cultural heritage. For his establishment and management of the Contemporary Manga Library, Naiki received the Special Prize in the 1st Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize program in 1997.
The Contemporary Manga Library in Tokyo's Shinjuku ward is still open as a private library. It claims to hold the largest manga collection in Japan and currently houses about 180,000 compiled manga books, magazines, dōjinshi, and related materials. The Contemporary Manga Library partnered with Meiji University in 2009 with plans to establish the tentatively titled Tokyo International Manga Library in 2014.
Source: Anime!Anime!
