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Human Crossing Manga Creator Teams Up with Brewery to Support Flood Victims

Natural disasters have plagued Japan this summer, including heavy rainfall leading to large-scale flooding in the Hiroshima area, followed by a heat wave, and then Typhoon 12. Manga artist Kenshi Hirokane is helping to alleviate the reconstruction costs of areas affected by the heavy rainfall and flooding by working with a brewery to donate partial sale profits.

Heavy rainfall began in July and caused widespread damages to homes and businesses along western Japan. One of the affected areas was Hirokane's hometown of Iwakuni in Yamaguchi prefecture. Homes and businesses were damaged and residents died as a result of the ensuing landslides. The brewery Asahi Shuzo is located in Iwakuni and found itself unable to ship its sake after the area lost power for three days. Its first floor was flooded, and the power outage made it impossible to control the temperature in its 150 fermentation tanks. Approximately 700,000 bottles worth of sake were lost.

Images of destruction caused by heavy rain in Iwakuni

Hirokane, who was also injured in the disaster, is teaming up with Asahi Shuzo to help the city. The company will donate 200 yen of each sale of Dassai Shima Kōsaku sake bottles. Each bottle is sold for 1,200 yen (US$10.75) and include a special label of featuring Hirokane's character Kosaku Shima from the Section Chief Kosaku Shima manga series. The sake can be purchased from brewery's web shop and other stores starting on August 10.

If the project manages to sell 650,000 bottles, Hirokane and Asahi Shuzo will raise about 130 million yen (US$1.16 million). The company has not decided exactly where the raised funds will be donated, but Asahi Shuzo president Kazuhiro Sakurai stated in a press conference that he would like to split the donations equally among the affected prefectures.

Source: Comic Natalie (Link 2)