3 Enter the Limping Hero

MIZUKI SHIGERU, PROFESSOR OF YOKAI egegeno Kitaro, the series of Mizuki Shigeru (Ỉᮌࡋࡆࡿ, G1922–), reintroduced yokai characters to popular visual media in the post-war era. Before this era, the visual representation of yokai evolved from expressing fearful aspects of life such as death or disease to the grotesqueness and outcast status associated with criminals, foreigners and, later, enemies of the state. Mizuki, on the other hand, assigned new notions to these creatures in his visual representation, relating them to the ideas of pacifi sm and nostalgia, which propelled oy kai in new directions as visual signifi ers and assigned a new place for them in contemporary visual vocabulary while maintaining a visual continuity with previous art historical time periods. To understand how Mizuki was able to achieve this effect within his sequential artwork, his life will be introduced in this chapter to show how Mizuki’s new approach towards yokai was informed by his personal experiences as artist, soldier and war veteran.

EARLY YEARS (1922–41) Mizuki Shigeru was born Mura Shigeru (ṊⰋⱱ) on March 8, 1922, as the second son of a relatively rich family. Mizuki’s father, Mura Ryoichi (ṊⰋு୍) was a talented, yet eccentric bank offi cial. The first person from Mizuki’s native Sakaiminato city, , to gradu- ate from a university in , Mizuki’s father had a special interest in the visual arts and in literature which helped Mizuki to develop his own interest in pictures from a very early age (Mizuki 2004:25). Mura Ryoichi, a devout fan of Kabuki, set up the fi rst movie theater in Sakaiminato city at his own expense, where his wife, Shigeru’s mother, Kotoe㸦⍆Ụ㸧acted as the ticket collector. The cinema club, which was set up in a small kamishibai (⣬Ⱚᒃ, picture card story telling) hall and operated only when kamishibai performers were out of town, served to satisfy Mura Ryoichi’s urge to “bring culture to Sakaiminato” 48 and its Roots in Early Japanese Art rather than to make a profi t (Mizuki 2004:57). Films included mainly chanbara (ࢳࣕࣥࣂࣛ, sword fi ght) swordplays such as Sonno Joi (ᑛ⋤ ᨝ዀ, Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians, dir. Ikeda Tomiyasu, 1927), but he works of director Ozu Yasujiro (ᑠὠ Ᏻ஧㑻, 1903–63), such as Daigaku wa Deta Keredo (኱Ꮫࡣฟࡓࡅࢀ࡝, I Graduated But. . ., 1929) were also shown. While the project did not last long, it helped to introduce Mizuki to the world of Japanese cinema of the 1920s and 1930s (Mizuki 2004:59). According to his own accounts, Mizuki’s other important infl uence in his early childhood was a local nanny, Kageyama Fusa (ᬒᒣࡩࡉ), whom he called Nonnonba (ࡢࢇࡢࢇ፠). Nonnon is an expression traditionally used in the Chugoku area (୰ᅜᆅ᪉) of for a person who provided praying services for the community. Serving as a “shaman,” the non- non-san, or ogamiya-san (ᣏࡳᡭ, ᣏࡳᒇ), was responsible for making offerings to the gods, praying for the healing of the sick and for the well-being of the village (Mizuki 1990:18). After her husband’s death, Nonnonba went to live for longer periods with the Mura family as a nanny to the three children, and, according to Mizuki’s autobiographi- cal manga, Manga Mizuki Shigeru Den 1–3 (࣐ࣥ࢞Ỉᮌࡋࡆࡿఏ, Manga Legend of Mizuki Shigeru) (Mizuki 2004), developed a special relation- ship with the young Shigeru. Shigeru wasn’t a promising child in his early years. He didn’t speak until he was four years old, and while both his older and younger broth- ers attended kindergarten, fi ve-year-old Shigeru was left home in the care of Nonnonba (Mizuki 1997:16). Being left in the care of Nonnonba in his most formative years made an important contribution to the work he would later produce. Nonnonba was a believer in spirits and yokai, and according to the artist’s recounts, she introduced local lore of yokai to Mizuki, including the Tenjo Name (ኳ஭აࡵ, Ceiling Licker), the Aka Name (ᇈაࡵ, Mold Licker), the Iyanari (ᐙ㬆ࡾ, strange noises produced by the wooden logs of the fl ooring of the house) or the Sazae Oni (ࢧࢨ࢚㨣, Shell Devil, edible shells of strange shapes or big sizes) (Mizuki 2004). Nonnonba also tried to prove the existence of yokai to the impressionable young Mizuki, which led him not to question the existence of yokai throughout his childhood and so started to sketch the invisible beings from an early age (Mizuki 1990:26). Yokai and ghosts were part of folk imagination in rural Tottori Prefecture in the prewar era as monsters were born out of anguish related to the everyday life realities of famine, poverty or infectious diseases, including measles and pulmonary tuberculosis, which were largely left untreated and often resulted in death. Mizuki got acquainted with the reality of death in his early childhood years as several children in his village were lost to measles, while others perished at sea when working as child laborers for fi shermen (Mizuki 1990:184). In this environment, Nonnonba’s ghost stories fi red Shigeru’s curiosity of what happens after death. Mizuki gives an account of his fi rst encounter with a dead body when one of the ships harbored in Sakaiminato City exploded: