Nagata turns to its own animé hero to rebuild a town once devastated by earthquake.

Merchants in Kobe’s Nagata Ward in Japan, which was devastated in the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, is revitalising the area as a ‘cartoon town’ by renting vacant rooms in buildings constructed after the quake to young cartoonists and establishing a museum featuring a popular animé created by a Kobe-born cartoonist.

The merchants hope buildings erected after the earthquake will function like the Tokiwa-so apartment building in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, in which many talented cartoonists, such as Osamu Tezuka, Fujio Akatsuka and Fujio Fujiko, stayed and drew in their early days.

Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, moved into the two-storey wooden apartment building in 1953, and many young cartoonists subsequently lived there until the decrepit building was demolished in 1982.

The museum features Sangokushi (Three Kingdom Saga), a popular comic series written by Kobe-born cartoonist Mitsuteru Yokoyama, based on the history of China’s three kingdoms that prospered in the second and third centuries.

The merchants also plan to set up an 18m-high life-size statue of robot Tetsujin 28 Go (Gigantor), the main character of the comic of the same title drawn by Yokoyama, next spring, in front of JR Shin-Nagata Station in the ward.

Traditional Japanese houses and shopping arcades collapsed or were razed in fires that followed the quake. Although new buildings were constructed in front of the station, many residents in the old communities dispersed to other areas after the quake and did not return, leaving much floor space in the buildings and the new shopping arcades vacant.

According to the Kobe municipal government, the number of business institutions around the station has decreased from about 2,500 in 1996 to about 1,600 in 2007, due to the economic downturn following the disaster and the aging of local business owners.

Local merchants will revitalise the area using Yokoyama’s popular comic series as their inspiration. In the envisioned museum, visitors will be able to dress up in costumes of warlords such as Liu Bei and Cao Cao, characters in his Sangokushi.

In the new buildings, they aim to nurture young, talented cartoonists by providing workrooms and opportunities for them to publish their work.

The merchants also plan to invite shops to sell items related to popular cartoons and comics as well as figurines of popular animé characters.

Yokoyama was born in Suma Ward, which is east of Nagata Ward. He began drawing cartoons when he was studying at Suma High School and made his name with Gigantor, which was serialised in a boy’s magazine from 1956. He died in 2004.

His other highly popular works include Mahotsukai Sari and Iga no Kagemaru. Sangokushi was published in 1972.

“Many elderly people and people from Viet Nam and South Korea live in Nagata. We thought Sangokushi would be the best cartoon—one that anybody can enjoy, and one that can attract people from rural areas,” said Kenji Masaoka, director of Kobe Tetsujin Project, a nonprofit organisation working on the project.

Masaoka, 60, who operates a butcher shop near the station added, “Although the townscape of Nagata has changed due to the earthquake and through the following reconstruction and development, I really hope this cartoon project will provide a spark that will help Nagata attract more people again.” (The Yomiuri Shimbun/ AsiaNews)