A display of shikishi by manga artist Satoru Ozawa, 81 — “Zero Fighters of Today (Life): A Solo Manga Exhibition” — is on in the open space beside Palaceside Building’s first-floor east main entrance.
Ozawa is known as a leading marine-adventure manga artist for 1960s works such as Submarine 707 and Blue No. 6. He has lately been drawing Zero fighters in volume, and The Mainichi Newspapers reported it at length on page 1 and page 6 “Story” of the March 26 morning edition (photos at the end). This exhibition was put together in haste as a tie-in to that article.
Why the Zero? Ozawa writes on a panel in the venue: “The Zeroes that lived in me when I met the war’s end as a fourth-grader still fly vividly before my eyes, unfaded.” At the same time, “there were boys who, like special-attack pilots, made such a Zero their coffin and fell in a hollow fight.” He paints the Zeroes beautifully, he says, in a spare, weathered spirit. The Mainichi article (http://mainichi.jp/articles/20170326/ddm/001/040/079000c ,http://mainichi.jp/articles/20170326/ddm/010/040/062000c) covers this in detail. A cousin twelve years older, incidentally, survived a special-attack unit.
On view are 144 shikishi. Set in April 1945, they tell a story of two 21-year-old special-attack pilots.
Purely subjective, and a matter of taste, but here are two that caught my eye. In the drawing of the Zeroes, thoughts of family and thoughts toward family are packed in.
Back to the venue panel, Ozawa writes:
“Living now in this peaceful Japan, I drew them — however clumsily — in the hope that they might be at least a farewell flower for those tender boys.”
The show runs through Sunday, April 2. Admission is free. Ozawa is scheduled to be at the venue March 29 and April 1, 1:30–3:00 p.m. each day.
