Five minutes’ walk from Palaceside Building toward Jimbocho Crossing, Shogakukan Building is in an extraordinary state = photo above. What is this crowd?!
The building (nine stories above, three below), set for demolition from September 2, has
graffiti drawn all-out by cartoonists tied to it, pasted on the street-side glass = photo right; peek inside and you see walls and pillars drawn on (no entry except staff) = photo below. Sightseers who heard poured out despite the heat. This turnout is no small thing.
The Weekly Big Comic Spirits editorial desk set it up. Their Twitter said: “It started when a writer said, ‘Why not have the manga artists doodle?’ We thought it impossible, but the president’s office said OK.” The building was finished in January 1967; a little earlier, from February 1964, Fujiko Fujio’s “Obake no Q-Taro” began in
Shonen Sunday, became a TV-anime hit, and the building was said in-house to have been built on that profit — they even called it the “Oba-Q Building.” It is a building you cannot cut from manga.
The graffiti was done on August 9. Some twenty-five artists answered the call, including Fujiko Fujio (A), Urasawa Naoki (YAWARA!, 20th Century Boys), Yuuki Masami (Patlabor), Shimamoto Kazuhiko (Gyakkyou Nine, Hoero Pen), and Yoshizaki Kanen (Keroro Gunsou), and they
drew “works” one after another on the first-floor reception lobby walls and window glass facing the road. Besides their own titles, Urasawa and Shimamoto drew Ishinomori Shotaro’s Cyborg 009 — an unexpected collaboration. Pokémon, Urusei Yatsura, and other old and new mixed in a lively crowd = photo right is from the Shogakukan lululu bunko desk’s blog.
That day Spirits live-tweeted photos — “the pre-demolition graffiti party at Shogakukan Building is getting wild!” — and RTs piled up; the desk gasped that “the evening tweet hit 18,000 RTs… can such a number exist?” The response was so large that on the 12th they began lighting the space from 8:30 to 20:00 through the 16th. From the 17th blinds come down and it will be harder to see, though daytime should still work.
If you have not seen it yet, hurry.