Institute / Research Cases / QS-RC-129
Mitsuteru Yokoyama
Tetsujin 28-go, Iga no Kagemaru, Mahotsukai Sally, Kamen no Ninja Akakage, Babel II, Sangokushi. A giant robot that becomes good or evil depending on who holds the controls, a boy ninja racing through the dark, a princess from a magic kingdom who comes to the human world — Mitsuteru Yokoyama, one man, created in succession the starting points of genres that others would follow: the robot, the ninja, the magical girl. He was born in 1934 in Suma, Kobe. Evacuated to Tottori at ten, he returned to find Kobe burned to the ground by air raids; that sight, he said, became the origin of his giant robot. He left a bank after four months and debuted in 1955 with Otonashi no Ken. In 1956 he began Tetsujin 28-go, which rivalled Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy in popularity. On 20 October 1963 the television anime Tetsujin 28-go began, and in 1964 he founded Hikari Production. From 1971 he drew Sangokushi for fifteen years and sixty volumes, turning to the great rivers of Chinese classics with Shiki and Kōu to Ryūhō. He received the Japan Cartoonists Association Award in 1991 and its Minister of Education Award in 2004, and died that year at sixty-nine. In 2009 a life-size Tetsujin 28-go was raised in Nagata, Kobe, his home city. At the moment his dream came within reach, what else was happening within his destiny? We read the vessel he was born with against his destiny and the phases of time.
At a Glance
The case
- Subject
- Mitsuteru Yokoyama (横山光輝) — Manga artist
- Period analysed
- 1934–2004
- Three pillars
- Day 庚申 / Month 庚午 / Year 甲戌
- Void branches
- 子丑 (Rat–Ox)
- Destiny area
- 0.14 The area of the triangle formed by the three pillars on the sixty-cycle circle (maximum 1.30)
- Format
- PDF, 14 pages — written in Japanese
- Price
- ¥50,000 including tax
Research Brief
What the case shows
- His is a destiny that holds, in almost perfect form, intelligence and judgement of the highest order. It is a vessel made for scholarship and the classics, and stars of learning and inherited wisdom sit both at its centre and in its shadow.
- His destiny carries a structure in which family and society, and parents and the place of work, tear at one another in the layer of the spirit and bind fast in the layer of reality. At about ten he saw his home city burned to the ground. That memory of destruction turned into the story of a giant robot that fights in union with others.
- He holds a precious star in which protective forces overlap twofold. Nearly every work that became the starting point of a new genre was born in one of these protected years.
- 20 October 1963 was a day on which all four layers of fortune were filled with protective forces. Within that space-time, where the dream came fully within reach, a structure also rose in which a force opposite to the dream appeared at the same time. After a decade of adaptations for the screen, Yokoyama turned to the great rivers of history.
- His last twenty years fell in a blank in fortune, yet the protection of harmony turned through them. His life's work received its highest recognition, and after his death a life-size Tetsujin rose in his home city. After his last work, Inshuu Densetsu, the story he was planning next was that of the strategist Sun Tzu.
Questions
The questions the report answers
- How could one author create, in succession, the starting points of the robot, the ninja and the magical-girl genres?
- What overlapped on 20 October 1963, the day the television anime Tetsujin 28-go began?
- Why did a force opposite to the dream arise in the same space-time in which the dream came true?
- Why did he turn from the bright world of the screen to the great rivers of history?
Public Record
The record, year by year
Selected events from the public record. Analysis and judgement are given in the report itself.
| 1934 | 甲戌 | 18 June: born in Suma, Kobe |
| 1945 | 乙酉 | Returns from evacuation in Tottori to a Kobe burned to the ground |
| 1955 | 乙未 | Debuts with Otonashi no Ken |
| 1956 | 丙申 | Tetsujin 28-go begins in Shonen |
| 1961 | 辛丑 (天) | Iga no Kagemaru sets off a ninja boom |
| 1963 | 癸卯 | 20 October: the television anime Tetsujin 28-go begins |
| 1964 | 甲辰 | Founds Hikari Production |
| 1966 | 丙午 | Mahotsukai Sally and Kamen no Ninja Akakage |
| 1971 | 辛亥 | Sangokushi and Babel II begin |
| 1992 | 壬申 (天) | Shiki |
| 2001 | 辛巳 (天) | His last work, Inshuu Densetsu, concludes |
| 2004 | 甲申 (天) | Minister of Education Award; 7 April: the fourth Tetsujin 28-go series begins; 15 April: dies at sixty-nine |
| 2009 | 己丑 (天天) | A life-size Tetsujin 28-go monument rises in Nagata, Kobe |
Year pillars change at Risshun, in early February. (天) = void year or void decade. (天天) = void year within a void decade.
Contents
14 pages
- Destiny profile and chart
- Yin and yang charts
- Axis and type of destiny
- Ten-year phases
- Composite numerical table
- The seal of learning
- Heaven clashes, earth unites
- The twofold guardian
- The dream and its opposite
- The void and the decades of harmony
- The four layers of 20 October 1963
- Timeline chart
- Public record
- Conclusion
Purchase
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¥50,000incl. tax · PDF · Japanese
Email the case number QS-RC-129. We reply with an invoice; the PDF follows once payment is confirmed.
Analysis supervised by FAITH (Makoto Tokunaga) — MSc Economics, University of Warwick · CICP · Shugakuin Saii