Tetsuya Chiba
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Tetsuya Chiba (千葉鉄也/ちば てつや) is one of the leading mangaka in Japan. He was born on 11 January 1939 in Tokyo but lived most of his early childhood in China (Manchuria) when it was still a Japanese colony during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Tetsuya lived with three little brothers. His father was working in a paper factory during that time they lived in China.
In 1956, when he was in highschool, he wrote Fukushuu no Semushiotoko for a publisher that produced rental books and got 12315yen when Japan needed a cheap form of entertainment for children. In 1958, he made his professinal debut in Shoujo Book with Butoukai no Shoujo. In the sixties, he worte shounen manga and shoujo manga at the same time. His major shounen manga titles are Chikai no Makyuu and Ashita No Joe which the latter become one of his well known work to this day. Because he is a great shounen mangaka, his shoujo titles written nearly forty years ago are still in print and they have even Chinese version (Ashita No Joe went into reprint again not long ago and was distributed around Eastern Asia, it became a huge seller in Hong Kong China). Chiba Tetsuya's stories are often portrait with a realistic view and his target audience were often a bit older who grew up from Osamu Tezuka works.
Childhood in China (which turned into a short manga by Chiba)
When the Sino-Japanese war ended. There were many Japanese people who needed to go back to Japan due to the growing tension of anti-Japanese feelings amongs Chinese people who suffered from the war.
Tetsuya's family had to plan an escape together with the rest of the Japanese town folk, towards an international controlled harbour to catch a boat back to Japan. During the long journey with the rest of the townfolk, Tetuya and his family become lost from the rest of the caravan due to a small delay with their youngest child suffering from a bleeding foot.
Just when they were in deep despair, they encounter a Chinese man who turned out to be Mr Lee whom is a good friend and work colleague of Tetsuya's father from the paper factory. Mr Lee told them that the harbours are chaotic due to the over crowding with Japanese refugees, also there aren't going to be any boats sailing to Japan for a while. However Mr Lee suggested them to live in his attic for 6 month until everything calmed down.
They hid themselves in an attic for autumn and winter, while their father is helping Mr Lee's vegetable stand. Tetsuya and his three younger brothers weren't allowed to go out to play due to fear of being found out and lynched by the villagers, the day were long and there wasn't much entertainment to make the time roll faster. One normal day when Tetsuya was bored his mother suggested Tetsuya to make a story book with illustrations for them. His younger brothers enjoyed the drawings that Tetsuya made. From that day on, Tetsuya took an interest in drawing, even when he returned back in Japan.
Many years later, when China and Japan resumed contact again, Tetsuya went to visit mr Lee, however it turns out that Mr Lee died from torture during the Cultural Revolution as he was branded as "traitor" for helping the Japanese. However the attic and the house still survived. As a last tribute to Mr Lee, Chiba visited his grave and made a glassfigurine of Chiba's family and gave it to Mr Lee's grandchildren.
Source
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