Mariko Kondo’s fan letter:

Triton Fan,
Letter from Mariko Kondo,
a High School Student from Mie Prefecture

From SF Magazine (Hayakawa Shobo) February 1973 Issue, “Teleport” section

Dear Sir/Madam, I am a third-year high school student and an SF fan who loves animation. On the last day of the month, I casually found this article in a corner of Weekly Asahi: “Triton patients tirelessly waving flags and doing their best. What’s a Triton patient?” Reading further, it said that petitions were successively being brought to Asahi Broadcasting in Osaka, requesting a continuation of Triton of the Sea. A fan club has also been formed in Osaka, and through their meetings, they’ve called out to comrades nationwide. It seems they even waved the flag of the Triton fan association and demonstrated on the streets of Tokyo.

The fans of Triton of the Sea were mainly junior and senior high school students. Most elementary school students, due to the content, were taken by Lion-Maru on the opposing channel, and the viewership rating was a mere 10%. However, that 10% passionately, almost pathologically, supported and championed it. I am one of them, having bought two records (they were hard to find when buying them!), and I even have three volumes of the posters that came with the records in my room.

I believe Triton of the Sea was the best SF anime ever broadcast on TV – the story, characters, art, music, and voice acting were all superb. This wonderful heroic fantasy was not an easy, tear-jerker type of tragedy like Nibelungenlied, which goes beyond the typical good vs. evil confrontation common in shonen manga (like Gekko Kamen). Instead, it was an epic of destruction steeped in an unbearable sense of nihilism, and in the end, it even denies good and evil, making me feel that it connects to the ethnic wars represented by Vietnam.

I hear that the patients’ efforts bore fruit, and reruns have started in Kansai, but there isn’t even a hint of that in the Chubu region. (I read the article and feel greatly encouraged by the existence of comrades. I wrote this letter to help my comrades even a little, because I believe there must be “Triton patients” among the readers of SF Magazine. To those who love Triton, please send postcards to Asahi Broadcasting. Comrades! Let’s support Triton and win reruns and continued broadcasts! (Sounds a bit like a struggle!)

— Mariko Kondo, [address redacted], Kuwana City, Mie Prefecture

Read more about Triton of the Sea here

Editorial Department Comment: The “Teleport” reader’s column in SF Magazine is still a space for letters, but until 1973, it wasn’t limited to impressions of the previous issue. It also included “buy/sell” sections for out-of-print books, new fanzine advertisements, and SF-related event announcements. “Teleport” was a valuable common source of information for SF fans nationwide. Before the advent of the internet, it was customary at the time for submitters’ names and addresses to be listed, allowing readers to contact each other.

The TV anime Triton of the Sea, based on Osamu Tezuka’s original work, ended after two arcs (26 episodes) due to low viewership ratings. A few months later, this passionate letter from a high school girl living in Mie Prefecture, calling for the formation of a Triton fan club, was published in SF Magazine. At that time, Masanobu Komaki read this submission in SF Magazine and soon joined the newly launched Triton of the Sea fan club. (Komaki is now deceased; he belonged to the SF Research Club at Chuo University and joined Minori Shobo after graduation. He was a key figure who became responsible for the Yamato special feature in OUT during his time as editor under the alias “Mr. K.”)

Komaki wrote: “The movement started by Mariko Kondo in Kuwana City was one of the triggers for the birth of TV anime fan clubs. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a “Triton of the Sea fan club” but an SF and anime circle representing it.” (Excerpt from “Dawn of the Anime Boom” in The Age of Mobile Suit Gundam (below left) by Masanobu Komaki.) Komaki further wrote that “members of Triton were scattered nationwide, and most of them were high school students. Just as the president, Kondo, later became a writer, many of the high school students who were members at that time later became writers, animators, designers, editors, and writers.”

The Era of the Visual Research Circle “Kaiju Club”

Interviewer: You contributed the preface to Shinsuke Nakajima’s book, PUFF and the Kaiju Club Era – A Record of Fanzine Ups and Downs for Tokusatsu Fans (above right). In it, it’s mentioned that motivation and contributions were expected from members. Even as an amateur group, this implies a sense of responsibility, doesn’t it?

Hikawa: I was actually kicked out of the Kaiju Club once. Around 1976, when there was a movement to properly establish rules and organize the group, I dropped out. My name isn’t on the membership list from that period. Eventually, I started attending meetings frequently again, but when I tell people around me, “I was actually kicked out once,” no one remembers. It’s more shocking that no one remembers than the fact that I was kicked out. I thought about it so much!

It was also strange that there was no culture of introducing each other back then. When someone new was brought in, there was little of “This is so-and-so,” or “Nice to meet you.” People just sort of drifted away, and then members settled in. So, maybe no one recognized that I had been kicked out because I stubbornly stayed on even after being “fired.”

Interviewer: You didn’t go out for drinks to deepen your friendships either?

Hikawa: Alcohol only entered the picture much later. Besides, I was still a teenager back then.

Interviewer: Mr. Nakajima’s book notes that even though there were differences in personality and aspirations among members, there were no quarrels or undermining. Human relationship troubles seem common in small circles.

Hikawa: I suppose it’s because there was mutual respect, as we’d call it now. Also, our fields of interest were different, so we were complementary. Our specializations were slightly off-kilter, leading to a feeling of, “Oh, I can ask that guy about this.” I think we also relied on each other. Why didn’t we clash? It’s curious, if you think about it.

Some of the books written by members of Kaiju Club

Editorial Department: Was the Kaiju Club formed in ’74?

Hikawa: That understanding seems to differ a bit among people. I joined in August ’74, at a Tsuburaya Productions meeting. I only started receiving the club magazine after 1975. I’ve heard that they had been gathering in smaller numbers since ’73, so I can’t definitively say.

Editorial Department: Did their activities end around ’79?

Hikawa: No, they haven’t ended even now. They’ve never explicitly dissolved. Hiroaki Okuwaki, Mr. Takeuchi’s close friend, is currently continuing it in a representative capacity. He specializes in the music of Akira Ifukube and others. Before the pandemic, we used to have year-end parties, and there were periods when we met twice a year. Previously, when a TV drama was made about the Kaiju Club, it was portrayed as something “that used to exist,” but now we’re told, “Since it still exists, please emphasize that from now on.”

Editorial Department: Comiket (Comic Market) started in ’75, but Kaiju Club and PUFF weren’t very involved there, were they?

Hikawa: While Kaiju Club with its very small print run might not have been involved, PUFF should have started exhibiting at Comiket midway through, following Yamato‘s lead. That was to recoup the printing costs when they switched from mimeograph to offset printing. PUFF also began to cover anime, and the number of submissions increased, making it thicker, so I believe it gathered a wide readership.

Interviewer: It’s said that in the late 1970s, when you started as a writer, there weren’t many other people who could write about anime.

Hikawa: The generation above me, those who researched animation, were quite strict. They clearly undervalued new developments like Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam. I was in my early twenties at the time, and I had this “deep-diving” style, what’s called a “mania.” People even said I was “more knowledgeable than the creators.” That’s not true, but they were making anime for work, and once a project ended, they’d quickly forget about it and think about the next thing. That’s what a professional does, right?

So, the very appearance of someone like me, pressing them with questions like, “What about that part?”, must have been unexpected for them. It’s embarrassing to say this boastfully, but there were moments when I thought, “Could I possibly be the most knowledgeable person in Japan?” However, by the late 70s with Gundam, that quickly changed. Why? Because video decks began to spread into homes. People who would re-watch things dozens of times appeared one after another, even memorizing all the lines.
 

Q&A from “Question Corner” in ASTRONAUT No. 4 (Yamato Association doujinshi)
published October 1975. See the entire doujinshi here.

Interviewer: Nowadays, I think it’s almost essential for film critics and writers to cover anime. But that wasn’t the case back then, was it?

Hikawa: Not just anime, but the entire television medium was looked down upon by the film industry, especially by critics and reviewers, as “ephemeral” or “disposable.” You’d understand if you looked at Kinejun magazine from that era. The interest of the pioneers was in classical works or the cutting-edge of “world animation.” TV anime, with some exceptions, was treated as “counterfeit” or “imitation.”

Interviewer: Is the animation you’re referring to here, besides foreign works, also experimental and highly artistic visual works that don’t involve commercialism?

Hikawa: Even Osamu Tezuka expressed a bitter opinion. Around the time Gundam was being broadcast, he wrote an essay like “Today’s animation is on its deathbed,” criticizing the boom of bishōnen (beautiful character) designs as pathological. I was puzzled, thinking, “He’s the one who made TV anime flourish in the first place, so why isn’t he on our side?”

Interviewer: I can clearly understand the delicate position anime was in back then.

Hikawa: At the time, anime and tokusatsu were collectively called “TV manga” and were looked down upon by adults as “child’s play.” I thought it would be recognized as SF, but then the SF world also denied it, saying, “This is not SF.” The pioneers of animation research treated it like a “faddish boom for commercial gain.” No one would acknowledge it. It was like being surrounded by enemies on all sides. We endured well. There was a certain number of comrades with enough passion not to care, and when it became a job, we gained a sense of accomplishment. If no one would acknowledge us, then we just had to blaze a new trail ourselves. I believe that kind of frontier spirit existed.

Issues of Neppu magazine, published by Studio Ghibli

Anime Was Once Called “TV Manga”

Interviewer: In your serialized column The Merits and Demerits of Showa Animage — The Death and Rebirth of TV Manga in Neppu [Hot Air] (Studio Ghibli), you attempt to re-examine “TV manga” as a genre that existed in the 1970s. This included anime and tokusatsu, and broadly speaking, puppet shows, and in some cases, even variety shows.

Issues of Terebi Magazine (Kodansha)

Hikawa: If you look at record ads and such, you’ll see that everything that was for children on TV was collectively referred to as “TV manga.” In the industry, it was the works shown together at Toei Manga Matsuri, and programs featured in magazines like Terebi Magazine (Kodansha) and Terebi Land (Tokuma Shoten). Both paper manga and TV works were broadly called “manga” by adults, who looked down on them because they were for children.

However, by the late 1970s, works like Gundam emerged, which were not embarrassing to show to anyone. Fans, too, started wanting them to be called “anime” instead of “TV manga.” In ’78, Animage (Tokuma Shoten) was launched, and specialized knowledge also increased, strengthening that trend. However, suddenly, anime people started looking down on tokusatsu, saying “Tokusatsu is worthless,” turning a new “contemptuous gaze” towards them.

The tokusatsu side also began to retaliate, saying “Anime is nothing more than that.” As time progressed further, with the golden age of computer graphics, people started saying things like, “tokusatsu is old technology, isn’t it?” An exclusive, intolerant “chain of contempt” exists. But the energy from a chaotic period, like “TV manga,” is important. Perhaps that’s precisely what made Japanese anime and tokusatsu special. I wrote that series hoping for its rebirth.

Interviewer: You’ve suggested that Hideaki Hirono is a special person who expresses himself by moving back and forth between anime and special effects, but you also wrote that all children of that era watched such things.

Hikawa: Actually, there are many similar examples among creators. When they discovered good works, without distinguishing between anime and tokusatsu, the value judgment of that selection must have influenced their creation.

There was also a period when SF served as the adhesive between genres. SF was the mechanism that allowed one to move between anime and tokusatsu, and in any gathering, SF novels and SF films were fundamental knowledge, a common language. However, before long, the number of fans who didn’t know SF increased, and the SF side also rapidly became narrow-minded, saying, “This is not SF.” Frameworks and barriers increased, and things became fragmented. It’s like the lesson of the Tower of Babel, isn’t it?

Interviewer: With the birth of specialized information magazines for anime like Animage, the adhesive between genres disappeared. Now, phenomenae are occurring where anime lovers only watch anime, and manga lovers only read manga.

Hikawa: Even in anime, there might be more people who only watch isekai (other world reincarnation) series, or specialize only in live events.

Interviewer: People in the 1970s generally knew about everything and were interested in everything.

Hikawa: There were fewer works available, so we had no choice but to be omnivores. For a long time, it’s been said that tokusatsu enthusiasts are “five times more intense” than anime enthusiasts. That’s probably because there are fewer works. For example, if you’re told to “watch all the SF monster movies that Eiji Tsuburaya was in charge of,” you can watch them all in about a week if you focus. Moreover, there are many deeply researched, substantial books about tokusatsu. Anime isn’t necessarily on the same level, so sometimes I get envious.

Issues of Terebi Land (Tokuma Shoten)

Childhood Anger at “Child’s Play” Depictions

Interviewer: Mr. Nakajima’s book also introduces testimonies from members of the Kaiju Club. Everyone felt external pressure to graduate from anime and tokusatsu once they reached a certain age. Did you also experience that, Hikawa-san?

Hikawa: I definitely think so. My eyesight worsened from reading too many manga magazines, and my parents were pessimistic. They must have been thinking, “How will he ever graduate from this?” When I entered junior high school, I made an effort to “read things for adults from now on,” so I, too, had a conscious desire to “graduate.”

I started with the complete works of Rampo Edogawa, then devoured Ryunosuke Akutagawa one after another. From there, when I followed the novels of authors like Sakyo Komatsu, Yasutaka Tsutsui, Kazumasa Hirai, and Aritsune Toyota, I realized, “Oh, these people were involved in anime when I was a child.” I understood the roots.

Even with Kamen Rider and Android Kikaider, when I read Shotaro Ishinomori’s original manga, I felt, “Ah, this is different. They’re trying to make it a proper SF work.” That’s how I got even more deeply entangled.

Editorial Department: That’s the “SF mind” you mentioned earlier.

Hikawa: Exactly. I started to realize that even within “TV manga,” there was a gradation, and a high value existed that couldn’t simply be dismissed as being for children. I think that’s why the “illness” gradually deepened. It’s like, because I thought “there’s something here,” the energy to overcome the pressure to “graduate” was generated.
 

Interviewer: Your profile states you were born in Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture, but when did you move to Tokyo?

Hikawa: Around three years old. I was born in Himeji, but when I became self-aware, I was in Tokyo, and my sister was also born around that time. Perhaps being taken away from a place where I was surrounded by relatives and doted on as the eldest son of the eldest son left a wound on my heart.

Interviewer: Did you purely enjoy works aimed at children when you were a child?

Hikawa: It seems I was born with an analytical thinking program pre-installed from the very beginning. Apparently, I was an unusual child who would try to manage relatives at five years old by saying, “Act like adults.” Even in elementary school, I remember getting angry, thinking, “These adults who make such sloppy works are outrageous; don’t make fools of children.”

For instance, TV programs like Mickey Mouse Club and Disneyland were being broadcast, allowing us to watch authentic animation. Especially Disney, since it’s full animation. I remember in the opening, Tinkerbell would fly in, moving smoothly and scattering magic dust. I was impressed by that splendor, thinking, “The real thing in America is different.”

When I switched back to a Japanese TV anime on another channel midway, the animation would suddenly become jerky, and the screen would flicker. Even as an elementary school student, I understood this was due to differences in budget and the number of cels used, so I’d think, “Oh, Japan is poor and sloppy.” My apologies to the creators, though.

Editorial Department: The production level was vastly different then.

Hikawa: When I judged something to be “child’s play,” I was a child who would get angry and think, “Am I going to be fooled by this?!” Even in kindergarten, when playtime started, I’d think, “I hate childish things. I guess I’ll just pretend to be a child.” That’s precisely why I was strongly drawn to things that were not like that.

For example, the eye depictions in Eight Man made me feel a technique that children couldn’t imitate. Around the same time, I thought Astro Boy was “old. They’re looking down on kids.” So, this kind of analytical ability was there from the start.

Interviewer: What aspects of Astro Boy did you find unsatisfactory?

Hikawa: For example, when he flies, his boots disappear, and fire comes out of his feet, right? I really disliked such convenient and unrealistic depictions.

Editorial Department: So, [you considered] the drawing style [to be] scientifically bogus or sloppy?

Hikawa: Now that I think about it, it was probably the presence or absence of realism. Eight Man also had its flaws, but its underlying basis was robust. For instance, the detail about secretly inhaling cooling agents disguised as cigarettes to prevent the small nuclear reactor in his body from overheating – there was a certain realism to it. It had credibility that made you believe, “This might actually be possible.”

I’m often called “Hikawa, an anime critic knowledgeable about technology,” but that’s not quite it. Recently, I’ve called myself a “natural-born researcher,” but it’s more like something that was pre-installed in my temperament.

Interviewer: It’s often said that your writing has the clarity of someone from a science background.

Hikawa: That’s also said, but it’s not because I’m from a science background; it’s because my brain was that way from the start. I have watched anime and tokusatsu that way since childhood, and choosing a scientific path for my education was probably a consequence of that structure.

The Spread of Television Formed the “First Generation of Otaku.”

Interviewer: The generational experience of which anime and tokusatsu works you watched at what age seems significant.

Hikawa: When Astro Boy began airing in January ’63, I was four years old, soon to be five, a preschooler. I was among the very first generation to watch TV anime before going to elementary school and learning to read.

For those a little younger than me, TV anime was just a normal part of the world they were born into. And the older generation, who were in upper elementary or middle school, reportedly watched Astro Boy saying, “It doesn’t look like the manga.” I believe the experience of the first generation who encountered TV anime when they were completely unschooled preschoolers was significant. Once you enter elementary school, you gain knowledge, learn about American works, and naturally begin to view domestic anime by “subtracting” from an ideal. 

Interviewer: Currently, your generation is sometimes referred to as the “first generation of otaku,” aren’t they?

Hikawa: Toshio Okada was also born in 1958, one academic year below me. It’s often said that there were many otaku born in that year. Kenji Ikeda, Shinsuke Nakajima, and Hiroshi Takeuchi, who were with me in Kaiju Club and PUFF, are about three years older than me.

There’s another older group, about five years older, which includes Hisashi Yasui, Yuji Kaida, Yoshiharu Tokuki, and Hiroaki Nishiwaki. Another large volume zone is those born in 1960. Hideaki Anno is at the forefront, followed by Shoji Kawamori and Kentaro Takekuma. The reason why there’s a large volume zone of otaku among those born in 1960 is clear; the current Emperor was born in 1960, and he got married when he was the Crown Prince in 1959, which propelled the spread of television sets.

Therefore, it’s inevitable that when he was six years old (or “Hiro-no-miya,” his childhood name), the first thing he ever bought at Takashimaya was a “Kaiju Encyclopedia,” a product of television culture. The generation of “TV kids” who had televisions in their homes since birth are those born between 1958 and 1960, and it seems that the large current of the times was projected into their environment from their very birth and growth.

Interviewer: One generation above the first otaku generation is the Zenkyoto (All-Campus Joint Protest Committees) generation. Were you influenced by them?

Hikawa: My father’s youngest brother, my uncle, is ten years my senior, and he belongs to the Dangkai generation (baby boomers). Since our ages were close, he used to tell me, “Don’t call me uncle, call me big brother.” He wasn’t involved in politics, but he played the guitar and listened to songs like Imjin River, so I think there was an indirect influence.

Interviewer: Did you have any repulsion or discomfort towards the Zenkyoto generation?

Hikawa: I used to wonder why they were so violent. So I decided, “I won’t get involved in politics.” I actually regret that. I should have thought more about politics. The Asama Sanso incident and the serial corporate bombing terrorism left an especially negative impression on me.

In fact, even when Gundam was being broadcast, a murder case due to internal strife occurred at Tokyo Tech, where I was studying, and the police came. This was nearly ten years after the Yasuda Auditorium Incident. I heard that the graduation period at Tokyo Tech was shortened from eight to six years due to the student movement’s influence. I had to repeat two years because I was doing too many semi-professional activities, so I barely graduated. In that sense, you could say it was somewhat similar to the student movement, but perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch.

I Believe the Post-War Era Ended with the Spread of Color Television

Interviewer: I’d like to ask about the changes from the 1960s, your childhood, to the 1970s that followed.

Hikawa: The 1960s and 1970s were considerably different. The ’60s still dragged on with the post-war atmosphere. The streets were dirty, and things were generally unsanitary and inconvenient. The biggest change was probably the spread of color television. As the ’70s began, the film industry collapsed, but conversely, the TV industry rapidly shifted from black-and-white to color TV. This coincided with the broadcast period of Kamen Rider in ’71.

In the ’60s, a TV was bought just “if it displayed an image,” but color TVs were bought because they offered high expressive power. In other words, people were willing to pay for surplus entertainment rather than just practicality. It was a paradigm shift like that. Buying on monthly installments was also a big change. Nowadays, it’s rephrased as loans or installment payments, but it’s essentially debt. Before then, to put it extremely, people were likely thought to “work diligently and not incur debt.” Japan’s Confucian-like culture of stoic endurance also began to crumble.

Interviewer: You pointed out the sale of 1,500 yen Kamen Rider transformation belts during this period as one of the turning points where Japanese living standards became richer.

Hikawa: In my university lectures, I teach about the changes in three steps: the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

In the 1960s, snack and pharmaceutical manufacturers were TV program sponsors. This was underpinned by the concept of “benefiting children’s growth.” In reality, kids wanted the bonus stickers, but parents would buy the products, saying, “Well, if it’s good for their health, that’s fine.” Snacks are food, so they’re close to the primary industry.

The 1970s were the era of toy manufacturers. These were mechanical products, so they were [considered a] secondary industry. And they’re not directly connected to human life, nor are they useful. Why did such a toy industry rise to prominence? The reason is the unit price of the products. For gum or chocolate costing about 10 yen, you need to sell a considerable number and also need high viewership ratings. But a 1,500 yen transformation belt makes more than 100 times the profit, so it doesn’t require mass appeal.

In this way, the business structure shifts towards niche interests, where you can make a profit by selling expensive items to a smaller number of people. This “profitable even if expensive” trend called for the next step.

The 1980s were the era of service consumption, becoming a completely tertiary industry. The products were Famicom game cartridges and OVAs, and “content” (the substance) became the focus. It gradually moved away from the physical body, shifting toward the virtual in the brain. The history of anime is intertwined with changes in industry and the times. 

The cast of Tsuburaya Productions’ Operation: Mystery

If Left Alone, Works Leave No Facts Behind

Interviewer: Did you ever have the desire to become an anime creator?

Hikawa: I did have an interest in the industry, as I tried to help with Noboru Ishiguro’s projects. However, I lacked the skill for creation, and as I mentioned earlier, I probably wanted to analyze the subject matter. I was a person with low self-esteem, so, for example, when I drew, I’d get hung up on my poor execution and stop. Even if I had joined the industry, I would have just been one more clumsy creator, so it was probably the right decision.

Interviewer: The phrase “distance from the subject” is one you often use.

Hikawa: Regarding the act of “creating a work and releasing it into the world,” I feel a relationship akin to that of a criminal and a detective. There’s an episode in Operation: Mystery (a 1968 supernatural detective series a la X-Files) called “Kamaitachi” (Episode 16). For some reason, in this episode alone, the ingenious investigator Shirō Maki discerns the culprit without any clear reason. That’s probably because Maki possessed a temperament that would have led him to become a criminal if he hadn’t joined SRI (Scientific Research Institute). Since I lack the guts or skill to become a criminal, it’s more suited to my nature to be on the detective side, solving the mystery after the crime has been committed.

Interviewer: In your serialized column in Neppu, you mentioned that your style, which connects seemingly unrelated things and combines them, is highly regarded.

Hikawa: Having experienced the entire process of manufacturing during my time as an engineer is significant. In the case of anime, how is it structured? What is happening? I became able to make easy associations. I didn’t create anime, but I developed many communication devices, and I struggled with them.

Interviewer: In your column you pointed out that what is commonplace now once wasn’t. You emphasized the importance of identifying the turning points of change, before and after. Once upon a time, manga was just printed in magazines and then discarded after reading. With the advent of collections (tankobon), it transformed into a medium that could be read repeatedly.

Hikawa: When I tell university students to “question what’s taken for granted,” I often get surprised reactions. Since it’s something that’s generally been said, they wonder, “Has no one been saying such things recently?”

Interviewer: You currently serve as a specially appointed professor in the Pop Culture Studies area of Meiji University’s Graduate School of Global Japanese Studies.

Hikawa: I lecture on “History and Technology of Tokusatsu” for undergraduates, and in graduate school, I teach “Comprehensive History of Anime Business” and “Anime Expression Theory.” The root of my style is the same as what I learned in the Kaiju Club. If a work is left alone, no facts remain. It’s empirical research in the direction of collecting materials and conducting interviews.

My guidance for master’s theses isn’t that unusual either. The main goal is to “uncover the facts,” and for that, there are evidentiary methods like collecting statistics, taking testimonies, and so on. In research, questions are important. So I investigate prior literature with the aim of grasping the cutting edge of research. I Organize and systematize information, and then transform questions into hypotheses, such as someone said this, but isn’t it actually like this? Or, this hasn’t been clarified yet. Then, you gather evidence against that and logically prove objectively verifiable facts.

Many graduate students plan research that confuses it with criticism, but a research paper constructs objective logic, so descriptions like “I think that…” must be avoided. I always say that research is similar to the work of a doctor or a detective. It would be disastrous if a doctor said, “I think you’re sick,” without collecting data, or if a detective said, “I think you’re the culprit,” without evidence.

Based on objective facts, one clarifies facts that can be proven by a third party. By doing so, one is required to advance the forefront of academia. In that regard, it differs in nature from the magazine articles I usually write, and although I don’t have a master’s degree myself, I accepted the role after hearing the basics and realizing, “Ah, then I can guide them based on my experience as an engineer.” 

Books by Ryusuke Hikawa (L to R): End-of-Century Anime Debate (Kinema Junpo, 2000),
The Secret Book of the New Age of Anime (Tokuma Shoten, 2000), The Innovation of Japan Anime (Kadokawa, 2023),
Visual Fantasy Culture Theory: From the Kaiju Boom to Space Battleship Yamato (Kadokawa, 2025)

New Things Are Born From True Innovation

Interviewer: You described your temperament as being a “natural-born pioneer” who “loses interest once a system is complete on the frontier.” The history of tokusatsu and anime fandom formation in the 1970s, which we’ve been discussing, indeed looks like the process of building a system on a frontier.

Hikawa: I might have written that pretentiously, but I do think I have a tendency to lose interest as soon as something is completed. It’s like, “If someone else can do it, then I’ll leave the rest to them.”

Actually, around the time I was looking for a job, I thought, “It’ll be easier to just follow someone else’s lead.” But then I realized that, whether it was Yamato, or PC communication, or the ISDN terminals and mobile communication devices I was developing at my company, I was always working on unprecedented, cutting-edge developments. Since I’m always too early, they usually become widespread in about ten years. I was carrying mobile terminals and sending emails myself around 1992, you see.

Interviewer: They’ve become commonplace now, haven’t they?

Hikawa: In the early 90s, people around me even told me, “You can communicate your feelings through a phone call, can’t you? No one sends emails while moving around!” Unbelievable, right? But in about ten years, that became the “new normal.” That’s why I say, “First, question the current normal.” But this is also a difficult path. The new normal, precisely because it’s out of sync with the times, is not understood by anyone.

It’s the same for works; Yamato, Gundam, and Lupin the Third were all out of sync with their times when first released, and weren’t fully appreciated, were they? True innovation, things that rewrite an era, all have the inevitability of the times catching up to them later.

Interviewer: Innovation carries connotations like “new paradigm” and “revolution.”

Hikawa: Sometimes people call it innovation when they just slightly improve something someone else made. But in my view, as someone who’s always worked on developments whose very foundation of “normal” is different, it’s boring when such things are accepted in real-time.

Nevertheless, if you’re not in sync with the times, you face nothing but hardship. I should have learned my lesson, but now I’m back to doing cutting-edge development in education and archival activities. Leaving evidence for academic research to the world and making it public. It’s a means to permanently preserve anime and tokusatsu as culture, and when I think about it, it’s been consistent since I was a second-year high school student. That’s something to be grateful for.

Most academic research until now has primarily focused on established fields like philosophy and psychology, using anime and tokusatsu information as subordinate material. When that happens, the act of clarifying the core or true nature — like what are the unique characteristics of anime in the first place, or what is tokusatsu, or why did unique changes occur only in Japan — tends to become hollow. But if there’s a void there, you just need to fill it.

That’s also a form of development, an innovation. For example, what kind of evolution did anime undergo during the “TV manga era” when it ran in parallel with tokusatsu? Even something this basic hasn’t been clarified yet. That’s because people only use anime-specific chronologies. In this way, there are still many things to do, many frontiers to explore.

Photo published on Mapdate, 2019

Date and place of interview: June 1, 2024, at a Karaoke Box in Ebina, Kanagawa

Afterword/author’s commentary: The author, born in 1982, spent the 1990s and 2000s alongside subculture. By chance, I submitted a “90s Subculture Theory” centered on Byakuro Murasaki to a new critic’s award and received recognition. Just as Mr. Hikawa encountered Space Battleship Yamato and felt an inescapable attraction to it, for me, that would be the kichiku-kei (extreme/grotesque) subculture of the 90s. Mr. Hikawa recounts experiences from approximately 50 years ago with vivid memory, rich detail, overwhelming passion, and as a coherent narrative. It is by no means nostalgia for a distant past. It became an experience of perceiving the fervent history of subculture that continues even today.

Profiles

RYUSUKE HIKAWA

Anime and tokusatsu researcher. Born 1958 in Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture. Debuted in 1977 with the Yamato Special Feature in OUT magazine. After graduating from Tokyo Institute of Technology, he participated in NIFTY-Serve’s anime forum under the handle “ROTO” from the early 90s, while working as a company employee. Became a full-time writer in 2001. Major works include Zambot 3: 20th Anniversary (Ohta Publishing), The Innovation of Japanese Anime: Structural Analysis of Changes that Became Turning Points in History (Kadokawa Shinsho), among others. Currently a Specially Appointed Professor in the Pop Culture Studies area of Meiji University Graduate School of Global Japanese Studies. Vice Director of ATAC, the Anime Tokusatsu Archive Centre, a certified Non-Profit Organization.

YOSHIHARU TOKITA (interviewer)

Critic, Freelance Writer. Born 1982 in Chiba Prefecture. Received the 2022 Subaru Critique Award for “90s Subculture and Ethics – A Theory of Byakuro Murasaki.” Other essays include “Azure Sky and Revolution – A Theory of Chiren Misawa.” Contributes to Subaru (Shueisha), Chuo Koron (Chuo Koron Shinsha), and the web magazine Imidas (Shueisha/Toppan Insatsu).