Short Program 36

Short Program, Volume 3, Chapter 36 (pp. 301~304)


<301>
The Runaway God

=The Summer of 1963—
[x3]BZZ—T

=That apartment building near the Kami-Igusa Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Rail Line.
HO—NK

[sign]The Adachi Brothers of Gunma Prefecture Cometh!

[sign right]Hinji Nagahima
[sign door]The Adachi Brothers of Gunma Prefecture Cometh!

=...God wasn't home.
[sign]Hinji Nagahima
[note]Hinji Nagahima; Alias of manga artist Shinji Nagashima.

=According to some of his later works, our visit coincided with the times when//He was going out to Shinjuku every single night.
=Leaving his wife and children behind in Asagaya for some of the busiest nights of his life.


<302>
=That day, my older brother (Tsutomu) and I departed Gunma in the early morning.//We stopped at a park in Shinjuku, and lunched on the rice balls that our mother had made us.

=Using the addresses on the telephone poles as our guide,
[bubble]BZZT
=We visited the Tokyo Top Co. (A rental manga publisher) and the homes of several manga artists living in the area.

=No appointments, of course.

=—Even still,//The people at the Tokyo Top Co. answered our questions courteously, and they even served us drinks.
=They ordered sushi for us at the home we visited in Tanashi,//And we received original manuscripts of several professional artists as souvenirs—

=All for two brothers in 7th and 10th grade,//Making a sudden visit from the Gunma countryside.
=—My,//Those were good times.

=—And,

=Several days later, we received a letter from God, coupled with several of his original manuscripts.


<303>
=Mr. Nagashima's works were too mature for me back then (7th grade),//And I wasn't quite as absorbed in them as my brother was.
=But his beautiful artwork stood apart from all the other rental manga, and I frequently copied his drawings.

=Despite my apparent immunity, I wound up catching the Nagashima fever when I entered high school and came across "Futen" in COM magazine.

=I scrounged through his older works with a newfound vigor,//And finally managed to join the ranks of the Nagashima worshippers as the last crop of the rental manga generation.

=—And incredibly enough,
=Thanks to my brother, who had been working in Tokyo,
=I was promised an apprenticeship in God's studio after I graduated high school.

=—But,

=During my senior year of high school, God abandoned all of his work and ran off overseas.
HO~NK
=I panicked, and scurried around looking for a job. Fortunately for me, Mr. Isami Ishii was generous enough to take me in.

=I later received these words of encouragement from God.
=That was probably the luckiest thing that every happened to you as a manga artist.
[bubble]Great choice, Isami-chan!

=—Yeah, I guess so.


<304>
=I last saw him on August 14th, 2004.

=My brother had passed away in June of that year,//And he came to offer a stick of incense even though he was in the middle of dialysis treatment.

=I really appreciate his telling nostalgic stories from his rental manga years in front of my brother.

=My brother must've been itching to get in on that conversation.

=He told me,
=I've been drawing up some oil paintings just for fun.
=Come and take a look sometime.
=At that meeting, but...

=—In the end,//He ran away from me again...

[headline]Creator of Futen, and other lyric manga//Author Shinji Nagashima passes away

Dreaming up works of poetry//And wishing upon a single love
—May he rest in peace.

The Runaway God (END)