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On June 23, 2001, "A Sea Turtle and a Boy", a volume ofOkinawa of the collection of war stories for children written by Akiyuki Nosaka, (picture by Seitaro Kuroda/published by Koudansha) was on sale. At last after 30 years the "Collection of War Stories for Children" has been published.Before this picture book was finally compleated,a lot of worries and thoughts crossed between Akiyuki Nosaka and Seitaro Kuroda. |
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| A long time ago, but not so long ago, there was a war.The war broke out where millions of people lived,and it gave each of them different sad stories and very pitiful sights.Some of the stories were so sad that people did not want to remember, and some of the sights were so bad that we couldn't open our eyes to see them.But "the story" has been handed down from generation to generation, so that a war would not break out ever again. Because it is "A Story We Must Not Forget"..... |  |
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To begin with, it was in 1971, the next year of the '70 campaign against the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, that the "Collection of War Stories for Children", original author of which is Akiyuki Nosaka, appeared in serial form in 'Fujinkouron'.In those days in Japan, people had a happy time with a wave of prosperity because of the international exposition in Osaka. And the Japan National Railway began "Discover Japan" campaign. People were making "war" a memory of the days long past with enjoying the rich age brought by high growth of Japanese economy.Then this "Collection of War Stories" began to appear inserial form, as if it had warned Japan which started to enjoy an easy time. |
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Okinawa, the only prefecture that experienced the ground battle in Japan. The "Collection of War Stories for Children" does not complete without talking about Okinawa. In the summer of 1999,Seitaro Kuroda finished to make the "Collection of War Stories for Children" complete in 12 stories into a movie. He held an exhibition of a mass of original pictures that he drew in order to make into a movie at Sakima Museum in Ginowan-shi, Okinawa-ken. In the Second World War, Okinawa only experienced the ground battle in Japan. Even today, 75% of the U.S. military base in Japan concentrates in Okinawa. In those days, in Okinawa, with the summit conference near at hand, the atmosphere of welcoming it was rising, stirred up by the mass media. On the other hand, all of the citizens of Okinawa are not quite delighted to have the summit conference. They seemed to look steadily at the fact that the decision of the main place for the conference was connected with the tranceference of Futenma military base inside the prefecture and that they were forced to have their lives controlled under the strict guard system like martial law. While Kuroda came in touch with faces of the citizens in Okinawa and felt the breeze from the sea, he thought he had to hand down stories of "Okinawa" which were not included in the collection of war stories for children. He felt it was his mission. First Akiyuki Nosaka said "I won't be able to write because I didn't experience the ground battle." But he was moved by Kuroda's decision, saying "I must not say that I'm able to write or I'm not, now that Japan will make Okinawa the U.S. again." He shortly set up the "Association of Making a Volume of Okinawa". He worked over his plan with visiting OKinawa many times. |
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| In 1994, Seitaro Kuroda got the "Collection of War Stories for Children"at a bookstore in New York. As he read it again and again, he thought, "Everybody uses a word 'after war' easily, but we have never had 'after war' on the earth." So, people who supported him from the heart started a project to make the "Collection of War Stories for Children" into a movie, in order not to make the war a memory of the days long past.The whole 12 stories of the original had been made into a movie little by little over 5 years. And they were on TV on NHK-BS around the anniversary of the end of the Pacific War every year. In 1999, the series of the videotapes were on sale by Ferissimo publishing company. A lot of people keep on receiving messages from them. |  |
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Cast● Hiroko Shimada, Tamio Ryo, Shosuke Chibana, Yuryou Higa,KaitoOhshiro, Tatsunami Kinou, ChanpurusNarrator●Miyuki Matsuda |
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Cinematographer's comment：Shooting Director Seiichi Morishita and his staff of the Studio Twinkle animated pictures of Mr.Kuroda little by little. It was a work that normally would take over a month. However, thanks to their day-and-night dedication, it was finished within a week. You can see wonderful shooting tricks, such as moving fighting scenes and the multiple exposure.You can't miss them!
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