Behind the Scenes of NHK Morning Drama Anpan Insights from the Final Editor

On February 2nd, NHK announced that Mio Imada (26) will play the heroine in the 2025 season of the morning drama series “Anpan.” It’s the story of the love and courage of Yanase Takashi and his wife, Naomi (both deceased), who created the immensely popular “Anpanman,” still beloved by children today. Toshiko Hiramatsu, who served as Yanase’s final editor, revealed some unknown episodes.

 

Fateful Encounter

Hiramatsu, who loved the monthly magazine “Shi to Meruhen” (published by Sanrio), first met Yanase in 1974 at an exhibition of the “Illustrated Books by Manga Artists.” This group was formed by ten manga artists including Noboru Baba and Osamu Tezuka, and the exhibition took place at Maruzen bookstore in Tokyo.

Ms. Hiramatsu, who learned about the autograph session through a newspaper advertisement, hurried to the venue and presented a signed autograph board to Mr. Yanase. At that time, Mr. Yanase reportedly responded with these words.

“At the venue, autographed boards are being sold, so I can’t sign here. Leave your address and the autograph board, and I’ll send it to you later.”

Within a week, he received an autograph with a picture on it.

“I could see that he was a man of integrity who always kept his word.”

That was the beginning of their relationship.

“Whenever I wrote to him, he would always reply. My first airmail was a postcard postmarked in Germany.”

Mr. Hiramatsu still keeps the postcards and reply letters from that time in a safe place.

Yanase was born on February 6, 1919, in what is now Kita Ward, Tokyo. When he was five years old, he moved to his paternal hometown of Kami City, Kochi Prefecture. During his middle school years, he read the works of Yokoyama Ryūichi, a fellow native manga artist from the same hometown, and said, “I learned about the profession of a manga artist and began to admire it.”

He aspired to become an illustrator and enrolled in the Department of Design at the former Tokyo Higher Technical School (now part of the Faculty of Engineering at Chiba University). After graduating from university in 1939, he joined Tokyo Tanabe Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (now Tanabe Mitsubishi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.). However, with the outbreak of war in 1941, he was enlisted. From the age of 21 to 26, he served as a soldier and was deployed to China. The harsh experiences of war during that time would later have a significant impact on the birth of Anpanman.

After the war ended, in 1946, he joined the Kochi Shimbun newspaper company. While working on the editing of “Monthly Kochi,” he also worked on writing and manga. Among his colleagues was Noboru Komatsu, who would later become his wife. When Yanase learned that Komatsu was moving to Tokyo for a new job, he resigned from the Kochi Shimbun and followed her to Tokyo. The following year, they got married.

Be a good person.

In the same year, Yanase joined Mitsukoshi and began drawing manga while working as a graphic designer in the advertising department.

Few people know that the cursive writing of ‘mitsukoshi’ on Mitsukoshi Department Store’s wrapping paper was done by Mr. Yanase. The original wrapping paper ‘Hanahiraku,’ the first of its kind in Japanese department stores, was drawn by the painter Genichiro Inokuma in 1950, and Mr. Yanase, who was an employee of the Mitsukoshi Advertising Department at the time, added the text.

“I later heard from Mr. Yanase that Professor Inokuma said, ‘You can just write in the text since you studied design at the current Faculty of Engineering at Chiba University’.”

In 1953, at the age of 34, he left Mitsukoshi to start his own business as a manga artist, but as he says in an interview, “I was over 40 years old and still in the middle of nowhere, and had not even started, let alone failed,” he did not budge immediately. To make a living, he worked on stage composition, wrote scripts for TV dramas, and wrote the lyrics to the children’s song “Palm of the Hand to the Sun”. During the interview, Yanase told Hiramatsu,

“This job gets better with various experiences. Osamu Tezuka graduated from Osaka University and became a doctor, but his medical knowledge proved useful in drawing manga. Being a manga artist isn’t just about drawing manga. I think it’s about having a manga-like spirit, trying to make people happy based on your own experiences.”

His representative work, the picture book “Anpanman” (published by Froebel-kan), was published in 1973 when he was 54 years old. In 1988, the TV anime “Let’s Go! Anpanman” was aired and quickly gained popularity, making Yanase a best-selling author. He blossomed late in life at the age of 69. Twenty-five years had passed since he became independent as a manga artist.

On March 11, 2011, when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, Yanase was 92 years old. Despite his declining eyesight and contemplating giving up writing, immediately after the earthquake, he extended a helping hand to the “Miracle Pine Tree” in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture. And it was there that Mrs. Hiramatsu was involved.

“On the night of March 18, one week after the earthquake, I visited the studio where Mr. Yanase was waiting and asked for support for his hometown, Rikuzentakata City. I talked about the story of the lone pine tree that survived out of around 70,000 pine trees that were washed away by the tsunami in Takata Matsubara. Mr. Yanase empathized with the remaining pine tree and immediately wrote a story called ‘The Song of the Pine Tree.’ He also made songs titled ‘Rikuzentakata no Matsunoki’ (CD) and handkerchiefs to accompany the story, and donated 1,000 copies of each. He instructed that they be used for the replanting of pine trees and for the people of Rikuzentakata.”

Mr. Yanase affectionately referred to this lone pine tree as “Hyoro-matsu” and supported it in various ways, including making donations for its preservation.

Ms. Hiramatsu analyzes that Mr. Yanase’s surge in popularity stemmed from his overflowing creative passion, his unwavering perseverance, and above all, his inherently good nature.

Mr. Yanase reportedly told a story like this before.

“The way I work is fixed. First and foremost, I aim to be a good person. Just because I’m an artist doesn’t mean I should cause trouble for others.”

At that moment, Ms. Hiramatsu asked, “What defines a good person?” Mr. Yanase replied, “Someone whom others want to meet. By becoming such a person, naturally good works can be created. If the work is interesting, people will buy it, and you can live on. Making money is not the main focus. Bringing joy to others is the main focus. If you do it with that mindset, you will be rewarded in the end.”

Mr. Hiramatsu interprets Yanase’s definition of a good person as a person who is good if one were to apply the Chinese characters.

Since April 2010, when the project for “Yanase Takashi’s Fairy Tale Picture Books” was launched in the “Asahi Shogakusei Shimbun” (Asahi Elementary School Newspaper), Mr. Hiramatsu, who was involved in the planning from the outset and remained involved until Mr. Yanase’s passing, reflects on the experience in this way.

“After the serialization ended, it was decided to republish 16 episodes as a collection of masterpieces. At that point, I came up with the idea of including testimonies from 16 individuals who had interacted with Mr. Yanase. I reached out to voice actress Ms. Keiko Toda, singer Dreaming, and picture book author Mr. Yoshiaki Ha to hear their stories. Everyone I met was a good person, and from their words, I was convinced that they genuinely admired Mr. Yanase from the bottom of their hearts. In other words, it means that Mr. Yanase himself was a good person.”

 

Mr. Yanase explains the secret of his success in his own words.

“In my opinion, it’s 70% luck, 20% effort, and 10% talent. No matter how much manga I draw, it’s pointless if there aren’t people who discover its goodness or want to publish it.”

It is said that he never forgot his lifelong gratitude towards the editors at Froebel-Kan who brought Anpanman picture books into the world, as well as the producers at Nippon Television who worked tirelessly on its animation adaptation.

Because he was a good person who knew that one cannot live alone, it is likely that even God did not abandon him. Mr. Yanase’s works embody eternal life and will continue to be loved across time and space.