Takashi Yanase Faced Death, Violence, and Picture-Story Fame During Wartime

Routine violence by superiors assaults Tokyo designer

The NHK morning drama Anpan, based on manga artist Takashi Yanase—creator of the beloved national character Anpanman—and his wife Nobu, has now entered its postwar phase. Earlier episodes depicted the harsh realities of army life for the character Takashi Yanai (played by Takumi Kitamura) during the war. But what was Takashi Yanase’s real wartime experience like?

Yanase received his draft notice in the spring of 1940 (Shōwa 15).

He first reported to the 44th Infantry Regiment in Kōchi, his registered domicile. However, with his father deceased, his mother remarried, and his stepfather also passed away, Yanase was told by a superior, “You have no family ties, so you can go wherever.” He was then transferred to a regiment in Kokura.

Later, the Kōchi regiment participated in fierce fighting in the Philippines, where many soldiers lost their lives. Had Yanase stayed in Kōchi, there’s a high chance he would have died in the Philippines.

Yanase enlisted in the 1st Supplementary Company of the 6th Regiment of the 12th Division Field Heavy Artillery in Kokura, Fukuoka Prefecture (known as the Western Unit 73). This unit was known within the army for its boldness and ferocity. Thus began Yanase’s five-year military life.

What awaited him in the army was daily violence. In his book Anpanman no Isho (Anpanman’s Will, Iwanami Gendai Bunko), Yanase wrote:

“Thus began the terrifying life in the barracks, where a storm of slaps raged every day. A ‘binta’ is basically a punch. (…) The sheer force of these slaps can’t be understood unless you’ve been hit. Your face would become deformed like a boxer’s.”

If you didn’t fold your blanket properly in the morning, you got slapped. If your work was sloppy, you got slapped. If even one person made a mistake, the whole squad got slapped. Sometimes they were struck with leather shoes. There was even a punishment called ōfuku binta—facing each other and slapping one another.

Every week, morning assembly included a lecture: “Let’s stop private acts of punishment like hitting.” But on those nights, they would be beaten even more severely. Compared to the days he had spent in Tokyo as a designer, this life was unbearably harsh.

Even so, Yanase eventually adapted to army life. After being appointed the squad leader’s orderly, he was spared the worst of the bullying and harassment.

Yanase later passed the exam for officer candidate school and became a noncommissioned officer, assigned to the code section at battalion headquarters. He had dozed off during a guard duty at the stables the night before the test results came out, and though he passed, the incident prevented him from becoming a full officer.

Had he become an officer, he likely would have been sent to the frontlines in Manchuria or China and died in battle—or been captured by Soviet forces and sent to Siberia as a prisoner.

“I’m going to die tomorrow.”

As a non-commissioned officer (sergeant), Takashi Yanase was entrusted with training new recruits. Unlike other squad leaders who frequently beat the newcomers, Yanase refrained from using violence, which made him popular among the new soldiers and their families. This was in stark contrast to Tetsuharu Kawakami—Yanase’s junior by a year—who became infamous during his military service for beating new recruits and harboring grudges, earning him the nickname “God of Batting.”

When the Pacific War broke out, Yanase was eventually dispatched to the battlefield in 1943. In his memoir I Absolutely Hate War (published by Shogakukan Creative), he recalls how, en route by ship from Shanghai, he was told, “Tomorrow we land in enemy territory.” Convinced he would die the next day, he prepared for the worst—only to find that their destination, Fuzhou, China, was completely devoid of enemy troops.

At the time, the Japanese military believed the U.S. forces would use Taiwan as a base to attack mainland Japan, so they sent troops to Fuzhou, directly across from Taiwan. But the U.S. instead chose Okinawa as their stronghold, rendering the deployment pointless.

With no enemy in sight, Yanase and his unit spent their time digging trenches and setting up artillery positions. Due to a shortage of actual guns, they even constructed fake anti-aircraft weapons out of wood. Yanase later reflected:

“It was just like the tactics used by Masashige Kusunoki during the Northern and Southern Courts period. There’s no way something like that would work in the modern era.”

Yanase’s original role was to decode enemy messages, but with no fighting going on, he had time to spare. He ended up helping the propaganda unit, which was tasked with reassuring the local population about the occupying army’s intentions. Yanase, being a talented artist, created picture-story shows (kamishibai) on large sheets of paper. One of his most popular works told the tale of twin brothers—an allegory for Japan and China.

The picture-story shows were a massive hit in the rural areas, where entertainment was scarce. Sometimes, the Chinese interpreters would make up humorous translations on the spot, drawing big laughs from the audience, even at mundane parts of the story. Yanase spent two years in Fuzhou this way.

But Japan’s military could no longer afford to leave idle troops stationed in places without conflict. Yanase’s battalion was ordered to march approximately 800 kilometers to Shanghai—a grueling journey equivalent to walking from Tokyo to Hiroshima, carrying 40 kilograms of gear and covering 40 kilometers per day.

Along the way, they were attacked by Chinese forces. Some of Yanase’s fellow soldiers died from bullets or mortar fire. Others were captured and brutally killed after straying from the group. Yanase himself caught malaria upon arriving in Shanghai; had he fallen ill during the march, he might not have survived.

Once stationed in Shanghai, hunger became their next enemy. Ordered to conserve food in preparation for a final battle, the soldiers survived on thin rice gruel served only in the morning and evening, supplementing their diet with wild plants like dandelions. Yanase would later say:

“What struck me most deeply at the time was just how painful and humiliating it is to have nothing to eat. There are many kinds of suffering, but none are worse than hunger. The reason Anpanman lets others eat his own face is because of what I experienced back then.”

While Yanase’s unit idled away in Shanghai, suffering from hunger, bombs rained down on the Japanese mainland, and atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Eventually, Japan surrendered.

Thus ended Yanase’s military life. Though he was spared from intense combat and repeatedly escaped death, he still endured beatings severe enough to disfigure his face, countless injustices, and relentless hunger. Reflecting on it all, Yanase said:

“Once someone experiences war, they come to hate it. People who say ‘We should go to war’ or ‘I want a war’ only think that way because they’ve never known real war.”

“If nations keep saying, ‘I don’t like that country, let’s crush them,’ then wars will never end. We have to find a way to live together, even with those we don’t like.”

How should we take Yanase’s words to heart? Perhaps the answer lies in continuing to reflect on them as we watch Anpanman.