A program titled "Hokkaido Road: Me, Manga, and Hokkaido," in which a manga artist from Hokkaido explores the charm and potential of the "manga kingdom," will be broadcast on NHK General TV (Hokkaido block) at 7:30 p.m. on January 16th.
Waki Yamato, a Sapporo native and creator of the manga series "Haikara-san The Tale of Genji: Dreams at Dawn ," realized that Hokkaido is in fact a "manga kingdom" that has produced many manga artists, and he wanted to use manga to raise the level of Hokkaido's appeal and help pass on its culture. Together with Ryoko Yamagishi , a friend since high school who is known for works such as " Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi, " Yamato is working hard to make the "Hokkaido Manga Museum Concept" a reality.
They approached manga artists with ties to Hokkaido for cooperation, and received support from over 30 people, including Hiromu Arakawa of "Silver Spoon," Keisuke Itagaki of " Grappler Baki ," Satoru Noda of " Golden Kamuy,"Yoshikazu Yasuhiko of "Mobile Suit Gundam THE ORIGIN," and Kazumi Yamashita of "Land." As a step towards realizing this, an exhibition of original drawings by Ikuemi Aya, who lives in Sapporo, will be held this winter.
The program follows Yamato's daily life as he works tirelessly for his hometown of Hokkaido. Yasuhiko also appears, saying, "I'm always conscious of being from Hokkaido." Yamashita reveals that during the Cold War, "I believed the Soviet Union was right across the sea, and I was very scared," which led to "Land," which depicts a girl breaking out of a closed world ruled by fear. Kubota Sayu, who is from Hokkaido, will be providing the narration. The program will be available to stream on the internet service NHK ONE.
The NHK Yukinko Festa will be held at the NHK Sapporo Broadcasting Station (Chuo-ku, Sapporo) from February 4th to 11th in conjunction with the Sapporo Snow Festival. As part of the program's related events, profile panels and comics of manga artists with ties to Hokkaido will be on display, as well as handwritten messages from Yamato, Yasuhiko, and others.
