＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
(Reference) Original article in Japanese
・サトウサンペイの「フジ三太郎」はサラリーマンの哀歓を描いた懐かしい漫画
<August 6, 2021 Update> Passing Away of Sanpei Sato
Sanpei Sato passed away on July 31st due to aspiration pneumonia. He was 91 years old. May he rest in peace.
1. Fuji Santaro
When I was a working salaryman, I looked forward to reading the salaryman manga “Fuji Santaro,” which was serialized in the Asahi Shimbun, a newspaper I subscribed to at home, every day.
This four-panel manga ran for a long period of 26 years and 6 months, from April 1, 1965, to September 30, 1991.
This manga centers around Fuji Santaro, a perpetually low-ranking employee, and uses events that occur at work and home as its main themes, offering “humorous,” “relatable,” and “slightly suggestive” content. Through Fuji Santaro, the author’s social commentary shines through, depicting the joys and sorrows of the salaryman world, current events, and satire of scandals and incidents. Its content, distinct from the “left-leaning tone of the Asahi Shimbun,” is likely another reason for its appeal to many readers.
It was adapted into a television drama in 1968 and 1982. An English version of the manga has also been published.
Incidentally, according to the author himself, the name “Fuji Santaro” is a combination of “Mount Fuji,” Japan’s most sacred mountain, and “Santaro’s Diary,” a famous work by Jiro Abe.
2. Sato Sanpei
The manga “Fuji Santaro” was written by “Sato Sanpei” (real name: Sato Koichi) (1929-2021). During the war, he was conscripted as a student worker and served in an army arsenal, where he worked as a lathe operator, producing ammunition for anti-aircraft guns.
After graduating from the dyeing department of Kyoto Technical College (now Kyoto Institute of Technology), he joined the department store “Daimaru” in 1950 and worked in the advertising department. Initially, he was a part-time employee who contributed cartoons to the company newsletter and local newspapers, but in 1957 he left Daimaru to become a full-time cartoonist.
Besides cartoons like “Fuji Santaro” and “Yuhi-kun,” he also wrote essays with cartoon illustrations. I thoroughly enjoyed reading his essays such as “From the ‘Pa’ in ‘PC’,” “Life is Always a First Experience – PCs, Driver’s Licenses, Walking…”, and “Last-Minute Prayers,” and found them very insightful.
3. The Anguish of Being Chased by Serializations and Deadlines
I remember him saying in an interview after finishing his “Fuji Santaro” serialization, “It was tough writing every day. Now that the serialization is over, I feel a great weight lifted off my shoulders and I’m relieved.”
I, for one, thought he had an inexhaustible talent, effortlessly coming up with interesting ideas one after another, but it seems Sato Sanpei wasn’t a child of God after all, but a human being after all.
Popular authors with multiple serializations often find themselves holed up in hotels, chased by deadlines. I recall someone publishing a lengthy piece in a magazine column about the “anguish of being chased by deadlines.” At first, I felt it was a condescending “filler manuscript” or “poor writing,” but it was a piece that clearly showed that even popular authors experience such struggles.
I currently write my own blog, aiming for “one article per day,” but I often feel “out of ideas.” Since I write it as a hobby, it shouldn’t involve serializations or deadlines, but it’s a similar struggle. However, I don’t think I can produce anything interesting by writing “one article every day” out of a sense of obligation, so when that happens, I’ll just take a break.
As an aside, I recall Natsume Soseki writing something to the effect that “after finishing a long novel, I’m overcome with a feeling of exhaustion, as if I have nothing to write about. But strangely, after a night’s sleep, ideas for writing come to me again.”