Sazae-san


Sazae-san is a Japanese yonkoma manga series written and illustrated by Machiko Hasegawa. It was first published in Hasegawa's local paper, the Fukunichi Shinbun, on April 22, 1946. When the Asahi Shimbun wished to have Hasegawa draw the four-panel comic for their paper, she moved to Tokyo in 1949 with the explanation that the main characters had moved from Kyūshū to Tokyo as well. The manga dealt with contemporary situations in Tokyo until Hasegawa retired and ended the series on February 21, 1974.
Sazae-san won the 8th Bungeishunjū Manga Award in 1962. An anime television adaptation by TCJ began airing in Japan in October 1969 and holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running animated television series. It has also been adapted into a radio show, theatrical plays and songs.

Plots

In the beginning, Sazae was more interested in being with her horse than dressing up in kimono and makeup to attract her future husband. Hasegawa was forward-thinking in that, in her words, the Isono/Fuguta clan would embody the image of the modern Japanese family after World War II.
Sazae was a very "liberated" woman, and many of the early plotlines revolved around Sazae bossing around her husband, to the consternation of her neighbors, who believed that a man should be the head of his household. Later, Sazae became a feminist and was involved in many comical situations regarding her affiliation with her local women's lib group.
Despite the topical nature of the series, the core of the stories revolved around the large family dynamic, and were presented in a lighthearted, easy fashion. In fact, the final comic, in 1974, revolved around Sazae's happiness that an egg she cracked for her husband's breakfast produced a double yolk, with Katsuo remarking about the happiness the "little things" in life can bring.
As of now, the popular Sazae-san anime is frequently taken as nostalgia for traditional Japanese society, since it alludes to a simpler time before modern technology, despite the fact that it was leftist to the point of controversy when it originally ran in Japanese newspapers.

Characters

Isono and Fuguta family

A next-door neighbor of the Isono family.
The names of many of the characters are derived from marine animals and things relating to the sea, although they have the form of regular Japanese names. For example, Katsuo is a fairly common name that could be written 勝男, 勝夫, 勝雄 or 嘉葎雄); Sazae is not a common name, but ends with "-e", so it has one moderately common form of a feminine name.
The inspiration for the characters is said to have come to Hasegawa as she was strolling along the beach one day.
Although the comic ran for twenty-eight years, the characters never aged: Sazae was always 27 years old, her husband 28, her father and mother were always 54 and 48, and Sazae's siblings were around eleven and seven years of age, respectively.

Publishing of the manga

The comic strip was published in book form by Shimaisha, which Machiko ran with her sister, Mariko. In April 1993, this publishing company went out of business and the comic books went out of print. The same year, Asahi Shimbun purchased the right to publish the forty-five paperback volumes. Twelve bilingual manga volumes were published by Kodansha between 1997 and 1999 as The Wonderful World of Sazae-San. The volumes were re-released in 2004, and in 2015 another three bilingual manga volumes were released as The Best of Sazae-san.

Sazae-san on television

Anime series

In October 1969, Fuji Television started an anime comedy series, which is still on the air today and currently in production, making it one of the longest-running scripted TV series in history and the longest running animated show. It has been broadcast every Sunday from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. and contains three vignettes. The anime series has some characters, like Katsuo's classmates, who have not appeared in Hasegawa's original works.
The end credits for each episode include brief animations of the original comic strips, with dialogue appearing in word balloons. Since November 1991, after the closing credits and the next episode previews, each show has ended with a janken match between Sazae and the viewers at home, in which Sazae holds up a sign representing one of the appropriate hand gestures. From 1969 until October 1991, Sazae ended each episode by tossing a bean or rice cake in the air and catching it in her mouth. Fuji Television switched to the janken match after doctors at Tohoku University Hospital and the National Center for Child Health and Development raised concerns that children may try to imitate Sazae and potentially choke on food.
On November 16, 2008, the series' 2000th 30-minute broadcast was aired in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the anime series; this special episode also featured Sazae-san wearing five costumes based on submissions from viewers.
The anime series was originally sponsored solely by Toshiba—including placement of its products within the show—but later expanded to other sponsors.
Sazae-san was the last animated television series to use traditional cel animation, although as of April 2009, the opening credits were digital; the series finally switched to fully digital animation in 2015. Despite the series being a hit, Hasegawa stated that she never wanted any merchandise to be made for it, including home video rights, making availability of past episodes, especially those prior to the introduction of the VCR, very rare. Following her death, her request to prohibit older episodes from being released in home media was honored. Despite this however, Fuji TV made an agreement with Amazon Prime Video on December 2018 to release the 1969 and early-to-mid 1970s episodes available on their streaming service. The episodes from the mid 2000s happened to also be on the service.
On September 5, 2013, Sazae-san was awarded the Guinness World Record for the longest running animated television series in the world. As of November 2015, there have been 7332 episodes aired.
On January 27, 2014, while recording narration for a program in Hiroshima, Nagai suffered a bout of myocardial infarction and was found by a hotel employee. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead; Nagai was 82 years old at the time of his death. The Daily Sports newspaper reported that the role of Sazae's father Namihei in Sazae-san, which was previously voiced by Ichirō Nagai, will now be filled by the show's staff. The first Sazae-san episode after Nagai's passing was recorded on January 30, 2014. On February 10, 2014, Fuji Television announced that Chafurin was succeeded Ichirō Nagai as the voice of Sazae-san's father Namihei Isono.
On April 4, 2020, Midori Kato stated that voice recordings have been halted due to COVID-19 concerns.
On May 9, 2020, it was announced that the anime will be put on hiatus for the first time since 1975 because of COVID-19. On June 14, 2020, it was announced that the anime will resume on June 21, 2020.

Live-action series

In 1955, a radio station aired a serial drama based on the comic strip.
The same year, a short-lived live-action television series was started, and was aired on what is now TBS.
In November 1965, TBS started a dramatic television series modeled after the comic strip. It aired until September 1967.
In 1979, NHK made a dramatic serial which ran for six months, focusing on the creation of Sazae-san and Machiko Hasegawa in her younger days.
In 2010, Fuji Television debuted a live-action situation comedy series, Sazae-san 2, followed the following year with Sazae-san 3. The series is patterned after the anime series and uses the same elements, including the theme music and the closing janken match.

Other

In 2008, Glico showed the family in the "25 years later" commercials, as adults, for the firms "Otona Glico" chocolates. The characters were portrayed by Eita, Asano Tadanobu, Rie Miyazawa and Shun Oguri. In 2017, the characters Sazae and Masao were depicted in a Cup Noodles commercial drawn by Katsuya Kondō.