OSAKA–Each day during the six-month run of the Osaka Kansai Expo, Daisaku Yoshimura plans to put on a “kamishibai” picture story show for tourists.
But instead of a tale of a superhero or urban myth, Yoshimura, 45, calls for the abolition of nuclear arms as he tells a story with the illustrated picture boards.
“Nuclear weapons (should) never be used, ever again,” he said at one point on a recent day to a pair of tourists in the Dotonburi district.
Yoshimura chose the popular urban hub in Osaka’s Chuo Ward so he can address audiences of international tourists who throng the riverside area.
He plans to give the show daily through the end of the 184 days of the Osaka Kansai Expo.
On this day, Josh Stoop, 33, a visitor from New Zealand, said he found Yoshimura’s “power” compelling. He also said the pictures in the show evoke so much what Hiroshima was like at the time.
Yoshimura’s story centers around the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.
Yoshimura said in normal times, he does “social service” work on the sidelines of his job as the publisher of a community newspaper in Osaka’s Tsurumi Ward.
He has been providing assistance to evacuees from war-torn Ukraine and to Wajima-nuri traditional lacquerware studios that suffered from the Noto Peninsula earthquake of January 2024.
In 2022, Yoshimura visited Hiroshima along with a Ukrainian evacuee and listened to the accounts of people including Keiko Ogura, an 87-year-old hibakusha.
That was a major turning point that led Yoshimura to take an interest in the atomic bombing.
“This should be passed on, as a lesson for humankind, for posterity across the world,” Yoshimura said he thought as he watched Ogura share accounts of the terrible scene she lived through at the time.
And he chose this format of a picture story show, the Japanese form of the traditional performance art that is likely to appear novel to tourists from abroad, to carry on the accounts.
Yoshimura wrote the text for the show, and a female Ukrainian evacuee painted the pictures for the boards. The protagonist, modeled after Ogura, was named Kei.
The story describes the atomic bombed Hiroshima as seen through the eyes of the 8-year-old Kei.
The city revives and Kei becomes an old woman, but the wounds in her heart remain unhealed.
The story also touches briefly on the damage caused by the “black rain,” which fell containing radioactive fallout after the nuclear blast.
Yoshimura said that some of his acquaintances in Osaka, whose views he sought, opposed his plan for presenting the picture story show.
“Tourists who come to Osaka won’t be interested in listening to accounts of the war,” he quoted one naysayer as saying. “You should do that instead in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.”
Yoshimura believes that there is still significance in telling the accounts precisely in Osaka, which is being visited by sightseers who may not be interested in the issue of nuclear arms.
With the expo in session, in particular, now is the golden opportunity for presenting the picture story show to visitors from around the world, he said.
Since the expo opened on April 13, Yoshimura had been calling out in English, every afternoon, to passers-by at the Dotonbori riverside.
Most tourists just passed him by, saying that they were too busy, but he remained undaunted. The number of those who stopped at his call had gradually increased, with some even shedding tears as he presented his kamishibai.
“I want people around the world to reflect on what would happen if a nuclear weapon were to be used,” Yoshimura said. “All nuclear weapons will disappear one day if more people get to exercise their imagination.”
Since May 26, Yoshimura has presented his show in the Ebisu-higashi district in Naniwa Ward. He plans to offer his daily performance on a street there at 3 p.m. everyday through Oct. 13.
AloJapan.com