Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 Manga

[Cortney Voegele]

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (東京マグニチュード8.0, Tōkyō Magunichūdo 8.0) is a Japanese animated television series produced by Fuji TV, Asmik Ace, Sony Music Entertainment Japan, Dentsu, Bones, and Kinema Citrus. It first aired on Fuji TV's noitamina timeslot on July 9, 2009, running for 11 episodes until September 17. The anime was directed by Masaki Tachibana, with Natsuko Takahashi handling series composition, Atsuko Nozaki designing the characters and Kō Ōtani composing the music. The series centers on two young siblings, Mirai and Yūki, and single mother Mari who the two meet in the aftermath of a major earthquake hitting the Japanese capital, placed in the near future (2012).[1][2]

It won the Excellence Prize in the Animation category at Japan's Media Arts Festival in 2009. It was announced that the series had been licensed for a release in North America by Maiden Japan in April 2013.[3]

After a massive earthquake in Tokyo 25 km under the sea at a magnitude of 8.0, two young siblings Mirai and Yūki, who were visiting a robot exhibition in Odaiba at the beginning of their summer vacation, struggle to reach their parents in their house in Setagaya, assisted by a female motorcycle courier named Mari, who is striving to reach her own daughter and mother in Sangenjaya. Together, the three of them brave the partly ruined city and try their best to make it home safely.

Overview from the Tokyo-M8.com website (machine translated and wording adjusted):

Odaiba has just entered the summer vacation. In her first year of junior high school, she came to see the robot exhibition with her younger brother Yuki.

The series was first announced at the 2009 Tokyo Anime Fair, denoting that it would replace Eden of the East in Fuji TV's noitamina well-rated anime timeblock and would be co-produced by Bones and Kinema Citrus.[1][2] The series' setting is based upon the prediction that there is 70% or higher chance of an earthquake measuring 7.0 magnitude on the Richter scale hitting Tokyo in the next 30 years, with the series illustrating the consequences of a magnitude 8.0 earthquake affecting the city.[1][2] Bones stated that it would try to realistically depict the after-effects of such a situation and that it would collect and tabulate research on previous earthquakes and interview individuals who were affected by them.[1][2]

The series features the efforts of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, Japan Coast Guard, Tokyo Fire Department and Tokyo Disaster Medical Assistance Team in assisting recovery efforts after the initial earthquake and its recurring aftershocks. FNN newscaster Christel Takigawa also features as a guest, reporting on the earthquake and assuming the role of a "navigator" during the series.[5]

Due to the detail and realism put into the series, an announcement is displayed when an episode on a disc is first played. If two or more episodes are watched without pressing stop or powering down the player, the message is not displayed any further, but will return upon the next viewing of the disc.

The Tokyo-M8.com website has a page of credits that is separate from what appears at the end of the episodes. Among what is credited, the manga series 51 Ways to Save Her by Usamaru Furuya is listed as a reference for Tokyo Magnitude 8.0[6] and the manga was retitled for the French release as "Tokyo Magnitude 8". However, other than the general concept of depicting people surviving a magnitude 8.0 earthquake in Tokyo, the two series are dissimilar. Given the first volume of the French edition was released in February 2009, retitling it to a nearly identical name may have been an attempt to benefit by creating an incorrect association with the upcoming anime. (See the Merchandise page for more information.)

Il existe au Japon une familiarit culturelle avec les catastrophes. Un feuilleton manga succs, Tokyo magnitude 8, a ainsi dcrit ce qui vient de se passer, jusqu'aux efforts des secours. Sur la question du nuclaire, c'est un peu diffrent.

Il n'est ni tabou ni anathme et l'ide qui domine est que la vie repart. Par exemple, un hros de tous les enfants japonais n'est autre que le gentil robot Astroboy, m par l'nergie atomique. Cr en bande dessine au dbut des annes 1950, son nom japonais est "L'Atome puissant".

La dfaite de 1945 et la destruction des grandes villes ont donn naissance un genre de manga spcifique : le "post-apocalyptique". On y trouve un Japon dtruit, des jeunes survivants souds par l'amiti, luttant pour reconstruire le monde.

Mais le pril nuclaire est peu voqu. Une seule srie voque les bombardements de 1945 : Gen d'Hiroshima, l'histoire d'un jeune homme qui vit la reconstruction. Avec les nouvelles gnrations, le sens change.

Akira, dans les annes 1980, montre cette volution. Un cataclysme engendr par l'homme, la suite d'un mauvais usage de la science par l'arme japonaise, a dtruit Tokyo. Mais, ici, les hros ne luttent plus pour reconstruire. Ils se contentent de survivre en menant des buts personnels.

Les crations rcentes sont plus pessimistes encore, comme Dragon Head, dont les images ressemblent fort celles que l'on a vues dans le nord du pays aprs le tsunami : raffineries en flammes, paysages dvasts

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