Manga Statues – Hajime Ningen Gon
Japan takes it’s cartoon culture seriously! Most of the famous manga and anime characters can be found as bronze statues around Japan, mostly at the home town of the creator or where the manga takes place. Some of the most famous manga statues would be the Gundam statue in Odaiba or the Kochikame statue in Kameari, or the Godzilla statue in Tokyo’s Hibiya district. These two statues are of the 1965 comic Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu, but everybody just knows it after the name of the main character, seven year old caveman boy Gon (hajime ningen means “first man”). This one is in front of the Matsue JR Station in Shimane prefecture, the hometown of Shunji Sonoyama (1935-1992). Caveman Gon was on Japanese TVs regularly from 1974 and I think most Japanese over the age of 40 knows some of the catch phrases of this character by heart!
I have taken exactly the same photos of these!! ^__^
Looks like we travel to the same places. Cool!
Haha… it’s hard to miss these if you arrive by train! (^-^)
This is so fun, an other spot on my road map in japan
Your road map much be pretty plotted out by now! Hurry on over!