Manga nooks take Tokyo readers on a trip into the past

The word “oshiire” refers to the built-in storage closets of Japanese-style rooms in which futon and other items are kept. In the past, most houses had oshiire, and many Japanese once played in them as children, making believe they were secret forts. But nowadays, many Western-style houses do not have oshiire, and where they do exist, it is difficult to play in them because they are full of stored items.

With this in mind, the Tachikawa Manga Park in Tachikawa, Tokyo, installed oshiire-style reading nooks when it opened in March 2013. At the private manga library, which charges admission fees, the nooks are so popular that there are long waits for them on weekends and some visitors finally give up.

The library occupies a space of about 700 square metres on the second floor of the former Tachikawa city government office building and currently has about 38,000 to 39,000 manga in its collection. Admission is free for preschool-aged children, ¥200 yen (Bt60) for primary and middle school students and ¥400 for those aged 15 or older. Though the manga cannot be checked out, more than 400 people – men and women, from the young to the elderly – flock to the library on weekends and holidays.

Users can choose whatever manga they like from open stacks and read them until closing time anywhere they choose in the library, which offers floors with tatami mats.

The oshiire-style reading nooks, which an official of the library says were made based on images of traditional houses in the Showa era (1926-1989), are especially popular. There were eight such nooks when the library opened, and the number grew nearly five-fold to the current 39 within six months.

The increase was prompted by surveys in which many respondents commented that the reading nooks were especially cozy.

A 22-year-old company employee from Hino, Tokyo, said: “I often crawled into the oshiire in my old house and read comics inside. So I have very fond memories. I don’t know why, but I feel very comfortable in them. In my current place, there’s no oshiire, so I can’t do it there.”

Tachikawa and other areas along the JR Chuo Line have long been closely tied to subcultures surrounding manga, anime and figurines, among others. Such areas have often been depicted in manga and on related merchandise. The Tachikawa city government has been conducting activities to revitalise local communities and economies with comics and anime as selling points. The library was created after the city government sought proposals from the private sector on how to utilise the vacant space of the former office building.