The secret story of Yokoyama Mitsuteru's visit to Sichuan to collect materials for the creation of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is revealed

One of the representative works of the famous Japanese cartoonist Mitsuteru Yokoyama is none other than "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". This work, adapted from my country's four great classics, is even hailed as an extra-curricular textbook on the history of the Three Kingdoms in Japan. Recently, a senior editor at the time recalled the anecdotes and secrets of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's personal trip to Sichuan, China to collect materials. Let's learn about it together.

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms written by Mitsuteru Yokoyama was serialized from 1971 to 1987, a period of 15 years. In the early stages of creation, due to the fact that Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations had not yet been smoothed, Mitsuteru Yokoyama said that there were very few reference materials at the time and he was in a difficult situation for a time.

In 1985, 13 years after the restoration of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, Yokoyama, then 51, finally embarked on his long-awaited first trip to China, with Chengdu, Sichuan Province, the capital of Shu Kingdom, as his first stop.

After arriving in Chengdu, I checked into the Jinjiang Hotel. I was busy filming at the Wuhou Temple and looking through books about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in many bookstores in the city.

Afterwards, we went to Guangyuan City and visited the long-admired Luofengpo site. We also traced the Jiange Pavilion, the plank road ruins and other parts of Kong Ming's northern expedition route.

Yokoyama likes Sichuan cuisine very much, especially Mapo Tofu, which he praises highly, saying it is the spiciest food he has ever encountered in his life.

The final volume of the comic book "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" tells the story of Jiang Wei. Putting himself in the shoes of the man, Yokoyama Mitsuteru lamented that the geographical environment described in his comic book was really not worth mentioning compared with the magnificent and strange real scene he saw on the spot. It is really difficult to fully describe the Chinese regional culture of thousands of years brought by the rolling Yellow River in comics.