Are Saitama Residents Barred from Tokyo? The Outrageous Jokes of Fly Me to the Saitama and the Harsh Finances of Manga Artists

The film Fly Me to the Saitama was released several years ago, and its sequel is about to arrive.

Saitama Prefecture sits next to Tokyo. In American terms, it might be compared to New Jersey beside New York.

It is an ordinary commuter region where many residents travel to Tokyo for work.

In this film, however, the people of Saitama face relentless discrimination.

“Let the people of Saitama eat the grass growing by the roadside!”

Lines this extreme are delivered without hesitation.

Saitama residents even need a travel permit to enter Tokyo. Anyone entering without one is treated like an illegal immigrant and subjected to a crackdown.

This is known as the “Saitama Hunt.”

To put it in American terms, imagine that New Jersey residents needed permits to enter Manhattan and were arrested as illegal immigrants if they did not have them.

Presented seriously, this would be an appallingly discriminatory film.

Replace Saitama residents with a race or ethnic group, and it could easily become an international incident.

Yet audiences roar with laughter.

Everyone understands the relationship between Tokyo and Saitama and knows from the beginning that the premise is an absurd joke.

When discrimination is exaggerated this thoroughly, it turns into comedy.

Even the governor of Saitama, who represents the people supposedly being discriminated against, somehow declared the film officially endorsed by the prefecture. How far can self-deprecation go?

A Blockbuster Manga Artist Living in Extreme Poverty?

The original creator of Fly Me to the Saitama is the manga artist Mineo Maya.

His best-known work, Patalliro!, ran for many years, became a major hit, and was adapted into an anime series.

Yet even after achieving success, this famous manga artist reportedly went through a period when he struggled to make ends meet and lived by selling his household belongings.

What is surprising is that his series had not been canceled and he was not out of work. He continued drawing manga and receiving page fees, yet he still could not make ends meet.

How could someone with such a successful work, who had continued drawing manga for so many years, struggle financially?

Perhaps he built a mansion. Perhaps taxes caused difficulties. There were probably various circumstances.

But hearing this story reminded me of how manga artists earn their income.

Can Manga Artists Survive on Serialization Alone?

Manga artists receive manuscript fees for pages published in magazines.

Those fees, however, do not become pure income.

Production involves many expenses, including assistant salaries, studio costs, equipment, and reference materials.

For some manga artists, expenses consume most of their manuscript fees.

So where do they make money?

From royalties on collected volumes.

Magazine serialization provides a place to publish the work, but substantial income arrives only when the collected volumes sell.

In other words, having an ongoing series does not necessarily mean making a profit.

Manga is a popularity-driven business. Even a major hit will eventually stop selling. If an artist bases their lifestyle on past royalty income, declining sales can create serious difficulties.

A salaried employee still receives a salary during a month when there is less work.

For a manga artist, however, what matters is not how well the work sold in the past, but how well it is selling now.

The manga industry may look glamorous, but in reality it is a very harsh world.

No One Knows What Will Become a Hit

What makes the story even more interesting is that Fly Me to the Saitama was originally drawn in the 1980s.

Decades later, the old manga was rediscovered, adapted into a live-action film, and became a major hit.

And its premise—thoroughly mocking the people of Saitama—is the kind of idea that someone would normally be expected to stop in a planning meeting.

No matter how seriously a manga artist works on a story, there is no guarantee it will sell. Meanwhile, an absurd gag manga drawn long ago can be adapted into a film decades later and become a blockbuster.

It truly is a world in which no one knows what will sell.

The people of Saitama were treated terribly in the story, but in the end, Saitama became the author’s savior.