West. “I don’t want to do what’s already been done in other musicals or stage shows. Other people’s ideas belong to them and I don’t want to mix them up with my ideas.” He did indeed come up with genius ideas. His unshakable belief was ref lected in his shows. Johnny Kitagawa returned from the States during the war and lived in Osaka but when the air raids intensified, he evacuated to Wakayama Prefecture. He saw burnt ruins and many corpses. Drawing on his experiences, he depicted war scenes in The Boys and Johnnys’ Island, and had the boys play the parts of kamikaze pilots. He belonged to a generation with actual experience of war and while he presented spectacular shows, his focus was always on
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conveying the tragedies of war and the preciousness of peace. In September, a memorial event was held at the Tokyo Dome to mourn his death. 3,500 people who had worked with him and 88,000 fans paid floral tribute. The leaflet handed out to those who attended carried this message from Johnny. “Although there are sadnesses in the world, our shows shall always end happily because I want the world to have a happy ending.” He wished for a peaceful world from the bottom of his heart. Johnny Kitagawa always stayed in the background but in 2003, he received the Special Award of Kikuta Kazuo Theatre Awards for “his great passion and outstanding achievements in the world of Theatre in Japan
Theatre Yearbook 2020
