When Were Characters Born?

Based on the examples of the mass-market newspapers of Europe and America, Japanese newspapers started running serialized four-frame manga, in which the same characters appeared every day. Characters from popular works of the time—including "Shō-chan", the protagonist of "Shōchan no Bōken" [The Adventures of Shō-chan]  (Written by Shosei Oda, drawn by Tofujin), and "Tōsan" (Dad), the protagonist of "Nonkina Tōsan" [Easygoing Dad] (Yutaka Asō)—were used (without permission) in various forms of advertising, and publishing companies published stories that featured the characters and had nothing to do with the newspapers that originally published them.

The day before the serialization of the story was resumed by "Tokyo Asahi Shimbun", an announcement concerning this was published in the paper. The announcement stated that Shō-chan, whose adventures were previously in the "Asahi Graph", was “going on a surprising adventure due to the recent major earthquake,” and the character’s adventures were serialized in the newspaper starting the next day. The setting of Shō-chan’s adventures was no longer a fantasy world separate from the real world in which readers lived. Instead, Shō-chan had apparently experienced the Great Kanto Earthquake much like the readers.

"Shōchan no Bōken" did not simply end with each set of four daily frames. Instead, the story of each adventure would continue for several or even dozens of parts, and then a new adventure episode would begin. Combined with the setting implying that Shō-chan was living somewhere in the real world, this helped give readers a sense of expectation regarding each of the character’s subsequent adventures and caused them to imagine what they might be like. Other obscure writers also published “Shō-chan” stories through various publishing companies in response to readers’ expectations.

The rights business related to the use of manga and anime characters outside of their original works was first developed in the USA and then developed in Japan after the war.

At the time, using only a character for a different story—as opposed to reprinting artwork or text—was not considered copyright infringement. There was not yet any concept of trademark registration for characters. Therefore, the use of Shō-chan for various types of advertising and commercial derivative works did not result in any direct profit for the original author. 

The sophisticated character design of Shō-chan—who went on various adventures with his trusty squirrel—as well as how the character is drawn likely reminds many people of Belgium’s "The Adventures of Tintin" (Hergé). However, the serialization of Shō-chan actually started before The Adventures of Tintin (which was serialized starting in 1929). It could be said that characters that had an independent presence outside of their original stories appeared all at once around the world during the early 20th century.