更新日：2010年7月5日

hayashi fubo

Hayashi Fubo, Maki Itsuma and Tani Joji are all pen names for the novelist and translator whose real name was Hasegawa Umitaro. Born in Niigata Prefecture in 1900, he left Hakodate Junior High School in 1917 and moved to Tokyo. The next year he went alone to the United States, where he engaged in various occupations such as cook and campus worker to support his studies at university.

After his return to Japan in 1924, he joined a group devoted to detective literature, led by Matsumoto Yasushi. There he became acquainted with Morishita Uson, who was the chief editor of the magazine, Shin-seinen (New Youth). On Morishita’s recommendation, he began writing a series called "Meriken Jappu" (American Jap) for Shin-seinen. Using three pen names, he was able to act as three different writers, each with a unique personality. He caused a sensation by his sheer brilliance as a versatile writer of fiction, non-fiction, translations and adaptations. As novelist Hayashi Fubo, he created "Tange Sazen," a one-eyed, one-armed super swordsman. And as Maki Itsuma, he pioneered the field of true life mysteries with works like "Yokuso no hanayome" (The bride in a bathtub). In his "Meriken Jappu" series, which he wrote under the Tani Joji pseudonym, he displayed a keen understanding of cosmopolitan life, based on his experience in the United States. He introduced a fresh wind into Japanese modernism literature. This superhuman writer died, however, in 1935 at the age of 35.

Hayashi lived in Kamakura from 1926, first at Zaimokuza and then Sasame. By the time of his death, he had moved to Yukinoshita where his house was still under construction. His grave is in Myohonji temple at Omachi.