Tachikawa History: Japan’s Firsts, from Electric Cars to Sazae-san

Tachikawa’s “firsts”, traced through city records and a judgment: an electric car built by aircraft men, Japan’s first woman assembly chair, and Sazae-san.

日本語で読む（Japanese version）

I run my finger down the chronology of Tachikawa (立川), a city in the Tama area of western Tokyo, starting from the Showa era. (Showa is the Japanese imperial era from 1926 to 1989; local records count years by era.)

Most of it is school openings and community halls opening their doors, and I nearly yawn. But now and then my finger stops. “Japan’s first scheduled air service begins.” “The nation’s first woman chair of a city assembly is elected.” “Tachikawa Traffic Consultation Office, the first in Tokyo’s suburbs, opens.” The more important the event, the more the city chronology dispatches it in a single line, in the same type size as the “City Elementary School No. So-and-so opens” above and below it, mentioned in passing.

For all these “firsts”, I have rarely heard anyone in Tachikawa say “we were Japan’s first”. How many firsts does Tachikawa really have? And are those firsts really first? I decided to pick them up one by one, the firsts that even the locals have neglected to brag about, and to doubt them while I was at it. I doubt them because I like them.

Tachikawa’s “Japan firsts” begin in the sky — and so does the first caveat

The story of Tachikawa’s firsts can’t help starting in the sky. I have touched on it in other articles in this series, so I’ll keep it short here.

According to the city chronology, in Showa 2 (1927) a Soviet goodwill aircraft flew into Tachikawa Airfield. It was the first foreign aircraft to come to Tachikawa; more followed, and Tachikawa Airfield became an “international airport”. In Showa 4 (1929), Japan Air Transport began “Japan’s first scheduled air service” between Tachikawa and Osaka. According to the encyclopaedia entry on Japan Air Transport, the fare on this Tokyo–Osaka route was 35 yen, the average flying time about three hours, and the company’s Tokyo base was Tachikawa until it moved to Haneda in Showa 6 (1931).

Here I want to add a caveat straight away. The same encyclopaedia says that in Sakai, near Osaka, there was a private airline founded in Taisho 11 (1922), the Japan Air Transport Research Institute, which flew scheduled mail, cargo and passenger routes with seaplanes. So Tachikawa’s “Japan’s first” is more accurately read as the first scheduled Tokyo–Osaka service from a land airfield by a nationwide company created with government backing. A “first” sometimes changes shape depending on how far you count. In this article, I intend to add caveats like that, without hiding them.

The era of firsts in the sky also had its curiosities on the ground. The city chronology’s entry for Taisho 13 (1924) says that to celebrate Tachikawa becoming a town, a motor race was held at Tachikawa Airfield. Cars raced around the wide, flat ground made for aeroplanes. Tachikawa’s flatness has always been put to every possible use.

The “world’s first mass-produced electric car”, the Tama, was built by Tachikawa’s aircraft men

After the sky, something that runs on the ground. And a surprisingly big “first”.

That the engineers of Tachikawa Aircraft, no longer allowed to build aeroplanes after Japan’s defeat, turned to cars, I wrote in this series’ article on Tachihi. What I want to add here is that the first thing they built was an electric car, and that this car is called “the world’s first mass-produced electric car”. The encyclopaedia entry on Tama Electric Motor introduces it that way, citing an article in the Journal of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers titled “The world’s first mass-produced electric car, ‘Tama'”.

A writer well versed in automotive history sets out the story in detail in an online series published by Miki Press. At the time of defeat, petrol was rationed and hard to get. So Tachikawa Aircraft chose a car that ran on electricity. It asked Hitachi and Shinko Electric for the motors and Yuasa Battery for the batteries, and in November Showa 21 (1946) completed two experimental vehicles based on a truck from an affiliated company. But straight after that, the factory was requisitioned by the US military.

At this point, about 200 people centred on Tamotsu Toyama (外山保), formerly head of Tachikawa Aircraft’s prototype workshop, decided to go independent. They rented an empty factory in Fuchu Town and completed a truck in April Showa 22 (1947) and a passenger car in May. The vehicle was named “Tama” after the name of the area. In June they founded Tokyo Electric Motor, the company that would later become Prince Motor Company. According to the series, cars were so scarce at the time that a vehicle listed at about 350,000 yen sold at a premium, for 450,000 yen.

The performance was real, too. In March Showa 23 (1948), the Ministry of Commerce and Industry held performance trials for electric vehicles at Takatsuki near Osaka, and the Tama, in both car and truck form, took the top results, far ahead of the rest. According to the records the series cites, the passenger car on that occasion ran 96.3 km on one charge, with a top speed of 35.2 km/h. That’s moped pace by today’s standards, but on the roads of post-war Japan it was quite new enough. In September of the same year, at a second trial in Odawara, the new “Tama Senior” set a new record of 231.5 km on one charge.

The best part is the electricity bill. A catalogue from around Showa 24 (1949) said that the electricity needed to travel one kilometre cost 50 sen (half a yen). By the series’ calculation, petrol cars of the time cost about 1 yen 80 sen per kilometre, so the electric car cost less than a third as much to run.

And yet the Tama disappeared. When the Korean War broke out in Showa 25 (1950), the price of lead, used in the batteries, soared, while the US military released large quantities of petrol. According to the series, a total of 1,099 Tama electric vehicles were built, and production ended in June Showa 26 (1951). The company switched to petrol cars, and went on to another history as Prince Motor Company, and eventually as part of Nissan.

Then, the electric car made by Tachikawa’s aircraft men lost out to the rising price of lead. Now, electric cars glide quietly through cities all over the world. The series closes by noting that the same Nissan released a new generation of electric car in 2010. The car that was sixty years too early was built by Tachikawa’s aircraft engineers. A Tama passenger car was even displayed at the Japan Mobility Show in Reiwa 7 (2025), and photographed there. An electric car from almost eighty years ago took its place at a trade fair for the cars of the future.

A caveat here too. The factory was in Fuchu, and the name “Tama” comes from the regional place name, Tama. It was not a car bearing the name of Tachikawa. But the people and the technology that built it came, without question, from Tachikawa’s aircraft factory.

Japan’s first woman chair of a city assembly: Tachikawa City Assembly, Showa 36

Back to the city chronology. The entry for Showa 36 (1961) says: “The nation’s first woman chair of a city assembly is elected.”

I mentioned this in one line in this series’ history article, but the chronology does not say who was elected. So I opened the city assembly’s list of past chairs. Only one chair newly took office in Showa 36: the 14th, Ryo Ogawa (小川良; the reading of the name is my best guess and unconfirmed). Took office on 25 November Showa 36; left office on 9 June of the following year. Lay the chronology’s “nation’s first” over the dates on the assembly list, and you can read this person as Japan’s first woman chair of a city assembly.

The term lasted little more than half a year. Even so, it means that before any other city assembly in the country, a woman sat in the chair in Tachikawa. In Showa 36, Tachikawa had a US military base north of its station, and merger talks with neighbouring Sunagawa Town were under way. Leaf through the chronology and the same year saw sewerage work begin and the Tokyo Fire Department’s 8th Area Headquarters placed in Takamatsucho. In a year when the sound of construction rang all over town, something new was also happening in the assembly chamber.

Then, City Hall was the building just completed in Nishikicho in Showa 33 (1958). Now, City Hall has moved to Izumicho; of the buildings left behind in Nishikicho, the ageing No. 1 building was demolished, and the No. 2 building, built in Showa 45 (1970), was renovated to become the Tachikawa Children’s Future Center and Tachikawa Manga Park. On the site of the office where Japan’s first woman assembly chair took her seat, children now read manga on tatami-matted floors.

I have not yet been able to confirm the reading of her name or her career. One line in the chronology, one line in the assembly list. Between those two lines there must be a story someone ought to write down. Of all the firsts Tachikawa has failed to boast about, this is probably at the top of the list.

The first traffic consultation office in Tokyo’s suburbs, and the roads of Showa-era Tachikawa

The Showa-era pages of Tachikawa’s chronology are packed with traffic.

In Showa 37 (1962), Tachikawa City and the four towns of Kunitachi, Sunagawa, Murayama and Yamato declared themselves “Traffic Safety Cities”, designating the 20th of every month as Traffic Safety Day. The same year, an underpass was built at the level crossing east of Tachikawa Station, and the Fujimi Bridge, an overpass crossing the Chuo Line, was completed. In Showa 39 (1964), an unmanned tank wagon ran away inside Tachikawa Station’s yard and caused a fire. And in Showa 40 (1965), the chronology records: “Tachikawa Traffic Consultation Office, the first in Tokyo’s suburbs, opens.” (Tokyo’s “suburbs” here translates toka, the old term for the Tokyo area outside the 23 central wards.)

The captions of the photographs attached to the chronology tell of the era too. “A line of cars leaving the city hall of the time (Showa 33) onto Tachikawa-dori Avenue.” There was a time when a line of cars was a sight worth photographing and keeping.

Then, Tachikawa was a town of level crossings, overpasses and lines of cars. Now, the north and south sides of the station are linked by pedestrian decks, with the monorail running overhead. According to the city chronology, the pedestrian-only deck between the station’s South and North Exits opened in Heisei 17 (2005). In forty-odd years, a town that photographed lines of cars became a town where people walk above the cars. The town that opened the first traffic advice office in Tokyo’s suburbs, having struggled so much with traffic, is also a town that has thought hard about how to use its streets.

Electric light, telephones, cinemas: Tachikawa’s everyday “firsts”

Not every first is a “Japan first”. The city chronology also dutifully notes the days when life in this town first got hold of something.

In Taisho 4 (1915), electricity began to be supplied to Tachikawa Village. In Taisho 10 (1921), the telephone arrived. In Taisho 14 (1925), Tachikawa’s first cinema, the “Tachikawa Kinema”, opened, and in the same year Tachikawa Girls’ School opened. In Showa 23 (1948), gas began to be supplied to homes, and in Showa 26 (1951) the public water-supply project began. The same Showa 26 entry lists, alongside the opening of the city velodrome, the start of full school lunches at elementary schools. The sewerage project began in Showa 36 (1961), the same year Japan’s first woman assembly chair was elected.

Line them up, and you can see that even when Tachikawa was called the “Capital of the Sky”, it was a village that had only just got the telephone. The airfield opened in Taisho 11 (1922); the telephone arrived the year before. The airfield came the year after the phones connected, and the name “international airport” arrived nearly a quarter of a century before the water-supply project began. The order is a little odd. That odd order is, I suppose, the story of how Tachikawa grew up.

The village eventually became a city. According to the city chronology, Tachikawa Town gained city status in Showa 15 (1940). The encyclopaedia says it was the third city in Tokyo Prefecture after Tokyo City and Hachioji City, and also the last municipality to become a city in the days of Tokyo Prefecture. Third, and last. A record like winning a bronze medal and sliding in just before closing time, both at once.

The city’s “No. 1s” are in the chronology too. In Showa 47 (1972), the Fujimi Children’s Hall opened, the city’s first children’s hall. In Showa 58 (1983), the Takinoue Hall opened as the first of the city’s shared learning facilities. Even the facilities every town has come with each town’s “first one”.

Tachikawa’s firsts in numbers

• 35 — yen: the fare in Showa 4 for the scheduled flight between Tachikawa and Osaka. A trip of about three hours by air.
• 50 — sen: what the Tama spent on electricity per kilometre. Less than a third of a petrol car. A way of saving money sixty years too early.
• 1,099 — Tama electric vehicles built. More than enough to claim a world first.
• 14 — the number in the line of Tachikawa City Assembly chairs held by Japan’s first woman city assembly chair: the 14th.
• 27 — sightseeing buses at Tachikawa Bus painted with Sazae-san’s face (Showa 39). It started with one. More on that on the next page.

Quiz for the wandering traveller

The electric car built by Tachikawa Aircraft’s engineers was called “Tama”. Where did the name come from? (A) the name of a developer’s daughter (B) the name of the area where the factory was (C) its rounded, egg-shaped body (tama can mean “ball” or “jewel”). Think about it as you walk on.

Having gathered up the firsts of sky and road, we head next to the courtroom. This is the story of a Tachikawa bus company sued by one of Japan’s best-loved cartoonists.