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

The day Sazae-san got off the bus: a court case over a cartoon character’s copyright

The sightseeing buses of Tachikawa Bus, which has its head office in Tachikawa, once carried the face of Sazae-san. Sazae-san, created by Machiko Hasegawa, is the comic strip of a cheerful Tokyo housewife and her family, one of the most famous characters in Japan; her younger brother Katsuo and younger sister Wakame are household names too.

According to the judgment published by the courts, Tachikawa Bus set up a sightseeing-bus division around April Showa 26 (1951) and called it “Sazae-san Kanko” (Sazae-san Tours). The facts the court accepted were these. The name “Sazae-san” for the sightseeing buses had been chosen by public competition at the time. In May the same year, the company began operating with one sightseeing bus with the faces of Sazae, Katsuo and Wakame painted on both sides, and by Showa 39 (1964) there were 27 such buses. However, it had not obtained the permission of the creator, Machiko Hasegawa.

Choosing a name by public competition is so very Showa. Neither the people who sent in entries nor the people who chose the winner could have imagined that, some twenty years later, the name would be repeated more than forty times in a court judgment. The thirteen years in which one bus grew to twenty-seven also overlap with the period when Tachikawa became known throughout Japan as a “base town”.

The creator came to know of it, apparently, in Showa 45 (1970), nineteen years after the service began. Nineteen years. All that time, the buses had been running proudly with Sazae-san’s face on them. Hasegawa asked for the use to stop, Tachikawa Bus did not comply, and in Showa 46 (1971) she sued in the Tokyo District Court. The sum claimed: 36.72 million yen.

Judgment was delivered on 26 May Showa 51 (1976). The operative part orders Tachikawa Bus to pay 18,244,099 yen plus interest. According to the judgment, the court rejected the plaintiff’s proposed standard of 30,000 yen per bus per month as unsupported by evidence, and instead accepted testimony that, in contracts licensing the use of characters, it was industry practice to set the fee at no less than 3 percent of the product’s sale price. It then treated the operating revenue of the sightseeing buses as “the sale price of the product” and set the damages at 3 percent of it. In other words, it treated the bus fares as the price of goods bearing the Sazae-san design. The judgment also found that the pictures on the buses expressed the characters’ features, posture, personality and so on, and so infringed copyright.

The encyclopaedia entry on Tachikawa Bus says the case attracted attention as the first lawsuit in Japan to contest the copyright of a cartoon character. A caveat here as well: that is the encyclopaedia’s assessment, and I have not leafed through every volume of case law to check it. Still, the date and the sums in the judgment prove that a Sazae-san bus that ran through the streets of Showa-era Tachikawa became the protagonist of a case that helped set the rules of Japan’s character business.

The story has a sequel. According to the encyclopaedia, Tachikawa Bus later ran buses wrapped with characters too, but, having learned its lesson, it now goes through the proper procedures and gets the copyright holder’s consent. If you see a bus with a character on it outside Tachikawa Station, it belongs to a company that paid a hefty tuition fee fifty years ago.

The keirin velodrome and the “station-mall” firsts

After the courtroom, let’s pick up some livelier firsts.

As for Tachikawa Keirin Velodrome (keirin is Japan’s track-cycling race with legal betting), I wrote in this series’ keirin article that the first year-end KEIRIN Grand Prix was held in Tachikawa. According to the encyclopaedia, Tachikawa Keirin was also the first in the country to sell forecast tickets by individual bike number (shaban rensho) in September Heisei 7 (1995), and three-bike tickets (trifecta, trio and “wide”) in November Heisei 13 (2001). It was also the first velodrome, in Showa 63 (1988), to install a giant video screen. So the trifecta, now taken for granted, began in keirin at Tachikawa. Which also makes it very clear whom to blame when you lose.

The same entry also mentions that on 2 November Showa 60 (1985), the Hanshin Tigers held their party celebrating victory in the Japan Series in a special venue on the third floor of Tachikawa Keirin. That’s not a “first”, but I can’t help writing it down. There was a night when a velodrome at the western end of Tokyo celebrated an Osaka baseball team becoming champions of Japan.

Tachikawa’s chronology also lists a good many sporting “first editions”. In Showa 61 (1986) the Tachikawa Marathon became a race certified by the Japan Association of Athletics Federations, and in Heisei 24 (2012) the first Tachikawa City Half Marathon was held. In Heisei 28 (2016) a regional tour of professional sumo came to Tachikawa for the first time in 37 years, and in Heisei 30 (2018) the women’s tennis tournament, the Toray Pan Pacific Open, was held in Tachikawa. The keirin town had, before anyone noticed, become a town that welcomed many sports’ “first time in Tachikawa”.

There are firsts inside the station, too. According to the encyclopaedia, among JR East’s “ecute” in-station shopping malls (ekinaka, “inside the station”, is a big thing in Japan), Tachikawa was the first to have shops outside the ticket gates as well, with the first phase opening in October Heisei 19 (2007). According to the encyclopaedia, citing JR East’s company history, the company that runs GRANDUO, the station building at the South Exit, was the first in Japan’s department-store industry to obtain ISO 9001, the international quality standard.

A first has gone up on the former base too. On 10 April Heisei 26 (2014), IKEA Tachikawa opened. Looking at the encyclopaedia’s list of stores, the earlier ones were in Yokohama, Funabashi, Kobe, Misato in Saitama, and Fukuoka; Tachikawa was the first in Tokyo. The land is state-owned land on the site of the Tachikawa base. In a town of US runways, the blue box of Scandinavian furniture went up. Someone from the Showa era would have no idea what you were talking about.

Here I also want to correct a common mistake. Some people remember that “IKEA and Costco both opened their first Japanese stores around Tachikawa.” I nearly thought so myself. But neither is true. According to the encyclopaedia’s account of IKEA’s Japanese company, today’s first IKEA in Japan is “IKEA Funabashi” in Chiba, opened on 24 April Heisei 18 (2006); and going further back, in Showa 47 (1972) department stores in Nagoya and Shibuya began selling IKEA furniture. Tachikawa was not a Japan first but the first large IKEA store in Tokyo. Costco’s first store in Japan was the Hisayama warehouse, opened in Hisayama, Fukuoka Prefecture, in Heisei 11 (1999). According to the encyclopaedia’s store list, the Tamasakai warehouse in Machida, not far from Tachikawa, opened in September Heisei 14 (2002) as the third in Japan and the first in Tokyo. What you have near Tachikawa is not a “Japan first” but a “Tokyo first”.

While I’m at it, let me line up firsts I have written about in other articles in this series. In Showa 22 (1947), Isetan opened its first branch store in Tachikawa, and the encyclopaedia says it drew attention as the first department store along the Chuo Line. In Heisei 6 (1994), Cinema City at the North Exit became Tokyo’s first cinema complex. And Showa Kinen Park has Japan’s first national bonsai exhibition facility. Tachikawa’s firsts multiply by one every time I remember another.

School firsts: high-school girls in the Himalayas, and an elementary-to-high-school academy

Schools have Tachikawa firsts too.

Tachikawa Girls’ School, opened in Taisho 14 (1925) and now Tachikawa Joshi High School, is known for its strong mountaineering club. According to the encyclopaedia, in December Showa 53 (1978) its members became the first Japanese high school students to succeed in a Himalayan ascent. In August Heisei 7 (1995) they conquered the previously unclimbed fourth peak, 6,650 metres high, of Kongur, the highest mountain of the Kunlun range in China. Their challenge became a book, Joshi Kosei: Ase to Namida no Hatsu Tocho (“High-School Girls: A First Ascent of Sweat and Tears”). High-school girls raised on the flat tablelands of Tama standing on an untrodden peak over 6,000 metres. Perhaps a flat town longs for mountains more than most.

In Reiwa 4 (2022), an attached elementary school opened at the metropolitan Tachikawa Kokusai Secondary School. According to the encyclopaedia, it was the first public elementary-through-high-school integrated school in the country. The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education also describes it as a “metropolitan elementary-junior high-high school integrated school”. However, the same encyclopaedia also says that most of the school’s grounds lie in neighbouring Kunitachi City. Tachikawa’s “national first” spilled about halfway over into Kunitachi.

In April Reiwa 7 (2025), Tokyo Metropolitan Tachikawa Midori High School opened in Nishikicho, Tachikawa. The encyclopaedia says it is the seventh of Tokyo’s “Challenge Schools”, which accept students who have experienced school refusal or dropping out, and the first in the Tama area.

Going further back, Tokyo Prefectural Second Middle School, opened south of the station in Meiji 34 (1901) and now Tachikawa High School, was established in Tokyo Prefecture second only to the First Middle School. That one reason the first prefectural middle school in Tama was built in Tachikawa was that “there was no entertainment district, so the environment was good for study” I wrote in this series’ article on the station.

A wedding on the monorail, and a marriage registration form with a Good Design Award

Some of the firsts are heart-warming.

According to the encyclopaedia entry on the Tama Toshi Monorail, in Heisei 11 (1999) a wedding in a chartered car, the “Monorail Wedding”, was held on the monorail for the first time. That was the year after the section between Tachikawa-Kita and Kamikitadai opened. Pledging eternity inside a car gliding along an elevated track. Every time it stopped at a station in the middle of the ceremony, what faces did the passengers outside the doors make? The records don’t say. According to the same entry, in Heisei 24 (2012), thirteen years and seven months after opening, the monorail passed 500 million passengers, said to be the fastest of any monorail in Japan. Of those 500 million, the number who exchanged wedding vows on board is probably very small.

Speaking of marriage, one more. According to the city chronology, in Heisei 28 (2016) Tachikawa City began selling a “Premium Marriage Registration Form”. (In Japan, you marry by submitting a form, the kon’in todoke, to the city office.) The following year it won the Regional Revitalisation Grand Prize in the “experiences” category of the “Furusato Meihin of the Year” awards, and in Reiwa 1 (2019) it received a Good Design Award. A marriage form winning a design award. I know of no other town that has won a prize for a piece of official paperwork. Though the city presumably makes no guarantees about the design of the household after the form is submitted.

How to count a “first”, and what I first learned in Tachikawa

Back to the opening question. Are Tachikawa’s firsts really first?

Not all of them were firsts beyond argument. The scheduled air service had a senior in Sakai, and the cinema complex and the world’s first electric car both carry caveats about how far you count. The integrated school spilled halfway into Kunitachi, and the Tama factory was in Fuchu.

Even so, once all the caveats are attached, something remains. The first woman to chair a city assembly in Japan sat in Tachikawa’s chamber. The court case that set a price on a cartoon character started with a Tachikawa bus. The trifecta, the station-mall shops outside the ticket gates, IKEA in Tokyo: Tachikawa came first. Each was a step someone had to take first, so that other towns could come “next”.

The city chronology has one last entry I love, a thing “first discovered”. In Heisei 27 (2015), at a lecture on the Tachikawa Fault, the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo reported that the fault does not exist within the city. The fault bearing Tachikawa’s name did not run through Tachikawa. In a place where something was thought to be, it turned out, once checked, that there was nothing. That too is a “first”, one you only learn by looking.

The lines of the chronology still sit there today, in the same type size. Next to “City Elementary School No. So-and-so opens”, a “nation’s first” is laid down without fuss. This town’s boasts are usually written in small print.

Quiz answer

The answer is (B), the name of the area where the factory was. According to the Miki Press series, the electric car completed in Showa 22 (1947) was named “Tama” after the place name. The encyclopaedia also says the car was named after “Tama”, the area where the factory was located.

Before you go

• Tachikawa City chronology (city history): lines such as “the nation’s first woman chair of a city assembly” and “the first traffic consultation office in Tokyo’s suburbs” can be read in the chronology on the city’s official website (in Japanese): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shisei/gaiyo/1005930/1005948/1005965.html
• Past chairs of Tachikawa City Assembly: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shigikai/gicho-fukugicho/1007607.html
• Tachikawa Keirin Velodrome: 3-32-5 Akebonocho, Tachikawa. 15 minutes on foot from JR Tachikawa Station or Tachikawa-Kita Station on the Tama Monorail. On race days and some others there is also a free bus from in front of Tachikawa-Kita Station (per the official site; check race days and services there): https://www.tachikawakeirin.jp/access/
• ecute Tachikawa: inside and outside the South Gate of JR Tachikawa Station.
• IKEA Tachikawa: in Midoricho, Tachikawa, on the former site of the Tachikawa base. Parking is charged. Check access and opening hours on the official site: https://www.ikea.com/jp/ja/stores/tachikawa/
• Tachikawa Bus: routes run in every direction from Tachikawa Station. You may come across buses decorated with characters.
• From Shinjuku: take the JR Chuo Line (Rapid) to Tachikawa without changing trains.
• Combine with: in the morning, Cinema City and Faret Tachikawa at the North Exit; at lunchtime, ecute and GRANDUO at the South Exit; in the afternoon, the former base site with IKEA, or the bonsai garden in Showa Kinen Park. You can tour Tachikawa’s firsts in a day.
• General tips: carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO for trains, buses and the monorail, and check opening days on the official sites before you go.

After the walk, back to Tachikawa Station’s North Exit

Spend a day hunting for firsts and your feet are surprisingly tired. Perhaps because every place you walked was new to you.

A one-minute walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店). It is a hot yoga studio with heated lava-stone floors, and it also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30, so there is plenty of time to drop in, whether after a morning at the velodrome or after an evening at Cinema City.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and mat rental included. A “first” in the literal sense, and you can come empty-handed.

Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

• On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
• Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

The people who did things first in this town surely found that first step a little frightening too.

Cover photo: The Tama electric passenger car, model E4S-47, on display at the Japan Mobility Show 2025 (Photo: SuFlyer / CC0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

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• Tachikawa Autumn Leaves Guide: Ginkgo, Zelkova and Where to Walk
• Tachikawa Base Town History: Cola Bottles, Yuming, the Laundry Gate
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• Tachikawa History Walk: Famous People, from Seiji Ozawa to a Comet
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• Tachikawa’s Green Future: Zero Carbon, Farmland and Springs Guide
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• Tachikawa and Tokyo’s Next Big Earthquake: Disaster Base Guide
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• Tachikawa Childhood History: Candy Shops, a Base Christmas, Showa Kids
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• Tachikawa Walk: Nekawa Green Path to the Tama River, a Riverside Guide
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• Tachikawa Night Views and Mount Fuji at Dawn: A Walking Guide
• Tachikawa at Night: Bar Alleys, Black Markets and Cinema History Walk
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• Tachikawa Parks Guide: Things to Do Beyond Showa Kinen Park, a Walk
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All Tachikawa Walks (English)