“Volcano Zone” Cover Illustration

Write to “Volcano Zone” No.100’s cover illustration
Encounter with Sakurajima
Masanao Sakamoto
Was it around the time when issue 90 was published that Mr. Hiroshi Shima asked me to draw Sakurajima on the cover picture of issue 100 of “Volcano Zone”? I started to devise a plan to draw the representative mountain of the volcano-Sakurajima as a cover picture.
In February 1992, take a train from Miyazaki and get off at the Aira station to draw the mountain peaks, valleys, and folds of Sakurajima, instead of drawing what you see from the city of Kagoshima. I went through a nearby railroad crossing and took the road toward the sea in Kagoshima Bay. At that time, two elementary school boys on their way home gave directions.
To get to a place where Sakurajima can be seen well, I took a bus at Shigetomi. When I could see Sakurajima well, I asked the driver for a suitable bus stop. The place I went to was Ryugamizu Osaki.
Sakurajima looked hazy than before, but when the sun shined through the clouds, we could see a strong change in the shape of the valley and the overlapping of mountains. I confirmed the necessary parts in the screen configuration and sketched. I also took a record with a camera.
Sakurajima and I met in January 1914. I’ve heard several times that my head, which was a baby, was covered with ashes when the volcanic ash flew to Miyazaki on a westerly wind in a big explosion. The 6th grade school trip is in Kagoshima, facing Sakurajima. As a souvenir, I bought a postcard of the Sakurajima explosion.
In the spring of the year following the end of the war, I looked at Sakurajima, where the smoke was thinly rising from the deck of the salvage ship (destroyer), in Kinko Bay. The town of Kagoshima that landed was based on burnt field. In a burnt-out building, I spent a few days as a salvageer, worried about my parents.
Sakurajima was quietly giving off a thin eruption.
(“Volcanic Zone” No. 100 (October 1, 1994))