A Tale of Two Friends: Haruki Murakami and Illustrator Anzai Mizumaru

The friendship between Haruki Murakami and illustrator Anzai Mizumaru is one of the quieter treasures of Murakami's career. It lasted about thirty years, it left its fingerprints on the pages of his books, and it ended far too suddenly. Today we want to tell that story, because for many Harukists Mizumaru's loose, playful drawings are as much a part of Murakami's world as the cats and jazz records.

How Murakami met Mizumaru

Before they met, Mizumaru had worked as an art director at an advertising company and was building a name as an illustrator. In 1981 he was asked to illustrate a short piece by a still fairly new writer named Murakami. That one job grew into a collaboration, and a friendship, that carried on for the next three decades.

Murakami later called their meeting "fate." It is easy to see why. The two had a surprising amount in common, from their taste in art to their outlook on life, and even their capacity for drinking. They were, in the words of the original piece we are drawing on, something close to "soul brothers."

Opposites at the dinner table

Of course, no friendship is a perfect mirror. Murakami loves vegetables, while Mizumaru could not stand them. Murakami keeps a steady, early-to-bed lifestyle, while Mizumaru was known to spend whole nights drinking. We love this detail: two men who agreed on the big things and happily disagreed on salad.

The art of drawing "roughly"

Mizumaru's style is often described as "heta-uma," a kind of deliberately rough drawing that looks effortless at first glance. But for him, being rough was never lazy or insincere. It was a way of working in a relaxed, almost drained state, catching a moment's impression with quick wit and total immersion. He had a gift for capturing the character of a person or an object in a few lines.

He once said he would hand in a picture when he felt it had reached its best level of completeness in the limited time he had, and that he preferred the drawings he made half in play. Most of all, there is something wonderful about a man who simply draws what he likes, every day, without any grand goal.

A name that lives on in the novels

Murakami liked Mizumaru enough to borrow his real name. Mizumaru's actual name was Watanabe Noboru, and fans have spotted it again and again in Murakami's fiction. The most famous echo is the surname of Toru Watanabe, the narrator of Norwegian Wood. The name also turns up on an elephant keeper in one of Murakami's stories, and on the boyfriend of the narrator's sister in the short story "Family Affair." It is a small, affectionate in-joke hiding in plain sight.

If you enjoy hunting for these personal touches, you will probably also like our post on Raymond Carver and Haruki Murakami, another friendship that shaped his writing.

Saying goodbye

In 2014, Mizumaru died at the age of 71 from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, while he was still at work. He had been working tirelessly, taking only about three days off a year. Yet by every account he was deeply content with the life he had chosen. In an age when we have so many options that it is hard to commit to any one of them, his dedication offers a simple, gentle answer.

Murakami wrote of him with warmth, describing someone who understood, with compassion, the kind of odd, unhelpful-yet-freeing things that most of the world has no use for. Murakami is now in his seventies himself, the same age Mizumaru was when he passed, and we hope he stays healthy and well.

Do you have a friend who shares your taste but disagrees about the small things? Tell us about them in the comments.