Five manga legends lived in one broke apartment, sharing instant ramen and rejection letters like they were treasure. This special is a love letter to the moment before they became immortal, when they were just kids riffing on ideas at 3 AM because they had nothing else to lose. You're watching the exact room where modern manga was invented by people too poor and too stubborn to know they should quit.

In 1953, a group of gifted young artists lives together in the Tokiwa apartment building. Hiro Terada, Motoo Abiko, Hiroshi Fujimoto, Shotaro Ishinomori and Fujio Akatsuka are broke, get nowhere with editors, and have no better luck with girls. A wild, youthful enthusiasm carries them through those lean years until they become stars of the manga world. The one-off comedy special looks back at the struggles they share before they became famous, and some sequences let their manga characters come to life. The anime was made in 1981, the year the Tokiwa building was torn down.