Gajo Sakamoto was an early mangaka. He created the fantasy robot 'Tanku Tankuro' in 1934. It was one of the first comics in Japan that featured a robot that could change shapes. The comic reflected the Japanese war climat of the time - in the stories 'Tanku Tankuro' was used as a war instrument for the army. Sakamoto moved to Manchuria in 1939, by then a Japanese colony, where he worked as a cartoonist for a local paper through the Manchuria Development Agency.