TOKYO >> Meiji University began integrating services at its two manga libraries this spring in an effort to preserve Japan’s world- renowned manga culture.

The Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subcultures, which has a total of about 410,000 items, boasts one of the largest collections of comic books in Japan.

In addition to providing cultural research, the university plans to develop a repository for items such as original artwork to preserve manga- related material.

The library, which opened in 2009 at the Surugadai Campus of Meiji University in Chiyoda ward, Tokyo, houses about 140,000 items donated by the family of manga critic Yoshihiro Yonezawa, who died in 2006.

The library contains a large collection of manga such as Weekly Shonen Magazine and Ribon, which have been published since the mid-1950s, as well as dojinshi, or self-published comics.

The university’s Contemporary Manga Library in Shinjuku ward was relocated in March to the seven-story building that houses the Yonezawa library. That collection comprises about 270,000 items amassed by Toshio Naiki, the proprietor of a book and comic rental shop in Tokyo who died in 2012.

About 10,000 items from Naiki’s collection were rental manga magazines, published from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s, including some early works by manga artist Tetsuya Chiba, 82, the creator of the boxing manga “Ashita no Joe” (Tomorrow’s Joe).

The combined collection surpasses that of the Kyoto International Manga Museum, which has about 300,000 items.

The collections will keep their original names and the items will not be combined on the library stacks. It’s important to know “who collected the materials and how,” said Akiko Orito, manager at the university’s Library Management Office.

Members of the public must register to use the library and pay a fee — $3 for adults; $1 for those under 18.

“I am thankful that the collections are here because I can look at books and magazines that I wouldn’t be able to find at any used book stores,” said a library patron doing work-related research.

In 2009, Meiji University announced plans to build one of the world’s largest research facilities on Japanese pop culture. The combined collections of the two libraries are considered a pilot for the initiative.

The space also fills a need for oversight of manga publications and original artwork. In 2018, original sketches of Osamu Tezuka’s “Astro Boy” were auctioned in Paris and sold to a European collector for nearly $310,000.

“There are few facilities to which manga creators or their families can donate artwork if they can no longer look after them, and in some cases, they have been forced to dispose of them or sell them overseas,” said Kaichiro Morikawa, an associate professor at Meiji University and a scholar on contemporary Japanese culture. “Once they are lost, it is difficult to utilize them for research or as cultural resources.”