that burned from the nightly air raids. Reflecting on his ability to continue to take photographs despite his tragedy and the national tragedy unfolding, photography critic Teruo Okai said:In my mind, this response reflects Otsuka’s ability, even when finding himself in the thick of the action, to distance himself from the war enough to view it with the objectivity of an impartial observer, an ability born out of his unyielding thirst for the truth, his insistence at all times on distilling the essence behind any given scene or situation. Therefore, he allowed himself, despite being fully away from the suffering going on below, to shudder at the sheer beauty of the conflagration. Becoming one with his camera, he accepted without judgment whatever impression the spectacle made on his senses. Post-war period In 1945, Otsuka was promoted to deputy chief of the Photograph Department of the Asahi Osaka office. In 1948 he was sent to Tokyo as deputy chief of Asahi's Publications Photography Department. During these years, he continued his photography. He covered Osaka's post-war recovery effort and did stage photography, taking pictures of the Tokyo Ballet and Komaki Ballet companies. He took photographs of the various European performers that visited Japan. He also photographed Emperor Hirohito’s visit to Osaka and other cultural events such as the Koshien high school baseball tournament. When the Asahi Camera photography magazine restarted publication after the war in 1949, Otsuka worked with the magazine. This collaboration was radical at the time, as many newspaper photographers would have considered it a blow to their ego to stoop down and present their photographs on the same pages as amateurs. Ihee Kimura was the editorial advisor, and the magazine began to include works by foreign photographers and have columns on the latest global photography trends. Photographers such as Shoji Otake, Jun Miki, Takamasa Inamura, and Shotaro Akiyama featured prominently. Otsuka's photographic production picked up pace during these years. In addition to his newspaper photographs, he took portraits and street photographs that captured the reality of post-war Japan, focusing on images that captured social trends and phenomena. His reputation only grew as he became the chief administrator of the All Japan Association of Photographic Societies, which was the largest organization for amateur photographers in 1958, and participated as a judge in various photography competitions. Permanent collections Modern Museum of Art (MoMA), New York, United States J. Paul Getty Museum,