The Kyoto International Manga Museum (京都国際マンガミュージアム, Kyōto Kokusai Manga Myūjiamu) is located in Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The museum's collection includes approximately 300,000 items as of 2016, with 50,000 volumes of manga that can be accessed and read by visitors and approximately 250,000 items in its closed-stack collection, which can be accessed via a dedicated research room supported by reference facilities. Collected materials include Edo period woodblock prints, pre-war magazines, post-war rental books, and popular modern series from around the world. The museum is a public–private partnership of Kyoto Seika University and the city of Kyoto. The city provided the building and land. The university operates the facility under the oversight of a joint committee. The museum acts as a manga library and history resource for the public, as well as serving the manga-related research interests of Kyoto Seika University's International Manga Research Center. History Tatsuike Primary School The building that houses the Kyoto International Manga Museum was once Tatsuike Primary School. The English language version of the museum's website provides the following information:Tatsuike Primary School, which has been converted to the Kyoto International Manga Museum, was opened on November 1, 1869 as the 25th bangumi shogakko (district elementary school) of Kamigyo, one of a total of 64 administrative district-based elementary schools established in Kyoto. This was three years before the modern educational system was established in Japan (proclamation of the Education System Order in 1872). Tatsuike Primary School was built without the aid of grants from the Kyoto prefectural government and only with money (2,000 ryo) donated by residents of Tatsuike School District, who pinned their greatest hopes on education. From the time of its founding, Tatsuike Primary School played a leading role in education in Kyoto. However, due to the doughnut phenomenon (cavitation of downtown) and the decline in number of children in recent years, Tatsuike Primary School was merged with four other schools (Umeya, Chikkan, Fuyu and Kasuga) in April 1995 to form Gosho Minami Primary School. The Manga Museum is made up of three buildings, the main building (built in 1929), the north building (built in 1937), and the auditorium/gymnasium (built in 1928), renovated to form a connecting shape, but otherwise largely untouched, including the creaky corridors and tiled staircases, etc., allowing visitors to savor the beautifully extravagant architectural atmosphere of the Modernist era. Development of the Museum The creation of the manga museum was proposed by