Iwata Hirotsugu

Iwata Hirotsugu is a South Japanese anti-circus activist who lives in Hiroshima with his grandfather, his parents, his wife and five children.

When his gramdfather named Onoue was a teenager in the junior high, he knew that his father (and Iwata's great-grandfather) named Koshikawa was a scorched survivor during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima with his skin peeling off their bodies in sheets, groaning in pain and walking with their arms held up before them like almost anyone else, but he's smart enough to hide in an air raid shelter, and he's very unscathed throughout the bombing, especially when black rain fell down at the time.

Onoue wasn't affected by heat, blast, and/or radiation, but his father, Koshikawa, who was lucky enough to survive and not drinking water for a long time, was trying to be taken from the hospital for his treatment, but unluckly for him, it was overcrowded completely, so he had no choice but to be taken as a freak show attraction.

He was told by his grandfather when Iwata was a 2-year-old when he knew that Koshikawa (while still having peeled-off skins from the atomic bombing) was then a freak show attraction in Coney Island, as he's called the "Luckiest Skin-Peeled Survivor Alive," thanks to the Barnum Bailey and Ringling Bros. Circus staff members' best efforts to ensure his longevity so he can perform for years to come.

Koshikawa, having freed from a freak show act for almost two-in-a-half decades, had his skin having a miracle of prosthetic arms in the 1960s while receiving attempted cancer cures.

When his great-grandfather died long after returning to Hiroshima in 1972 on a heart attack, his grandfather eventually became against circuses and freakshows.