In the United States, comics aren’t a big industry. Rather, the novel industry is dominated by genres such romance, mystery, and fantasy. However, in Japan, comics or otherwise called manga are one of the most popular forms of literature. The word manga in Japan is made up of two Chinese characters that mean playful and images. If you have ever read manga you can see how playful the images really are as speech bubbles and sound effects pop up everywhere and the style of the art makes the characters movement come alive. Manga is popular among all age ranges and covers a broad base of topics horror to comedy. Just in the year 2007, the manga market reached an estimated 3.6 billion dollars. Today however, the origin of manga continues to be disputed. Some scholars say that manga came from the post world war II period while others believe it dated all the way back to the pre-meiji and meiji period. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Meiji period, it was a time period from the mid 1800’s to the early 1900’s. The pre-meiji signs of manga date all the way back to the 11th century.
Manga has been alive for hundreds of years but not in the form we all love and know. The beginning of manga is attributed to Toba Sojo who was a painter/priest born in 11th century Japan. He painted stories about his life as a Buddhist priest by representing priests as rabbits or monkeys and even Buddha as a toad. There were no words or dialogue in his paintings but a progressive story existed as the scroll was unraveled from right to left. This succession of images from right to left now currently exists in modern day manga. Later on in the 12th century, Buddhist monks continued to paint these stories but now used them to teach people moral concepts. These paintings are referred to as choju-giga. However, many scholars argue that these paintings were not the beginning of manga but merely just created the right to left reading style.
In the 17th century, instead of pictures being painted onto scrolls, they were instead drawn onto wooden blocks. The subject of these paintings was less focused on religious themes and presenting morals but more on erotic and sexual topics. This was also the time that the word manga was first used to describe this style of art. In 1702, a manga artist named Shumboko Ono made a book of painted pictures and included captions underneath them to describe what was going on. However, the subsequent pictures were not related to one another. However, the practice of including words with pictures started a new phase in the evolution of manga. Books that were created around this time now included pictures with every set of text so that the reader could have a visual image of what was going on as well. This style is referred to as toba-e and became the mainstream style of literature for Japan.
The other viewpoint believes that manga came from foreign countries especially the United States through the process of globalization. Globalization occurs when culture or ideas from one nation moves to another. Thus, in the case of manga, the artistic style of American comics shifted to Japan after the second World War when the U.S occupied Japan. During the U.S occupation of Japan which lasted from 1945 to 1952, the U.S tried to enforce censorship to restrict the Japanese from writing materials that valued war and Japanese militarism in order to prevent militaristic resurgence. Specifically historical and battlefield manga were not allowed. However, in the Japanese constitution under the 21st article it states that all types of censorship are prohibited. Even though the U.S tried to impose their rules, this didn’t stop the Japanese people from exercising their rights and creativity.
From this surge of creativity came influential manga creators Osamu Tezuka and Machiko Hasegawa. Osama Tezuka is the writer and creator of Mighty Atom or as we know it in the U.S, Astro Boy. Astro Boy was an icon for peace and rejection of war. But before that, Tezuka created one of what can be called modern day mangas with his creation New Treasure Island. He gained his inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Treasure Island. Despite the poor economic conditions of post world war II Japan, Tezuka’s book became a best selling work selling over 400,000 copies. Tezuka is also credited with inventing the cinematographic technique which splits the story into panels that describe the events of the story in slow motion and zoom in and out. For instance, in his creation Astro Boy, he spent 8 pages using panels to show Astro Boy traveling from one location to another by first focusing on his face and then zooming out to show the car traveling along past varying sceneries. The other important manga artist of the time was Hasegawa who is the creator of Sazae-san. Sazae-san is a strong woman who faces the troubles of the world with determination in her heart. She is a representation of all the people left homeless by the aftershocks of the war. Both characters reflect values that show opposition to the war and the U.S for occupying its devastated society.
At this time, manga was generally seen as entertainment for kids. However, when this initial audience grew up and become university students, manga came along for the ride as well. As a result, manga became a form of entertainment for older audiences as well.
Within that post-war time period also came two separate forms of manga. First there is shonen manga which is aimed at male audiences. There are two distinct groups of manga within the genre of shonen manga. First there is shonen manga which is intended for male audiences 18 years or younger. Since young men were the first readers of manga after World War II, writers tried to appeal to the stereotypical interests of this audience. Therefore, popular genres for this audience are action, sports, and science fiction. Within these genres are themes of heroism, honor, comedy, and sometimes sexuality. Oftentimes the heroes have to overcome many challenges that await them in order to improve their skills and grow up. Mostly the heroes and characters of shonen manga are male. However, within recent years, the role of women in manga has steadily increased. There are now many types of women within shonen manga such as the unobtainable woman, the woman fighter, and the mature older woman with whom the protagonist must connect with. The second type of shonen manga on the other hand always included women and is referred to as seijin or erohon manga. This manga is often pornographic or sexually explicit in its material and therefore suited for audiences older than 18 years of age.
A second type of manga called shojo manga was developed for females audiences. The beginning of shojo manga occurred after Hasegawa created her famous Sazae-san manga. The concept of a strong female translated to future female oriented mangas. Hasegawa began her manga in 1946, but 20 years later a group of female writers known as the Year 24 group began to create manga which then paved the way for future female writers. Many of their creations became immensely popular and as a result shojo manga began to be primarily written by women instead of men. Popular themes in shojo are romance and super heroines. In romance shojo manga the female characters often overcome adversity and figure out who they are as people while pursuing possible love interests. In the super heroine genre of shojo manga, strong women join together into groups to fight against evil. One popular example of this that even reached the U.S is Sailor Moon. If you have ever noticed, female characters in manga often have large sparkly eyes, blond hair, bigger breasts, and long thin legs. This design was created out of Japan’s fascination with the west and the ideal of beauty which Caucasian women were believed to have. A third type of shojo manga called redisu also exists for older women in their 20s or 30s. After the original young audience of manga grew up and began to get jobs and get married, a new type of manga was created for this older group of women that was still relatable to their lives. Themes found in redisu are reaching young adulthood and sexuality. Therefore, today is there a whole set of sub-genres of manga solely dedicated to women.
Ishinomori Shotaro, another key figure in the history of manga created a third type of manga called information manga. In 1986 he wrote, A Manga Introduction to the Japanese Economy which sold over a million copies. Putting educational information into manga form helped solidify a new audience in the form businessman and students. After the success of Shotaro’s book, more educational manga on subjects such as science, history, and classical literature appeared.
Manga artists don’t simply choose a specific sex as their audience though. There are many more audiences to appeal to, broadening the types of manga that exist. Manga audiences can also be divided into age. For children there is manga called yonenshi. For audiences in their teenage years to their late twenties there is manga called shonenshi and yangushi. Finally, there is seineneshi for adults. Thus, all the age groups are covered leaving something that can appeal to everyone.
In Japanese society, manga artists don’t simply write a story and immediately publish it in book form. First, a 20-30 page installment of the manga is included into a magazine and are printed in black and white. If the series then becomes popular through that magazine, then the artist will have the chance to find a publisher and put his/her works into book form as we see it in the stores. There are approximately 50 influential manga magazines in Japan at the moment that introduce these new stories. Some of them feature manga approximately every month, some biweekly, and the rest weekly. At all times there are at least 10 manga magazines which have sold over 1 million copies which non-manga magazines cannot claim to have achieved. This fact alone proves how popular manga is in Japan. Overall manga magazines and books make up at least ¼ of the market of published materials.
Go to Japan and you will find numerous book stores left and right containing shelf upon shelf of manga to read. A large population of Japan reads manga and it’s estimated that the average citizen spends at least $20 a year on manga. When you go to Japan you should go to a bookstore and pick out some manga and experience the thrill of this popular form of Japanese culture. If you can’t wait that long, go to a local Borders or Barnes & Noble and pick up a copy as manga continues to grow in popularity in the United States. Manga has conquered Japanese society and is now moving onto the rest of the world. Give in to it!
http://www.dnp.co.jp/museum/nmp/nmp_i/articles/manga/manga1.html
http://tsoj.manga.org/anime/history_1000_1500.html
http://tsoj.manga.org/anime/history_1900_1910.html
http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/history.html
http://manga.about.com/od/historyofmanga/a/mangahistory1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_manga#cite_note-Kodansha-19
