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Modernmanga, in the sense of narrative multi-panel cartoons made inJapan, originated from Western-stylecartoons featured in late 19th century Japanese publications.[1] The form of manga as speech-balloon based comics more specifically originated from translations of American comic strips in the 1920s; several early examples of such manga read left to right, with the longest running pre-1945 manga being the Japanese translation of the American comic stripBringing Up Father.[2] The termmanga first came into use in the late 18th century, though it only started to refer to various forms of cartooning in the 1890s and did not become a common word until around 1920.
Historians and writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes that shaped modern manga. While their views differ in the relative importance they attribute it to the role of cultural and historical events followingWorld War II versus the role of pre-war,Meiji, andpre-Meiji Japanese culture and art. One view, represented by other writers such asFrederik L. Schodt, Kinko Ito, and Adam L. Kern, stresses continuity of Japanese cultural and aesthetic traditions, including the latter threeeras;[3][4][5][6] the other view states that, during and after theoccupation of Japan by the allies (1945–1952), manga was strongly shaped bythe Americans' cultural influences, includingcomics brought to Japan by theGIs, and by images and themes from U.S. television, film, andcartoons (especiallyDisney).[7][3] According to Sharon Kinsella, the booming Japanese publishing industry helped create a consumer-oriented society in which publishing giants likeKodansha could shape popular tastes.[7] Manga reflects Japanese society, myths, beliefs rituals, traditions, and fantasies.[8]
Manga is said to originate fromemakimono (scrolls),Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga, dating back to the 12th and 13th centuries.[9][10] During theEdo period (1603–1867), another book of drawings,Toba Ehon, embedded the concept of manga.[11] The word first came into common usage in the late 18th and early 19th centuries,[12] with the publication of such works asSantō Kyōden's picture bookShiji no yukikai (1798),[13][14] and Aikawa Minwa'sManga hyakujo (1814); this also includes the celebratedHokusai Manga books (1814–1834), which contain assorted drawings from the sketchbooks of the famousukiyo-e artistHokusai (1760–1849).[15]Kitazawa Rakuten (1876–1955) was the first artist to use the wordmanga in the modern sense.[16] Another example is in the first half of the 19th century it is speculated to beDehōdai mucharon[17] (1822), with prints from the artistHiroshige, who illustrated several books of this kind between 1820 and 1837.[18]
Writers stress the continuity of Japanese cultural and aesthetic traditions as central to the history of manga. They includeFrederik L. Schodt,[3][19] Kinko Ito,[4] Adam L. Kern,[5][6] and Eric Peter Nash.[20] Schodt points to the existence in the 13th century of illustrated picture scrolls likeChōjū-jinbutsu-giga that told stories in sequential images with humor and wit.[3] Schodt also stresses continuities of aesthetic style and vision between ukiyo-e,shunga woodblock prints, and modern manga (all three fulfillEisner's criteria for sequential art).[21] While there are disputes over whetherChōjū-jinbutsu-giga orShigisan Engi Emaki was the first manga, both scrolls date back to the same time period. However, others likeIsao Takahata,Studio Ghibli co-founder and director, contend there is no linkage between the scrolls and modern manga.[22]
Schodt and Nash see a particularly significant role ofkamishibai, a form of street theater where itinerant artists display pictures in a lightbox while narrating the story to audiences in the street.[3][20] Professor Richard Torrance has pointed to similarities between modern manga and theOsaka popular novel, written between the 1890s and 1940s, and argues that the development of widespread literacy in Meiji and post-Meiji Japan helped create audiences for stories told in words and pictures.[23] Ito also roots manga historically in aesthetic continuity with pre-Meiji art, but sees its post-WWII history as driven in part by consumer enthusiasm for the rich imagery and narrative of the newly developing manga tradition. She describes how this tradition has steadily produced new genres and markets, e.g., for girls' (shōjo) manga in the late 1960s and for ladies' comics (redisu) in the 1980s.[4]
Even though Eastern comics are generally held separate from the evolution of Western comics, and Western comic art probably originated in 17th century Italy,[24] Kern has suggested thatkibyōshi, picture books from the late 18th century, may have been the world's firstcomic books.[5] These graphic narratives share humorous, satirical, and romantic themes with modern manga.[5] Although Kern does not believe thatkibyōshi were a direct forerunner of manga, they believe the existence ofkibyōshi nonetheless points to a Japanese willingness to mix words and pictures in a popular story-telling medium.[6] The first recorded use of the termmanga to mean "whimsical or impromptu pictures" comes from this tradition in 1798, which, as Kern points out, predates Hokusai's popularHokusai Manga usage by several decades.[25][26]
As illustrated magazines for Western expatriates introduced Western-style satirical cartoons to Japan in the late 19th century, new publications in both the Western and Eastern styles became popular. At the end of the 1890s, American-style newspaper comic supplements began to appear in Japan,[27] as well as some American comic strips.[28] 1900 saw the debut of Rakuten'sJiji Manga in theJiji Shinpō newspaper—the first use of the wordmanga in its modern sense,[29] and where, in 1902, he began the first modern Japanese comic strip.[30] By the 1930s, comic strips were serialized in large-circulation monthly girls' and boys' magazines and collected into hardback volumes.[31]
Similarly, writer Charles Shirō Inoue sees manga as a mixture of image and word-centered elements, each pre-dating the Allied occupation of Japan. In his view, Japanese image-centered, or "pictocentric," art ultimately derives from Japan's long history of engagement with Chinese graphic art;[citation needed] whereas word-centered, or "logocentric," art, like the novel, was stimulated by social and economic needs of Meiji and pre-war Japanese nationalism for a populace unified by a common written language. Both fuse in what Inoue sees as a symbiosis in manga.[32]
The roots of the wide-eyed look commonly associated with manga date back to the illustrations ofshōjo magazines published during the late 19th to early 20th centuries (for example,Shōjo Gahō). The most popular illustrators associated with this style at the time wereYumeji Takehisa andJun'ichi Nakahara, who, influenced by his work as a doll creator, frequently drew female characters with big eyes in the early 20th century. This had a significant influence on early manga, particularlyshōjo, evident in the work of influentialmanga artists such asMacoto Takahashi andRiyoko Ikeda.[33]
However, other writers (for one,Takashi Murakami) have stressed events after WWII. Murakami sees Japan's surrender and theatomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as having created long-lasting scars on the Japanese artistic psyche, which, in this view, lost its previously virile confidence in itself and sought solace in harmless and cute (kawaii) images.[34] However,Takayumi Tatsumi sees a special role for a transpacific economic and culturaltransnationalism that created a postmodern and shared international youth culture of cartooning, film, television, music, and related popular arts, which was, for Tatsumi, the crucible in which modern manga has developed,[35] an example beingNorakuro. Another writer who stresses post-war for manga and limites the span to sixty years is Schodt's.[36]
For Murakami and Tatsumi, transnationalism (orglobalization) refers specifically to the flow of cultural and subcultural material from one nation to another.[34][35] In their usage, the term does not refer to international corporate expansion, neither to international tourism, nor to cross-border international personal friendships, but to ways in which artistic, aesthetic, and intellectual traditions influence each other across national boundaries.[34][35] An example of cultural transnationalism is the creation ofStar Wars films in the US, their transformation into manga by Japanese artists, and the marketing ofStar Wars manga to the US.[37] Another example is the transfer of hip-hop culture from the US to Japan.[38] Professor Wendy Siuyi Wong also sees a major role for transnationalism in the recent history of manga.[39]
Thus, these scholars see the history of manga as involving historical continuities and discontinuities between the aesthetic and cultural past as it interacts with post-WWII innovation and transnationalism.
Japanese artists subsequently gave life to their own style during the occupation (1945–1952) and post-occupation years (1952–1972),[40] when a previouslymilitarist and ultranationalist Japan was rebuilding its political and economic infrastructure.[3][Note 1] Although Allied occupation censorship policies specifically prohibited art and writing that glorified war and Japanese militarism, those policies did not prevent the publication of other kinds of material, including manga. Furthermore, the 1947Japanese Constitution (Article 21) prohibited all forms of censorship,[41] which led to the growth of artistic creativity.[3]In the forefront of this period are two manga series and characters that influenced much of the future history of manga:Osamu Tezuka'sMighty Atom (Astro Boy in the United States; begun in April 1951) andMachiko Hasegawa'sSazae-san (begun in April 1946).
Astro Boy was both a superpowered robot and a naive little boy.[42] Tezuka never explained why Astro Boy had such a highly developed social conscience, nor what kind of robot programming could make him so deeply affiliative.[42] Both qualities seem innate to Astro Boy and represent a Japanese sociality and community-oriented masculinity, differing very much from the Emperor-worship and militaristic obedience enforced during the previous period ofJapanese imperialism.[42]Astro Boy quickly became (and remains) immensely popular in Japan and elsewhere as an icon and hero of a new world of peace and the renunciation of war, as seen inArticle 9 of the newly created Japanese constitution.[41][42] Similar themes occur in Tezuka'sNew World andMetropolis.[3][42]
By contrast,Sazae-san (meaning "Ms. Sazae") was commenced in 1946 by Hasegawa, a young artist who made her heroine a stand-in for millions of Japanese citizens, especially women, rendered homeless by the war.[3][43] Sazae does not face an easy or simple life, but, similar to Astro Boy, she is highly affiliative and is deeply involved with her immediate and extended family. She is also a very strong character, in striking contrast to the officially sanctionedNeo-Confucianist principles of feminine meekness and obedience to the "good wife, wise mother" (良妻賢母,ryōsai kenbo) ideal taught by the previous military regime.[44][45][46] Sazae faces the world with cheerful resilience,[43][47] what psychologistHayao Kawai calls a "woman of endurance."[48]Sazae-san sold more than 62 million copies over the next half-century.[49]
Tezuka and Hasegawa were both stylistic innovators. In Tezuka's "cinematographic" technique, the panels are like a motion picture that reveals details of action, bordering on slow motion as well as rapid zooms from distance to close-up shots.[3] More critically, he synchronised the placement of the panel with the reader's viewing speed to simulate moving pictures; this kind of visual dynamism was widely adopted by later manga artists.[3] In manga production as well as in film production, it gave way to the school of thought that the person who decides the allocation of panels (komawari) is credited as the author, while most drawings are done by assistants. Hasagawa's focus on daily life and women's experiences also came to characterize latershōjo manga.[43][47][50]
In the 1950s and 1960s, increasingly larger audiences for manga emerged in Japan with the solidification of its two main marketing genres:shōnen manga aimed at boys, andshōjo manga aimed at girls.[51] Until 1969,shōjo manga was primarily drawn by adult men for young female readers.[52]
Two very popular and influential male-authored manga for girls from this period were Tezuka's 1953-1956Ribon no Kishi (Princess Knight) andMitsuteru Yokoyama's 1966Mahōtsukai Sarī (Sally the Witch).Ribon no Kishi dealt with the adventures of Princess Sapphire of a fantasy kingdom who had been born with male and female souls, and whose sword-swinging battles and romances blurred the boundaries of otherwise rigid gender roles.[3] Sarī, the pre-teen princess heroine ofMahōtsukai Sarī,[Note 2] came from her home in the magical lands to live on Earth, go to school, and perform a variety of magical good deeds for her friends and schoolmates.[53] Yokoyama was influenced by the US TV sitcomBewitched,[54] but unlike Samantha (the main character ofBewitched, a married woman with her own daughter), Sarī is a pre-teenager who faces the problems of growing up and mastering the responsibilities of forthcoming adulthood.Sally the Witch helped create themahō shōjo, or "magical girl," subgenre of manga (which became popular in the early 21st century).[53] Both series were, and still are, very popular.
In 1969, a variety of female manga artists, later called theYear 24 Group (also known asMagnificent 24s), made theirshōjo, meaning/for girl, manga debut ("year 24" comes from the yearShōwa 24 on theJapanese calendar, or 1949 on theGregorian calendar, when some of these artists were born).[55][56] The group includedHagio Moto,Riyoko Ikeda,Yumiko Ōshima,Keiko Takemiya, andRyoko Yamagishi,[43] which marked the first major entry of female artists into manga.[3][43] Thereafter,shōjo manga would be drawn primarily by female artists for an audience of girls and young women.[3][51][52]
In 1971, Ikeda began her immensely popularshōjo mangaBerusaiyu no Bara (The Rose of Versailles), the story ofOscar François de Jarjayes, a cross-dressing woman who was a captain inMarie Antoinette's Palace Guards in pre-Revolutionary France.[3][43][57][58] At the end of the series (which originally ran from 1972 to 1973), Oscar dies as a revolutionary leading a charge of her troops against theBastille. Likewise, Moto's work challenged Japan's Neo-Confucianist limits on women's roles and activities.[44][45][46] Her 1975shōjoscience fiction story,They Were Eleven, tells the story of a young female cadet in a future space academy.[59]
These women also innovated stylistic choices of the art form. In its focus on the heroine's inner experiences and feelings,shōjo manga are "picture poems"[60] with delicate and complex designs that often eliminate panel borders completely to create prolonged, non-narrative extensions of time.[3][43][51][52][61] The group's contributions in their stories – strong and independent female characters, intense emotionality, and complex design – remain characteristic ofshōjo manga to the present day.[50][57]
In the following decades (1975–present),shōjo manga developed stylistically while simultaneously evolving overlapping subgenres.[62] Major subgenres have included romance, superheroines, and "Ladies Comics" (in Japanese,redisu (レディース),redikomi (レディコミ), andjosei (女性 じょせい)), of which boundaries are sometimes indistinguishable from each other and fromshōnen manga.[19][43] Shõjo and shõnen manga are often contrasted with their themes. Strength and action represent shõnen, while Shõjo is seen as more interior and about human relationships. Shõjo though is not always like this, and can break beyond this interior feeling.[63]
In modernshōjo manga romance, love is a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization.[64] Japanese manga/anime critic Eri Izawa defines romance as symbolizing "the emotional, the grand, the epic; the taste of heroism, fantastic adventure, and the melancholy; passionate love, personal struggle, and eternal longing" set into imaginative, individualistic, and passionate narrative frameworks.[65] These romances are sometimes long narratives that can distinguish between false and true love, coping withsexual intercourse, and growing up in an ambivalent world; these themes are inherited by subsequent animated versions of the story.[51][64][66] These "coming of age," orBildungsroman, themes occur in bothshōjo andshōnen manga.[Note 3][67]
In theBildungsroman, theprotagonist must deal with adversity and conflict.[67] Examples of romantic conflict inshōjo manga are common, as exhibited inMiwa Ueda'sPeach Girl,[68][69] andFuyumi Soryo'sMars.[70] Examples for older readers includeMoyoco Anno'sHappy Mania,[52][71] Yayoi Ogawa'sTramps Like Us, andAi Yazawa'sNana.[72][73] In anothershōjo mangaBildungsroman narrative device, the young heroine is transported to an alien place or time where she meets strangers and must survive on her own (including Moto'sThey Were Eleven,[74] Kyoko Hikawa'sFrom Far Away,[75]Yû Watase'sFushigi Yûgi: The Mysterious Play, andBe-Papas'sWorld of the S&M(The World Exists For Me)[76]).
Another narrative device involves meeting unusual or strange people and beings; for example,Natsuki Takaya'sFruits Basket[77]—one of the most popularshōjo manga in theUnited States[78]—whose orphaned heroine, Tohru must survive living in the woods in a house filled with people who can transform into the animals of theChinese zodiac. This device is also used in Harako Iida'sCrescent Moon, wherein heroine Mahiru meets a group ofsupernatural beings, and discovers that she too has a supernatural ancestry when she and a youngtengu demon fall in love.[79]
With superheroines,shōjo manga continued to break away from the Neo-Confucianist norms of female meekness and obedience.[19][51]Naoko Takeuchi'sSailor Moon (Bishōjo Senshi Sēramūn: "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon") — one of thebest-sellingshōjo manga series of all time — is a sustained, 18-volume narrative about a group of young heroines simultaneously heroic and introspective, active and emotional, as well as dutiful and ambitious.[80][81] The combination proved extremely successful, andSailor Moon became internationally popular in both manga and anime formats.[80][82] Another example isCLAMP'sMagic Knight Rayearth, whose three young heroines - Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu - are magically transported to the world of Cefiro to become armed magical warriors and defend it from internal and external enemies.[83]
The superheroine subgenre also extensively developed the notion of teams (sentai) of girls working together,[84] which includes the "Sailor Senshi" inSailor Moon, the Magic Knights inMagic Knight Rayearth, and the Mew Mew girls fromMia Ikumi'sTokyo Mew Mew.[85] Presently, the superheroine narrative template has been widely used and parodied within theshōjo manga tradition (e.g.,Nao Yazawa'sWedding Peach[86] andHyper Rune byTamayo Akiyama[87]), as well as outside it, (e.g., inbishōjo comedies likeBroccoli'sGalaxy Angel).[88]
Starting in the mid-1980s, as women who readshōjo manga as teenagers matured, the artists elaborated subgenres to fit their audience.[62] This "Ladies' Comics," orjosei, subgenre has dealt with themes of young adulthood: jobs, the emotions and problems of sexual intercourse, and friendships or love among women.[89][90][91][92]
Josei (also calledRedisu) manga retains many of the narrative stylistics ofshōjo manga, with the main difference being that it is created by (and for) adult women.[93]Redisu manga and art have often been (though not always) sexually explicit, but the content has characteristically been set into thematic narratives of pleasure and erotic arousal combined with emotional risk.[19][89][90] Examples includeRyō Ramiya'sLuminous Girls,[94]Masako Watanabe'sKinpeibai,[95] and the work ofShungicu Uchida.[96] One subgenre ofredisu manga deals with emotional and sexual relationships among women (yuri),[97] shown in work byErica Sakurazawa,[98]Ebine Yamaji,[99] andChiho Saito.[100] Other subgenres ofredisu manga have also developed, e.g., fashion (oshare) manga, like Ai Yazawa'sParadise Kiss[101][102] and horror-vampire-gothic manga, likeMatsuri Hino'sVampire Knight,[103]Kaori Yuki'sCain Saga,[104] andMitsukazu Mihara'sDOLL,[105] which interact with street fashions, costume play ("cosplay"),J-Pop music, andgoth subcultures in various ways.[106][107][108]
Manga for male readers can be characterized in different ways. One is by the age of its intended audience: boys up to 18 years old (shōnen manga) and young men between the ages of 18 and 30 years old (seinen manga).[109] Another approach is by its content, an example being action-adventure that often involves male heroes, slapstick humor, themes of honor, and sometimes explicit sex.[110][Note 4] Japanese uses different kanji for two closely allied meanings of "seinen"—青年 for "youth, young man"; the second referring to pornographic manga aimed at grown men — 成年 for "adult, majority" — also calledseijin ("adult," 成人) manga.[111][Note 5][112]Shōnen,seinen, andseijin manga share a number of features in common. Boys and young men were among the earliest readers of manga after World War II.[113] From the 1950s on,shōnen manga focused on topics thought to interest the archetypical boy: sci-tech subjects like robots and space travel, and heroic action-adventure.[114][115] Earlyshōnen andseinen manga narratives often portrayed challenges to the protagonist's abilities, skills, and maturity; they stressed self-perfection, austere self-discipline, sacrifice in the cause of duty, and honorable service to society, community, family, and friends.[113][116]
The late 1970s through the 1980s decade featured a pioneering movement called theNew Wave that challenged the stereotypes associated with older Gekiga manga, the Disney-influenced style ofOsamu Tezuka, and old art styles. It prized realism, adult rebellion, and psychological themes often found in seinen manga, of which many such themes were portrayed in science fiction and fantasy manga. The new stars of this movement wereKatsuhiro Otomo,Fumiko Takano, andHisaichi Ishii.[117][118]
Manga with solitary costumed superheroes, likeSuperman,Batman, andSpider-Man, did not become popular as ashōnen genre.[113] An exception isKia Asamiya'sBatman: Child of Dreams, released in Japan byKodansha in 2000, and in the US byDC Comics in 2003. However, loneantiheroes occur inTakao Saito'sGolgo 13, andKazuo Koike andGoseki Kojima'sLone Wolf and Cub.Golgo 13 tells the story of an assassin, named "Golgo 13" among otheraliases, who puts his skills to the service of world peace and other social goals;[119] and Ogami Itto, the swordsman-hero ofLone Wolf and Cub, is a widower caring for his son Daigoro while he seeks vengeance against his wife's murderers. However, Golgo and Itto remain mortal men throughout their stories, and neither of them ever displays superpowers. Instead, these stories "journey into the hearts and minds of men" by remaining on the plane of human psychology and motivation.[120]
Manyshōnen manga havescience fiction and technology elements. Early examples in the robot subgenre include Tezuka'sAstro Boy, andFujiko Fujio's 1969Doraemon about a robot cat and the boy he lives with, which was aimed at younger boys.[121] The robot theme evolved extensively, from Yokoyama's 1956Tetsujin 28-gō to more complex stories where the protagonist must not only defeat enemies, but learn to master themselves and cooperate with themecha they control.[122] This newarchetype was put on display inNeon Genesis Evangelion byYoshiyuki Sadamoto, where Shinji struggles against the enemy and his father; it was repeated inThe Vision of Escaflowne byKatsu Aki, where Van not only makes war against Dornkirk's empire, but must deal with his complex feelings for Hitomi, the heroine.
Sports themes are popular in manga aimed at male readers.[113] These stories stress self-discipline, depicting not only the excitement of sports competition but also the character traits the hero needs to transcend his limitations and triumph.[113] Examples include boxing (Tetsuya Chiba's 1968-1973Tomorrow's Joe[123] andRumiko Takahashi's 1987One-Pound Gospel) and basketball (Takehiko Inoue’s 1990Slam Dunk[124]).
Supernatural settings have been a source of action-adventure plots inshōnen (and someshōjo manga), in which the hero must master challenges. Sometimes the protagonist fails, as inTsugumi Ohba andTakeshi Obata'sDeath Note, where Light Yagami receives a notebook from a Death God (shinigami) that kills anyone whose name is written in it. Inshōjo manga, there isHakase Mizuki'sThe Demon Ororon, whose protagonist abandons his demonic kingship of Hell to live (and die) on Earth. Sometimes the protagonist themselves are supernatural, like theseinenKouta Hirano'sHellsing; it tells of vampire heroAlucard who battles reborn Nazis hellbent on conquering England. However, the hero may also be (or was) human, battling an ever-escalating series of supernatural enemies (Hiromu Arakawa'sFullmetal Alchemist,Nobuyuki Anzai'sFlame of Recca, andTite Kubo'sBleach).
Military action-adventure stories set in the modern world (for example, about WWII) remained under suspicion of glorifying Japan's Imperial history[113] and have not become a significant part of theshōnen manga repertoire. Nonetheless, stories about fantasy or historical military adventure were not stigmatized, and manga about heroic warriors and martial artists have been extremely popular. Some are serious dramas, likeSanpei Shirato'sThe Legend of Kamui andNobuhiro Watsuki'sRurouni Kenshin, while others contain strongly humorous elements, likeAkira Toriyama'sDragon Ball.
Although stories about modern war and its weapons do exist, they often deal with more of the psychological and moral problems of war versus with sheer shoot-'em-up adventure.[113] Examples include Katushiro Otomo'sAkira (manga) which is considered to have popularized the manga medium worldwide with its animefilm in 1988, and Seiho Takizawa'sWho Fighter, an adaptation ofJoseph Conrad'sHeart of Darkness that tells of a renegade Japanese colonel set in WWII Burma;Kaiji Kawaguchi'sThe Silent Service, about a Japanese nuclear submarine; and theseinenMotofumi Kobayashi'sCat Shit One (released asApocalypse Meow in the U.S.) about theVietnam War told intalking animal format. Other battle and fight-oriented manga sometimes focus on criminal and espionage conspiracies to be overcome by the protagonist, such as inCrying Freeman by Kazuo Koike andRyoichi Ikegami,[125]City Hunter byTsukasa Hojo, and theshōjo seriesFrom Eroica with Love byYasuko Aoike, a long-running crime-espionage story combining adventure, action, and humor (and another example of how these themes occur across demographics).
For manga critics Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma,[126] such battle stories endlessly repeat the same mindless themes of violence, which they sardonically label the "Shonen Manga Plot Shish Kebob", where fights follow fights like meat skewered on a stick.[127] Other commentators suggest that fight sequences and violence incomics serve as a social outlet for otherwise dangerous impulses.[128]Shōnen manga and its extreme warriorship have been parodied in, for example,Mine Yoshizaki'sscrewball comedySgt. Frog (namedKeroro Gunso in Japan), about a platoon of slacker alien frogs who invade the Earth and end up free-loading off the Hinata family in Tokyo.[129]
In earlyshōnen manga, males played all the major roles, with females having only auxiliary places as sisters, mothers, and occasionally girlfriends. Of the nine cyborgs inShotaro Ishinomori's 1964Cyborg 009, only one is female, and she soon vanishes from the action. Some recentshōnen manga virtually omit women, e.g., the martial arts storyBaki the Grappler byKeisuke Itagaki and the supernatural fantasySand Land byAkira Toriyama. However, by the 1980s, girls and women began to play increasingly important roles inshōnen; for example, the main character in Toriyama'sDr. Slump (1980) is the mischievous and powerful girl robotArale Norimaki.
The role of girls and women in manga for male readers has evolved considerably since Arale. One class is the "beautiful girl" (bishōjo).[Note 6] Sometimes thebishōjo is unattainable, but she is generally an object of the hero's emotional and sexual interest; an example beingBelldandy fromOh My Goddess! byKōsuke Fujishima, or Shaorin fromMamotte Shugogetten byMinene Sakurano.[130] In other stories, the hero is surrounded by such girls and women, as inNegima! byKen Akamatsu andHanaukyo Maid Team byMorishige.[131] The male protagonist does not always succeed in forming a relationship with thebishōjo; for example, when Bright Honda and Aimi Komori fail to bond inShadow Lady byMasakazu Katsura. In some cases, a successful couple's sexual activities are depicted or implied, like inOutlanders byJohji Manabe.[132] Other stories feature an initially naive hero subsequently learning how to deal and live with women emotionally and sexually, like Yota inVideo Girl Ai byMasakazu Katsura, Densha Otoko ("Train Man") in theseinenDensha Otoko byHidenori Hara, and Makoto inFutari Ecchi by Katsu Aki.[133][134] In erotic manga (seijin manga), often calledhentai manga in the US, a sexual relationship is taken for granted and depicted explicitly, as in work byToshiki Yui.[135] Other examples areWere-Slut by Jiro Chiba andSlut Girl byIsutoshi.[136] The result is various depictions of boys and men, from naive to very sexually experienced.
Heavily armed female warriors (sentō bishōjo) represent another class of girls and women in manga for male readers.[Note 7] Somesentō bishōjo are battle cyborgs, like Alita fromBattle Angel Alita byYukito Kishiro,Motoko Kusanagi fromMasamune Shirow'sGhost in the Shell, and Chise fromShin Takahashi'sSaikano. Others are human, like Attim M-Zak fromHiroyuki Utatane'sSeraphic Feather, Johji Manabe's Karula Olzen fromDrakuun, and Alita Forland (Falis) fromSekihiko Inui'sMurder Princess.[137]
As of 2013, national censorship laws and local ordinances remain in Japan. The public response to the publication of manga with sexual content or the depiction of nudity has been mixed. Series have an audience and sell well, but their publication also encounters opposition. In the early 1990s, the opposition resulted in the creation ofHarmful manga lists and a shift in the publishing industry. By this time, large publishers had created a general manga demand. Still, the result is that they were also susceptible to public opinion in their markets. Faced with criticism from certain segments of the population and under pressure from industry groups to self-regulate, major publishing houses discontinued series, such asAngel and1+2=Paradise; smaller publication companies, not as susceptible to these forces, were able to fill the void.[7][138]
With the relaxation of censorship in Japan after the early 1990s, various forms of graphically drawn sexual content appeared in manga intended for male readers that correspondingly occurred in English translations.[112] These depictions ranged from partial to total nudity through implied and explicit sexual intercourse throughsadomasochism (SM),incest,rape, and sometimeszoophilia (bestiality).[139] In some cases, rape and lust-murder themes came to the forefront, as inUrotsukidōji byToshio Maeda[140] andBlue Catalyst (1994) by Kei Taniguchi.[141] However, these extreme elements are not commonplace in manga.[142]
Gekigaliterally translates to "dramatic pictures" and refers to a form ofaesthetic realism in manga.[143][144]Gekiga-style storytelling tends to be emotionally dark, adult-oriented, and sometimes deeply violent, focusing on the day-in, day-out realities of life, and often drawn in gritty fashion.[145][146] The artform arose in the late 1950s into the 1960s, partly from left-wing student and working class political activism,[143][147] and partly from the aesthetic dissatisfaction of young manga artists likeYoshihiro Tatsumi with existing manga.[148][149] One example isSanpei Shirato'sChronicles of a Ninja's Military Accomplishments (Ninja Bugeichō) (1959–1962), the story of Kagemaru, the leader of a peasant rebellion in the 16th century, which dealt directly with oppression and class struggle.[150] Another example isHiroshi Hirata'sSatsuma Gishiden, about uprisings against theTokugawa shogunate.[151]
Gekiga can be seen as the Japanese equivalent of thegraphic novel culture occurring in Europe (Hugo Pratt,Didier Comès, andJacques Tardi), in the U.S. (Will Eisner'sA Contract with God,Art Spiegelman'sMaus, andRobert Crumb's autobiographical works) and in South America (Alberto Breccia andHéctor Germán Oesterheld). For that reason, typical graphic novel publishers, such asDrawn & Quarterly andFantagraphics, started publishing many English versions of Japanesegekiga highlights in recent years.
As the social protest of these early years waned,gekiga shifted in meaning towards socially conscious, mature drama and theavant-garde.[144][149][152] Examples include Koike and Kojima'sLone Wolf and Cub,[153] and Osamu Tezuka's 1976 mangaMW, a bitter story of the aftermath of the storage and possibly deliberate release of poison gas by the U.S. armed forces based inOkinawa years after World War II.[154]Gekiga and the social consciousness it embodies remain alive in modern-day manga. An example isIkebukuro West Gate Park (2001) byIra Ishida and Sena Aritō, a story of street thugs, rape, and vengeance set on the social margins of the wealthyIkebukuro district of Tokyo.[155]
Some books that aim to further the understand/history of manga are as follows: Drawing New Color Lines by Monica Chiu, Dreamland Japan by Frederick L. Schodt, God of Comics by Natsu Onoda Power, Japanese Visual Culture by Mark W. MacWilliams, Manga by Paul Gravett, Manga! Manga! by Frederik L. Schodt; Osamu Tezuka (Introduction by), One Thousand Years of Manga by Brigitte Koyama-Richard, Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girls' Culture in Japan by Deborah M. Shamoon, and Traditional Monster Imagery in Manga, Anime and Japanese Cinema by Zília Papp.[156]
{{cite journal}}:|archive-url= is malformed: timestamp (help);Cite journal requires|journal= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link);Were-Slut, by Jiro Chiba. Eros Comix, Nos. 1-8, 2001-2002;"Archived copy". Archived fromthe original on October 24, 2006. RetrievedJanuary 16, 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link). Accessed 2007-12-28.| Formats | |||||||||||
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