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== Sandbox for History of Manga article ==
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I am no longer editing here. [[User:Timothy Perper|Timothy Perper]] 23:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
'''Please do not make changes directly on the draft text.''' It causes chaos -- and I speak from experience. Instead, put comments, criticisms, and suggestions below the text under a separate heading. Thanks. [[User:Timothy Perper|Timothy Perper]] 10:25, 27 September 2008 (CDT)
 
== History of Manga Article ==
 
This is a highly modified version of an article I wrote for Wikipedia. It has new material and has been edited substantially.
 
'''NOW WE REPLACE ALL THE ACCURSED URLS FOR MANGA WITH REAL REFS'''
 
 
== Introduction==
 
'''This essay is an extensively modified, rewritten, and rereferenced version of the ''History of Manga'' entry from Wikipedia.'''
 
Manga is a Japanese word meaning "comics" or "cartoon." The word itself dates to the late 18th century<ref name="Kern2006">Kern, Adam. 2006. ''Manga from the Floating World: Comicbook Culture and the Kibyoshi of Edo Japan.'' Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674022661.</ref> and was used by the great 18-19th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai for some of his drawings and sketches<ref name="Hokusai">Bouquillard, Jocelyn and Christophe Marquet. 2007. ''Hokusai: First Manga Master.'' New York: Abrams.</ref> but stories told in pictures and sometimes words date back to 13th century Japan.<ref name="Schodt1986">Schodt, Frederik L. 1986. ''Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics.'' Tokyo: Kodansha. ISBN 978-0870117527.</ref> This article outlines debates and events in the history of manga.
 
== Debates about the Origins of Manga ==
Historians of manga see two broad processes shaping modern manga. Their views differ in how much importance is assigned to events after World War II versus events before the war and in Meiji and pre-Meiji Japanese culture and art. These differences of opinion are, in part, arguments over the role of non-Japanese influences, e.g., of the United States, compared to older and far more purely Japanese influences in shaping the art of Japan. Because these issues deal with Japanese national pride, they can become quite heated.
 
Japanese writers like Takashi Murakami stress events after World War II as crucial for shaping modern manga. Murakami sees Japan's staggering defeat and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as having created long-lasting scars on the Japanese artistic psyche, which, in his view, lost its previously virile confidence in itself and sought solace in harmless and cute (''kawaii'') images.<ref name="Mur1">Murakami, Takashi, Curator. 2005. Museum Exhibition: "Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture." Japan Society. New York, New York, April 9 to July 24, 2005.</ref><ref name="Mur2">Murakami, Takashi, Editor. 2005. ''Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture.'' New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10285-2 and NY:Japan Society. ISBN 0-913304-57-3.</ref><ref name="BBrev">Benzon, William. 2007. "Review: Godzilla’s Children: Murakami Takes Manhattan." ''Mechademia: An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts,'' 2:283-287.</ref> Takayumi Tatsumi also sees a major role for events after World War II, but instead of war, for him a special role exists for a transpacific economic and cultural transnationalism that created a postmodern and shared international youth culture of cartooning, film, television, music, and related popular arts. For Tatsumi, the crucible in which modern manga have developed is post-modernism, not bitter memories of war, immense destruction, and ultimate defeat.<ref name="Tatsumi">Tatsumi, Takayumi. 2006. ''Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America.'' Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3774-6.</ref>
 
For Murakami and Tatsumi, transnationalism (or globalization) refers specifically to the flow of cultural and subcultural material from one nation to another and to how artistic, aesthetic, and intellectual traditions influence each other across national boundaries.<ref name="Mur1"/><ref name="Mur2"/><ref name="Tatsumi"/> An example of cultural transnationalism is the creation of ''Star Wars'' films in the United States, their transformation into manga by Japanese artists, and the marketing of ''Star Wars'' manga to the United States.<ref>Star Wars manga: http://www.darkhorse.com/Search/Browse/Star+Wars+Manga/PpwNwkt8 (Accessed September 28, 2008).</ref> Another example is the transfer of hip-hop culture from the United States to Japan.<ref name="Condry">Condry, Ian. 2006. ''Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Path of Cultural Globalization.'' Durham, NC:Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3892-0.</ref> Wong also sees a major role for transnationalism in the recent history of manga.<ref name="Wong 2006">Wong, Wendy Siuyi. 2006. "Globalizing manga: From Japan to Hong Kong and beyond." ''Mechademia: An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts,'' 1:23-45.</ref>
 
Nonetheless, other writers stress continuity of Japanese cultural and aesthetic traditions as central to the history of manga. They include Frederik L. Schodt,<ref name="Schodt1986"/><ref name="Schodt1996">Schodt, Frederik L. 1996. ''Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga.'' Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press. ISBN  978-1880656235.</ref> Kinko Ito,<ref name="Ito 2000">Ito, Kinko. 2004. "Growing up Japanese reading manga." ''International Journal of Comic Art'', 6:392-401.</ref> and Adam L. Kern.<ref name ="Kern2006"/><ref name="Kern2007">Kern, Adam. 2007. "Symposium: Kibyoshi: The World's First Comicbook?" ''International Journal of Comic Art'', 9:1-486.</ref> Schodt points to the existence in the 1200s of illustrated picture scrolls like the Toba-e scrolls that told stories in sequential images with humor and wit.<ref name="Schodt1986" /> Schodt also stresses continuities of aesthetic style and vision between ''ukiyo-e'' and ''shunga'' woodblock prints and modern manga (all three fulfill Will Eisner's criteria for sequential art.<ref name="Eisner">Eisner, Will. 1985. ''Comics & Sequential Art.'' Tamarac, Fl: Poorhouse Press. ISBN 0-9614728-0-2.}</ref>
 
Schodt also sees a particularly significant role for ''kamishibai'', a form of street theater where itinerant artists displayed pictures in a light box while narrating the story to audiences in the street.<ref name="Schodt1986" /> Richard Torrance has pointed to similarities between modern manga and the Osaka popular novel between the 1890s and 1940, and argues that the development of widespread literacy in Meiji and post-Meiji Japan helped create audiences for stories told in words and pictures.<ref name="Torrance">Torrance, Richard. 2005. "Literacy and literature in Osaka, 1890-1940." Journal of Japanese Studies, 31(1):27-60. Web version: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_japanese_studies/v031/31.1torrance.html (Accessed September 16, 2007</ref> Kinko Ito also roots manga historically in aesthetic continuity with pre-Meiji art, but she sees its post-World War II history as driven in part by consumer enthusiasm for the rich imagery and narrative of the newly developing manga tradition. Ito 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 in the 1980s (in Japanese, also called ''redisu'' レディース, ''redikomi'' レヂィーコミ, and ''josei'' 女性 じょせい manga).<ref name="Ito 2000" />
 
Kern has suggested that ''kibyōshi'', illustrated picture books from the late 1700s, may have been the world's first comic books.<ref name ="Kern2006" /> These graphical narratives share with modern manga humorous, satirical, and romantic themes.<ref name ="Kern2006" /> Although Kern does not believe that ''kibyōshi'' were a direct forerunner of manga, for Kern the existence of ''kibyōshi'' nonetheless points to a Japanese willingness to mix words and pictures in a popular story-telling medium.<ref name="Kern2007" /> The first recorded use of the term "manga" to mean "whimsical or impromptu pictures" comes from this tradition in 1798, which, Kern points out, predates Katsushika Hokusai's better known usage by several decades.<ref name="Hokusai"/>
 
Similarly, Charles Shirō Inoue sees manga as being a mixture of image- and word-centered elements, each pre-dating the U.S. 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, whereas word-centered or "logocentric" art, like the novel, was stimulated by social and economic needs of Meiji and pre-War Japanese nationalism to create a populace unified by a common written language. Both fuse in what Inoue sees as a symbiosis in manga.<ref name="Inoue">Inoue, Charles Shirō. 1996. "Pictocentrism—China as a source of Japanese modernity." In Sumie Jones, editor. 1996. ''Imaging/Reading Eros.'' Bloomington, IN: East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University. pp. 148-152. ISBN 0965328104.</ref>
 
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-World War II innovation and transnationalism.
 
== After World War II ==
Modern manga originates in the Occupation (1945-1952) and post-Occupation years (1952-early 1960s), when a previously militaristic and ultranationalist Japan was rebuilding its political and economic infrastructure.<ref name="Schodt1986"/><ref name = "Tchiei1998">Tchiei, Go. 1998. ''Shojo Manga: A Unique Genre.'' http://www.dnp.co.jp/museum/nmp/nmp_i/articles/manga/manga6-1.html (Accessed September 22, 2007.) </ref> Although U.S. Occupation censorship policies specifically prohibited art and writing that glorified war and Japanese militarism,<ref name="Schodt1986" /> those policies did not prevent the publication of other kinds of material, including manga. Furthermore, the 1947 Constitution of Japan|Japanese Constitution (Article 21) prohibited all forms of censorship.<ref name="Kodansha">"Japan: Profile of a Nation, Revised Edition" 1999. Tokyo: Kodansha. Article 9: page 695; article 21: page 697. ISBN 4-7700-2384-7.</ref> One result was an explosion of artistic creativity in this period.<ref name="Schodt1986" />
 
In the forefront of this period are two manga series and characters that influenced much of the future history of manga. These are Osamu Tezuka's ''Mighty Atom'' (''Astro Boy'' in the United States; begun in 1951) and Machiko Hasegawa's ''Sazae-san'' (begun in 1946).
 
Astro Boy was both a superpowered robot and a naive little boy.<ref name="Schodt2007">Schodt, Frederik L. 2007. ''The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution.'' Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press. ISBN 978-1933330549.</ref> 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.<ref name="Schodt2007" /> Both 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 of Japanese imperialism.<ref name="Schodt2007" /> ''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 also seen in Article 9 of the Japanese constitution.<ref name="Kodansha" /><ref name="Schodt2007" /> Similar themes occur in Tezuka's ''New World'' and ''Metropolis''.<ref name="Schodt1986" /><ref name="Schodt2007" />
 
By contrast, ''Sazae-san'' (meaning "Ms. Sazae") was drawn starting in 1946 by Machiko Hasegawa, a young woman artist who made her heroine a stand-in for millions of Japanese men and especially women rendered homeless by the war.<ref name = "Schodt1986"/><ref name="Gravett">Gravett, Paul. 2004. ''Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics.'' NY: Harper Design. ISBN 1-85669-391-0. p. 8.</ref> Sazae-san does not face an easy or simple life, but, like Astro Boy, she too 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 sanctioned Neo-Confucianist principles of feminine meekness and obedience to the "good wife, wise mother" (''ryōsai kenbo'', りょうさいけんぼ; 良妻賢母) ideal taught by the previous military regime.<ref name="Uno">Uno, Kathleen S. 1993. "The death of 'Good Wife, Wise Mother'." In: Andrew Gordon (editor) ''Postwar Japan as History''. Berkeley, CA: University of California. pp. 293-322. ISBN 0520074750.</ref><ref name="Ohinata">Ohinata, Masami 1995 "The mystique of motherhood: A key to understanding social change and family problems in Japan." In: Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda (editors) ''Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future''. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York. pp. 199-211. ISBN 978-1558610941.</ref><ref name="Yoshizumi">Yoshizumi, Kyoko 1995 "Marriage and family: Past and present." In: Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda (editors) ''Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future''. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York. pp. 183-197. ISBN 978-1558610941.</ref> Sazae-san faces the world with cheerful resilience,<ref name="Gravett" /><ref name="Lee 2000">Lee, William (2000). "From Sazae-san to Crayon Shin-Chan." In: Timothy J. Craig (editor) ''Japan Pop!: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture.'' Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0765605610.</ref> what Hayao Kawai calls a "woman of endurance."<ref name="Kawai">Kawai, Hayao. 1996. ''The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan.'' Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications. Chapter 7, pp. 125-142.</ref> ''Sazae-san'' sold more than 62 million copies over the next half century.<ref name="Schodt1997">Schodt, Frederik L. 1997. "Forward: The Wonderful World of Sazae-San." In: Machiko Hasegawa 1997. ''Sazae-san'' Volume 1. ***need pages*** Tokyo: Kodansha International. ISBN 978-4770020758.</ref>
 
Although Tezuka and Hasegawa both drew extensively from prior illustrative and cartoon traditions in Japan, they were also both stylistic innovators. In particular, Tezuka's "cinematographic" technique became very well known.<ref name="Onoda">Onoda, Natsu 2003. "Tezuka Osamu and the star system." ''International Journal of Comic Art'', 5:161-194.</ref> Natsu Onoda<ref name="Onoda"/> suggests that Tezuka's use of film techniques was systematic and thorough-going, involving quotations from film, e.g., from Orson Welles' ''Citizen Kane'' and William Wyler's ''The Best Years of Our Lives;'' making use of an imaginary camera for framing shots (that is, panels), for establishing movement, and for mimicking the effects of deep focus cinematography<ref name="Lamarre">Deep focus (live-action) cinematography gives effects closely related to animation techniques using the multiplanar camera; see Thomas Lamarre 2006. "The multiplanar image." ''Mechademia: An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts,'' 1:120-143.</ref>; and in the use of a "star system" in which certain manga characters appear in different roles in different stories.<ref>Such as the character Rock Home, who appears repeatedly in Tezuka's oeuvre; Onoda, ''op. cit.'', 185-189.</ref> Whether by these techniques or the skillful use of existing techniques or both, Tezuka's work has a cinematic dynamism that occurs widely in later manga.<ref name="Schodt1986" /> Hasegawa's focus on daily life and on women's experience also came to characterize later ''shōjo'' manga.<ref name="Gravett" /><ref name="Lee2000">Lee, William 2000. "From Sazae-san to Crayon Shin-Chan." In: Timothy J. Craig (editor) ''Japan Pop!: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture.'' Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0765605610.</ref><ref name="Sanchez"> Sanchez, Frank 1997-2003. "Hist 102: History of Manga." http://www.animeinfo.org/animeu/hist102.html. (Accessed on September 11, 2007.)</ref> Her intense narrative focus on everyday feelings and experience portrayed women's lives as being the dramatic equal of the adventures of male heroes who slay enemies and found empires.
 
Between 1950 and 1969, increasingly large audiences for manga emerged in Japan with the solidification of its two main marketing genres, ''shōnen'' manga aimed at boys and ''shōjo'' manga aimed at girls.<ref name="Schodt1986" /><ref name="Thorn2001">Thorn, Matt 2001. "Shôjo Manga—Something for the Girls." http://matt-thorn.com/shoujo_manga/japan_quarterly/index.html (Accessed September 22, 2007.)</ref><ref name="Toku2005">Toku, Masami, editor. 2005. ''Shojo Manga: Girl Power!'' Chico, CA: Flume Press/California State University Press. ISBN 1-886226-10-5. See also http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/cs/spring_06/feature_03.html (Accessed September 22, 2007.)</ref> Up to 1969, ''shōjo'' manga was drawn primarily by adult men for young female readers.<ref name="Schodt1986" /><ref name="Thorn2001"/>
 
Two very popular and influential male-authored manga for girls from this period were Tezuka's 1953-1956 ''Ribon no Kishi'' (''Princess Knight'' or ''Knight in Ribbons'') and Matsuteru Yokoyama's 1966 ''Mahōtsukai Sarii'' (''Little Witch Sally'').<ref name="Schodt1986" /> ''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.<ref name="Schodt1986" /> Sarii, the pre-teen princess heroine of ''Mahōtsukai Sarii,''<ref>''Sarii'' is the Japanese spelling and pronunciation of the English-language name "Sally." The word ''mahōtsukai'' literally means "magic operator," someone who can use and control magic. It does ''not'' mean "witch" or "magical girl" (which is ''mahō shōjo'' in Japanese), because ''tsukai'' is not a gendered word in Japanese. This use of an English-language name with a Japanese descriptive word is an example of transnationalism in Tatsumi's sense.</ref> 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.<ref name="Yoshida">Yoshida, Kaori 2002. ''Evolution of Female Heroes: Carnival Mode of Gender Representation in Anime.'' http://journals2.iranscience.net:800/mcel.pacificu.edu/mcel.pacificu.edu/aspac/home/papers/scholars/yoshida/yoshida.php3 (Accessed September 22, 2007.)</ref> Some U.S. writers feel that Yokoyama's ''Mahōtsukai Sarii'' was influenced by the U.S. TV sitcom ''Bewitched''<ref>Melissa, Johnson June 27, 2006. "Bewitched by Magical Girls." http://www.fpsmagazine.com/feature/060627magicalgirls.php (Accessed September 22, 2007)</ref> but Sarii is a very different character than Samantha, the protagonist of ''Bewitched''. Samantha is married woman with her own daughter, but Sarii is a pre-teenager who faces the problems of growing up and mastering the responsibilities of forthcoming adulthood. ''Mahōtsukai Sarii'' helped create the now very popular ''mahō shōjo'' or "magical girl" subgenre of later manga.<ref name="Yoshida" /> Both series were and still are very popular.<ref name="Schodt1986" /><ref name="Yoshida" />
 
=== ''Shōjo'' Manga ===
In 1969, a group of women manga artists later called the ''Year 24 Group'' (also known as ''Magnificent 24s'') made their ''shōjo'' manga debut (year 24 comes from the Japanese name for 1949, when many of these artists were born).<ref>Gravett, 2004, ''op. cit.'', pp.78-80.</ref><ref>Lent, 2001, ''op. cit.'', pp. 9-10.</ref> The group included Hagio Moto, Riyoko Ikeda, Yumiko Oshima, Keiko Takemiya, and Ryoko Yamagishi<ref name="Gravett" /> and they marked the first major entry of women artists into manga.<ref name="Schodt1986" /><ref name="Gravett" /> Thereafter, ''shōjo'' manga would be drawn primarily by women artists for an audience of girls and young women.<ref name="Schodt1986" /><ref name="Thorn2001" /><ref name="Toku2005" />
 
In 1971, Ikeda began her immensely popular ''shōjo'' manga ''Berusaiyu no Bara'' (''The Rose of Versailles''), a story of Oscar François de Jarjayes, a cross-dressing woman who was a Captain in Marie Antoinette's Palace Guards in pre-Revolutionary France.<ref name="Schodt1986" /><ref name="Tchiei1998"/><ref name="Gravett" /><ref name="ShaVer">Shamoon, Deborah. 2007. "Revolutionary romance: ''The Rose of Versailles'' and the transformation of shojo manga." ''Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and Fan Arts.'' 2:3-17.</ref> In the end, Oscar dies as a revolutionary leading a charge of her troops against the Bastille.<ref name = "BeruBara"> BB has not been translated into English, but French editions are available.</ref> Likewise, Hagio Moto's work challenged Neo-Confucianist limits on women's roles and activities <ref name="Uno" /><ref name="Ohinata" /><ref name="Yoshizumi" /> as in her 1975 ''They Were Eleven'', a ''shōjo'' science fiction story about a young woman cadet in a future space academy.<ref name = "Moto">Hagio Moto 1975/1996 "They Were Eleven." In: Matt Thorn (editor) ''Four Shojo Stories''. San Francisco: Viz. Original story published 1975; U.S. edition 1996. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4295 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref>
 
These women artists also created considerable stylistic innovations. In its focus on the heroine's inner experiences and feelings, ''shōjo'' manga are "picture poems"<ref>Schodt, 1986, ''op. cit.'', p 88.</ref> with delicate and complex designs that often eliminate panel borders completely to create prolonged, non-narrative extensions of time.<ref name="Schodt1986" /><ref name="Gravett" /><ref name="Thorn2001" /><ref name="Toku2005" /><ref name="McCloud">McCloud, Scott. 1993. ''Understanding Comics''. New York: Paradox Press. pp. 77-82.</ref> All of these innovations – strong and independent female characters, intense emotionality, and complex design – remain characteristic of ''shōjo'' manga up to the present day.<ref name="Tchiei1998" /><ref name="Sanchez" />
 
=== ''Shōjo'' Manga and Ladies' Comics from 1975 to Today ===
In the following decades (1975-present), ''shōjo'' manga continued to develop stylistically while simultaneously evolving different but overlapping subgenres.<ref name="Ogi">Ōgi, Fusami 2004. "Female subjectivity and ''shōjo'' (girls) manga (Japanese comics): ''shōjo'' in Ladies' Comics and Young Ladies' Comics." ''Journal of Popular Culture'', 36(4):780-803.</ref> Major subgenres have included romance, superheroines, and "Ladies Comics", whose boundaries are sometimes indistinguishable from each other and from ''shōnen'' manga.<ref name="Schodt1996" /><ref name = "Gravett"/>
 
In modern ''shōjo'' manga romance, love is a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization.<ref name="Drazen">Drazen, Patrick 2003. ''Anime Explosion!: the What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation''. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge.</ref> 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.<ref name="Izawa">Izawa, Eri 2000. "The romantic, passionate Japanese in anime: A look at the hidden Japanese soul." In: Timothy J. Craig (editor) ''Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture''. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 138-153. ISBN 978-0765605610. Available at http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/r/e/rei/WWW/manga-romanticism.html (Accessed September 23, 2007.)</ref> These romances are sometimes long narratives that can deal with distinguishing between false and true love, coping with sexual intercourse, and growing up in a complex world, themes inherited by subsequent animated versions of the story.<ref name="Toku2005" /><ref name="Drazen" /><ref>Schodt, 1996, ''op. cit.'', p. 14.</ref> These "coming of age" or ''bildungsroman''<ref name="Moretti">Literally, in German, ''bildungs'' = education and ''roman'' = novel, hence a novel about the education of the protagonist in "the ways of the world." Franco Moretti 1987. ''The Way of the World: The ''Bildungsroman'' in European Culture.'' London: Verso. ISBN 1859842984.</ref> themes occur in both ''shōjo'' and ''shōnen'' manga.<ref name="fn1">"The transformation into a superhero is in fact an allegory of becoming an adult." From Ludovic Graillat 2006-2007. "America vs. Japan: the Influence of American Comics on Manga." ''Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media'', volume 10. http://www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/journalissues/vol10/graillat.html (Accessed September 23, 2007.)</ref>
 
In the ''bildungsroman'', the protagonist must deal with adversity and conflict,<ref name="Moretti" /> and examples in ''shōjo'' manga of romantic conflict are common. They include Miwa Ueda's ''Peach Girl'',<ref name="PeachGirl">''Peach Girl,'' by Miwa Ueda. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 2001-ongoing. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1571 (Acccessed September 30, 2008)</ref>''Mars,'' by Fuyumi Soryo's ''Mars'',<ref>''Mars,'' by Fuyumi Soryo.  Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 2002-2003. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1567 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> and, for mature readers, Moyoco Anno's ''Happy Mania'',<ref>''Happy Mania,'' by Moyoco Anno. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, Vols. 1-11, 2003-2004. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2771 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> Yayoi Ogawa's ''Tramps Like Us,''<ref>''Tramps Like Us,'' by Yayoi Ogawa. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, Vols. 1-12, 2004-2007. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=3877 (Accessed September 26, 2007)</ref> and Ai Yazawa's ''Nana''.<ref>''Nana,'' by Ai Yazawa. San Francisco: Viz, Vols. 1-ongoing, 2007. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2745 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref>
 
In another ''shōjo'' manga ''bildungsroman'' narrative device, the young heroine is transported to an alien place or time where she meets strangers and must survive on her own. Examples include Hagio Moto's ''They Were Eleven'',<ref name = "Moto"/> Kyoko Hikawa's ''From Far Away'',<ref>''From Far Away,'' by Kyoko Hikawa. San Francisco: Viz, Vols. 1-14, 2004-2006. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=3101 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> Yû Watase's ''Fushigi Yûgi: The Mysterious Play'',<ref name="Fushigi">''Fushigi Yûgi: The Mysterious Play,'' by Yû Watase. San Francisco: Viz, Vols. 1-9, 1999-2001. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1539 (Accessed September 26, 2007)</ref> and Chiho Saitō's ''The World Exists For Me''.<ref>''The World Exists For Me,'' by Chiho Saitō and Be-PaPas. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 2 Vols., 2005-2006. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4244 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref>
 
Yet another such device involves meeting unusual or strange people and beings, for example, Natsuki Takaya's ''Fruits Basket'',<ref name="FB">''Fruits Basket,'' by Natsuki Takaya. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, Vols. 1-20, 2004-2008. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2335 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> whose orphaned heroine Tohru must survive living in the woods in a house filled with people who can transform into the animals of the Chinese zodiac. In Harako Iida's ''Crescent Moon'', heroine Mahiru meets a group of supernatural beings, finally to discover that she herself too has a supernatural ancestry when she and a young tengu demon fall in love.<ref name="Cresc">''Crescent Moon,'' by Harako Iida. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 6 Vols., 2004-2005. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=3151 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref>
 
With the superheroines, ''shōjo'' manga continued to break away from neo-Confucianist norms of female meekness and obedience.<ref name="Schodt1996" /><ref name="Toku2005" /> Naoko Takeuchi's ''Sailor Moon'' (''Bishōjo Senshi Sēramūn'': "Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon") is a sustained, 18-volume narrative about a group of young heroines simultaneously heroic and introspective, active and emotional, dutiful and ambitious.<ref name="Allison">Allison, Anne 2000. "Sailor Moon: Japanese superheroes for global girls." In: Timothy J. Craig (editor) ''Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture''. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 259-278. ISBN 978-0765605610.</ref><ref name="Grigsby">Grigsby, Mary 1999 "The social production of gender as reflected in two Japanese culture industry products: ''Sailormoon'' and ''Crayon Shinchan''." In: John A. Lent, editor ''Themes and Issues in Asian Cartooning: Cute, Cheap, Mad, and Sexy.'' Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. pp. 183-210. ISBN 0879727802.</ref> The combination proved extremely successful, and ''Sailor Moon'' became internationally popular in both manga and anime formats.<ref name="Allison" /><ref>Schodt, 1996, ''op. cit.'', p 92.</ref> Another example is CLAMP's ''Magic Knight Rayearth,'' whose three young heroines, Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu, are magically transported to the world of Cephiro to become armed magical warriors in the service of saving Cephiro from internal and external enemies.<ref name="MKR1">'' Magic Knight Rayearth,'' by CLAMP. Tokyopop, 6 Vols., 1998-2001. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1565 (Accessed September 26, 2007)</ref>
 
The superheroine subgenre also extensively developed the notion of teams (''sentai'') of girls working together,<ref name="Poitras">Poitras, Gilles 2001. ''Anime Essentials: Everything a Fan Needs to Know.'' Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge. ISBN 1880656531.</ref> like the Sailor Senshi in ''Sailor Moon'', the Magic Knights in ''Magic Knight Rayearth'', and the Mew Mew girls from Mia Ikumi's ''Tokyo Mew Mew''.<ref>''Tokyo Mew Mew,'' by Mia Ikumi and Reiko Yoshida. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 7 Vols., 2003-2004. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2719 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> By today, the superheroine narrative template has been widely used and parodied within the ''shōjo'' manga tradition (e.g., Nao Yazawa's ''Wedding Peach''<ref>'' Wedding Peach,'' by Nao Yazawa. San Francisco: Viz, 6 Vols., 2003-2004. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2790 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> and ''Hyper Rune'' by Tamayo Akiyama<ref>'' Hyper Rune,'' by Tamayo Akiyama. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 4 Vols., 2004-2005. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/right-turn-only/2004-11-20 (Accessed September 26, 2007)</ref> and in ''bishōjo'' comedies like Kanan's ''Galaxy Angel''.<ref>''Galaxy Angel,'' by Kanan. NEED CITY: Broccoli Books, 5 Vols., 2004-2005. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=3242 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref>
 
In the mid-1980s and thereafter, as girls who had read ''shōjo'' manga as teenagers matured and entered the job market, ''shōjo'' manga elaborated subgenres directed at women in their 20s and 30s.<ref name="Ogi" /> This "Ladies Comic" or ''redisu''-''josei'' subgenre has dealt with themes of young adulthood: jobs, the emotions and problems of sexual intercourse, and friendships or love among women.<ref name="Ogi" /><ref name="Ito1">Ito, Kinko 2002. "The world of Japanese 'Ladies Comics': From romantic fantasy to lustful perversion." ''Journal of Popular Culture'', 36(1):68-85.</ref><ref name="Ito2">Ito, Kinko 2003. "Japanese Ladies' Comics as agents of socialization: The lessons they teach." ''International Journal of Comic Art'', 5(2):425-436.</ref><ref name="Jones">Jones, Gretchen 2002. "'Ladies' Comics': Japan's not-so-underground market in pornography for women." ''U.S.-Japan Women's Journal (English Supplement)'', Number 22, pp. 3-31.</ref><ref name="Shamoon">Shamoon, Deborah. 2004. "Office slut and rebel flowers: The pleasures of Japanese pornographic comics for women." In: Linda Williams (editor) ''Porn Studies''. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp. 77-103. ISBN 0822333120.</ref>
 
''Redisu'' manga retains many of the narrative stylistics of ''shōjo'' manga but has been drawn by and written for adult women.<ref>Schodt, 1996, ''op. cit.'', pp 124-129.</ref> ''Redisu'' manga and art has been often, but not always, sexually explicit, but sexuality is characteristically set into complex narratives of pleasure and erotic arousal combined with emotional risk.<ref name="Schodt1996" /><ref name="Ito1" /><ref name="Ito2" /> Examples include Ryō Ramiya's ''Luminous Girls'',<ref name="Ryo">Ryō Ramiya (no date) "Luminous Girls." Tokyo: France Shoin Comic House. ISBN 4829682019.</ref> Masako Watanabe's ''Kinpeibai'',<ref>Toku, 2005, ''op. cit.'', p. 59.</ref> and the work of Shungicu Uchida.<ref>Schodt, 1996, ''op. cit.'', pp. 173-177.</ref><ref name = "ShaUch">Shamoon, Deborah 2003. "Focalization and narrative voice in the novels and comics of Uchida Shungicu." ''International Journal of Comic Art,'' 5:147-160.</ref> Another subgenre of ''shōjo''-''redisu'' manga deals with emotional and sexual relationships among women (''akogare'' and ''yuri''),<ref name="Yuri">Bando, Kishiji ''Shoujo yuri manga guide.'' http://www.yuricon.org/essays/symg.html (Accessed September 26, 2007)</ref> in work by Erica Sakurazawa,<ref name="Sakurazawa">For Erica Sakurazawa see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=15854 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> Ebine Yamaji,<ref name="Yamaji">For Ebine Yamaji see "Fan translations of Ebine Yamaji's yuri manga." http://gaycomicslist.free.fr/pages/blogarch.php?month=2006-10 (Accessed September 26, 2007)</ref> and Chiho Saito.<ref>For Chiho Saito see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=5158 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref><ref name = "Kotani">Kotani, Mari 2006. "Metamorphosis of the Japanese girl: The girl, the hyper-girl, and the battling beauty." ''Mechademia, An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts'', 1:162-169.</ref><ref name="PCUtena"> Perper, Timothy & Martha Cornog 2006. "In the sound of the bells: Freedom and revolution in ''Revolutionary Girl Utena''." ''Mechademia, An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts'', 1:183-186.</ref>
 
Other subgenres of ''shōjo''-''redisu'' manga have also developed, e.g., fashion (''oshare'') manga, like Ai Yazawa's ''Paradise Kiss''<ref>''Paradise Kiss,'' by Ai Yazawa. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 5 Vols., 2002-2004. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1569 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> and horror-vampire-gothic manga, like Matsuri Hino's ''Vampire Knight'',<ref>For ''Vampire Knight'' see http://www.shojobeat.com/manga/vk/ (Accessed September 26, 2007)</ref> Kaori Yuki's ''Cain Saga'',<ref name="Cain">For ''Cain'' see http://www.shojobeat.com/manga/gc/bio.php (Accessed September 26, 2007)</ref> and Mitsukazu Mihara's ''DOLL'',<ref name="DOLL">For ''DOLL'' see http://www.Tokyopop.com/shop/1277/DollSoftcover/1.html  (Accessed November 14, 2007)</ref> which interact with street fashions, costume play ("cosplay"), J-Pop music, and goth subcultures in complex ways.<ref name ="Fruits">Shoichi Aoki. 2001. ''Fruits.'' New York: Phaidon Press. ISBN 0714840831.</ref><ref name="Winge">Winge, Theresa 2006. "Costuming the imagination: Origins of anime and manga cosplay." ''Mechademia: An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts'', 1:65-76.</ref><ref name="Macias">Macias, Patrick, Izumi Evers and Kazumi Nonaka 2004. ''Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook''. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. ISBN 9780811856904.</ref>
 
By the start of the 21st century, manga for women and girls thus represented a broad spectrum of material for pre- and early teenagers to material for adult women.
 
=== Stylistic Innovation in Girls' and Women's Manga ===
 
A comprehensive history of stylistic novelty and innovation in ''shōjo'' and related manga has yet to be written in English. Nonetheless, certain trends are apparent.
 
One is the fluidity and dissolution of panel borders. Early ''shōjo manga,'' like ''Mahōtsukai Sarii'' and ''Ribon no Kishi,'' were composed of a regular series of rectangular panels with sharply defined borders, a style familiar to U.S. readers from newspaper comic strips and comic books.<ref>Cite Sarii book and Ribon book; also McCloud and Cohn?</ref> By the end of the 1960s and the emergence of women-drawn ''shōjo'' manga, images were no longer separated by distinct borders, and what borders did exist were often non-rectangular.<ref>BeruBara; Shigematsu and Shiokawa.</ref> Because borders are absent, the same character may appear more than once in the same image<ref>Like the stage setting of the shrine; Schodt</ref> thereby to create a sense not that the character has been reduplicated but remains the same no matter where she is. Time is not atomized into distinct frames, but becomes continuous, and psychological unity and continuity of apparent movement are created not by a regular succession of film-like images projected onto a rectangular panel or screen, but by showing different aspects of a unitary character as she stops to think, feel, or interact with her world. She remains the same person, because no borders or barriers separate her from her former self.
 
Another innovation was the extensive use of decorative motifs in the drawing. These include flowers, feathers, stars, sparkles, and swirls that cause a multiplicity of images to fuse into a single, coherent visual and psychological statement.
 
More to come. 
 
=== ''Shōnen'', ''Seinen,'' and ''Seijin'' Manga ===
 
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 18- to 30-years old (''seinen'' manga).<ref>Thompson, 2007, NEEDS REF pp. xxiii-xxiv. See also the opening sections of ''Un poil de culture - Une introduction à l'animation japonaise.'' 11/07/2007. http://www.metalchroniques.fr/guppy/articles.php?lng=fr&pg=437 (Accessed December 25, 2007)</ref> Another approach is by content, including action-adventure often involving male heroes, slapstick humor, themes of honor, and sometimes explicit sexuality.<ref name = "Brenner">Brenner, Robin E. 2007. ''Understanding Manga and Anime.'' Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited/Greenwood. pp. 31-34.</ref> In Japan, manga are classified by the intended audience or demographic of the ''magazine'' where the manga originally appeared.<ref name="demo">For a list of magazine demographics, see http://users.skynet.be/mangaguide/magazines.html (Accessed December 25, 2007)</ref> Thus, ''seinen'' manga in Japan are marketed to young men (for whom the kanji are 青年, meaning "youth, young man", roughly "lad") whereas ''seijin'' manga are marketed to adult men (from the kanji 成人, meaning "adult") and are frequently sexually explicit.<ref>Schodt, 1996, ''op. cit.,'' p. 95.</ref><ref name="PCmono">Perper, Timothy and Martha Cornog 2002. "Eroticism for the masses: Japanese manga comics and their assimilation into the U.S." ''Sexuality & Culture'', volume 6, number 1, pages 3-126 (special issue).</ref> ''Shōnen'', ''seinen'', and ''seijin'' manga share many features in common.
 
Boys and young men were among the earliest readers of manga after World War II.<ref name="Sch86Ch3">Schodt, 1986, ''op. cit.,'' chapter 3, pp. 68-87.</ref> 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.<ref>Schodt, 1986, ''op. cit.,'' chapter 3; Gravett, 2004, ''op. cit.,'' chapter. 5, pp. 52-73.</ref> ''Shōnen'' and ''seinen'' manga narratives often portray challenges to the protagonist’s abilities, skills, and maturity, stressing self-perfection, austere self-discipline, sacrifice in the cause of duty, and honorable service to society, community, family, and friends.<ref name="Sch86Ch3"/><ref>Brenner, 2007, ''op. cit.,'' p. 31.</ref>
 
Manga with solitary costumed superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man did not become popular as a ''shōnen'' genre.<ref name="Sch86Ch3"/> An exception is Kia Asamiya's ''Batman: Child of Dreams'', released in the U.S. by DC Comics and in Japan by Kodansha.<ref>For Asamiya see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2265 and http://www.dccomics.com/graphic_novels/?gn=3746. (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref> However, lone heroes occur in Takao Saito's ''Golgo 13''<ref>''Golgo 13,'' by Takao Saito. San Francisco: Viz, Vols. 1-13, 2006-2008.</ref> and Koike and Kojima's ''Lone Wolf and Cub''.<ref name = "LWC">''Lone Wolf and Cub,'' by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 28 Vols., 2000-2002.</ref> ''Golgo 13'' is about an assassin who puts his skills to the service of world peace and other social goals, and Ogami Itto, the swordsman-hero of ''Lone 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 men throughout and neither hero ever displays superpowers. Instead, these stories "journey into the hearts and minds of men" by remaining on the plane of human psychology and motivation.<ref>The quoted phrase is from http://www.darkhorse.com/reviews/archive.php?theid=215 (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref>
 
Many ''shōnen'' manga have science fiction and technology themes. Early examples in the robot subgenre included Tezuka’s ''Astro Boy'' and Fujiko F. Fujio’s 1969 ''Doraemon'', about a robot cat and the boy he lives with, which was aimed at younger boys.<ref>Schodt, 1996, ''op. cit.,'' pp. 216-220.</ref> The robot theme evolved extensively, from Mitsuteru Yokoyama's 1956 ''Gigantor'' to later, more complex stories where the protagonist must not only defeat enemies, but learn to master himself and cooperate with the mecha he controls.<ref>Schodt, Frederik L. 1988. ''Robots of the Imagination.'' In "Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia." Chapter 4,  pp. 73-90. Tokyo:Kodansha International. NEEDS ISBN</ref> Thus, in ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'' by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Shinji struggles against the enemy and against his father,<ref>The struggle between Shinji and his father characterizes both the anime and the manga. ''Neon Genesis Evangelion,'' by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. San Francisco: Viz, Vols. 1-10, 2006. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2440. (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref>and in ''Vision of Escaflowne'' by Katsu Aki, Van not only makes war against Dornkirk’s empire but must deal with his complex feelings for Hitomi, the heroine.<ref>"Vision of Escaflowne," by Katsu Aki. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 8 Vols., 2003-2004. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2382. (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref>
 
Sports themes are also popular in manga for male readers.<ref name ="Sch86Ch3"/> These stories stress self-discipline, depicting not only the excitement of sports competition but also character traits the hero needs to transcend his limitations and to triumph.<ref name ="Sch86Ch3"/> Examples include boxing, e.g., Tetsuya Chiba’s 1968-1973 ''Tomorrow's Joe''<ref>Schodt, 1986, ''op. cit.,'' p. 84-85; http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=3345. (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref> and Rumiko Takahashi's 1987 ''One-Pound Gospel'',<ref>''One-Pound Gospel,'' by Rumiko Takahashi. San Francisco: Viz. 3 Vols., 1996-1998.</ref> and basketball, e.g., Takehiko Inoue’s 1990 ''Slam Dunk''.<ref> Masanao Amano, editor. 2004. ''Manga Design.'' Köln:Taschen. pp. 92-95. ISBN 3-8228-2591-3.</ref>
 
Supernatural settings have been another source of action-adventure plots in shõnen and some shõjo manga in which the hero must master challenges. Sometimes the protagonist fails, as in Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's ''Death Note'', where protagonist Light Yagami receives a notebook from a Death God (''shinigami'') that kills anyone whose name is written in it,<ref>''Death Note,'' by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. San Francisco: Viz, Vols. 1-13, 2005-2007. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4354 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> and, in a ''shōjo'' manga example,  Hakase Mizuki's ''The Demon Ororon'', whose protagonist abandons his demonic kingship of Hell to live and die on earth.<ref>''The Demon Ororon,'' by Hakase Mizuki. Los Angeles: Tokyopop, 2004, 4 Vols. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2999 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> Sometimes the protagonist himself is supernatural, like Kohta Hirano's ''Hellsing'', whose vampire hero Alucard battles reborn Nazis hellbent on conquering England,<ref>"Hellsing," by Kohta Hirano. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, Vols. 1-8, 2003-2007. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=32 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> but the hero may also be (or was) human, battling an ever-escalating series of supernatural enemies. Examples include Hiromu Arakawa's ''Fullmetal [''sic''] Alchemist'',<ref>''Fullmetal Alchemist,'' by Hiromu Arakawa. San Francisco: Viz, 2005. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2565 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> Nobuyuki Anzai's ''Flame of Recca'',<ref>''Flame of Recca,'' by Noboyuki Anzai. San Francisco: Viz, 2003-2008. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2701 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> and Tite Kubo's ''Bleach''.<ref>''Bleach,'' by Tite Kubo. San Francisco: Viz, 2004-2008. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2468. (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref>
 
Military action-adventure stories set in the modern world, for example, about World War II, remained under suspicion of glorifying Japan’s Imperial history<ref name ="Sch86Ch3"/> and have not become a significant part of the ''shōnen'' manga repertoire.<ref name ="Sch86Ch3"/> Nonetheless, stories about fantasy or historical military adventure were not stigmatized, and manga about heroic warriors and martial artists have been extremely popular.<ref name ="Sch86Ch3"/> Some are serious dramas, like Sanpei Shirato's ''The Legend of Kamui''<ref>''The Legend of Kamui'', by Sanpei Shirato. San Francisco: Viz, Vol. 1, 1998. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2850 (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref> and ''Rurouni Kenshin'' by Nobuhiro Watsuki.<ref>''Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story,'' by Nobuhiro Watsuki. San Francisco: Viz, Vols. 1-ongoing, 2004. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1995 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> but others contain strongly humorous elements, like Akira Toriyama's ''Dragon Ball''.<ref>''Dragon Ball,'' by Akira Toriyama. San Francisco: Viz, Vols. 1-16, 2003-2004. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=297. (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref>
 
Although stories about modern war and its weapons do exist, they deal as much or more with the psychological and moral problems of war as they do with sheer shoot-'em-up adventure.<ref name="Sch86Ch3"/> Examples include Seiho Takizawa's ''Heart of Darkness'', a retelling of Joseph Conrad's story but about a renegade Japanese colonel set in World War II Burma,<ref>In ''Who Fighter,'' by Seiho Takizawa. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 1 Volume, 2006. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=9018 (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref> Kaiji Kawaguchi's ''The Silent Service'', about a Japanese nuclear submarine,<ref>"Silent Service," (''Chinmoku no Kantai'' 沈黙の艦隊) by Kaiji (開治) Kawaguchi (川口).Tokyo: Kodansha, begun in 1989. See http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1334 (Accessed September 30, 2008)</ref> and Motofumi Kobayashi's ''Apocalypse Meow'', about the Vietnam War told in talking animal format.<ref>''Apocalypse Meow,'' by Motofumi Kobayashi. Houston, TX: ADV Manga. 2004-on-going. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2640 (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref> Other battle and fight-oriented manga are complex stories of criminal and espionage conspiracies to be overcome by the protagonist, such as ''City Hunter'' by Hojo Tsukasa, ''Fist of the North Star'' by Tetsuo Hara, and the ''shōjo'' manga ''From Eroica with Love'' by Yasuko Aoike, a long-running crime-espionage story combining adventure, action, and humor (and another example of how these themes occur across genres).<ref>For ''City'' see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1593 For ''Fist'' see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1547 For ''Eroica'' see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4151 (All accessed December 28, 2007)</ref>
 
For manga critics Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma,<ref>Aihara, Koji and Kentaro Takekuma. 1990/2002. ''Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga.'' San Francisco: Viz. pp. 53-63.</ref> 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.<ref>Aihara & Takekuma, 1990/2002. ''op. cit.,'' illustration on p. 59.</ref> Other commentators suggest that fight sequences and violence in comics serve as a social outlet for otherwise dangerous impulses.<ref>Berek-Lewis, Jason. July 13, 2005. ''Comics in an Age of Terror.'' http://www.brokenfrontier.com/columns/details.php?id=308 (Accessed December 25, 2007)</ref> Shōnen manga and its extreme warriorship have been parodied, for example, in Mine Yoshizaki's screwball comedy ''Sergeant Frog'' (''Keroro Gunso''), about a platoon of slacker alien frogs who invade the Earth and end up free-loading off the Hinata family in Tokyo.<ref>For ''Sergeant Frog'' see http://www.Tokyopop.com/product/1214/SgtFrog/2.html andreview http://eyeonanime.co.uk/panda.php?mi=7&p=d&reviewid2=41 (Both accessed December 28, 2007)</ref>
 
=== Sex and Women's Roles in Manga for Males ===
 
In early ''shōnen'' manga, men and boys played all the major roles, with women and girls having only auxiliary places as sisters, mothers, and occasionally girlfriends. Of the nine cyborgs in Shotaro Ishinomori's 1964 ''Cyborg 009'', only one is female, and she soon vanishes from the action.<ref>For ''Cyborg 009'' see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2598 (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref> Some recent ''shōnen'' manga virtually omit women, e.g., the martial arts story ''Baki the Grappler'' by Itagaki Keisuke<ref>For ''Baki'' see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1601 (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref> and the supernatural fantasy ''Sand Land'' by Akira Toriyama.<ref> For ''Sand Land'' see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=973. (Accessed December 28, 2007)</ref> However, by the 1980s, girls and women began to play increasingly important roles in ''shōnen'' manga, for example, Toriyama's 1980 ''Dr. Slump'', whose main character is the mischievous and powerful girl robot Arale Norimaki.<ref>For ''Dr. Slump'' see http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=970. (Accessed December 27, 2007</ref>
The role of girls and women in manga for male readers has evolved considerably since Arale. One class is the pretty girl (''bishōjo'').<ref>For multiple meanings of ''bishōjo'', see Perper & Cornog, 2002, ''op. cit.,'' pp. 60-63.</ref> Sometimes the woman is unattainable, but she is always an object of the hero's emotional and sexual interest, like Belldandy from ''Oh My Goddess!'' by Kosuke Fujishima and Shao-lin from ''Guardian Angel Getten'' by Minene Sakurano.<ref>''Guardian Angel Getten'', by Sakurano Minene. Raijin Graphic Novels/Gutsoon! Entertainment, Vols. 1-4, 2003-2004. ''Guardian Angel Getten'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1622; ''Oh My Goddess!'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1608. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref> In other stories, the hero is surrounded by such girls and women, as in ''Negima!: Magister Negi Magi|Negima'' by Ken Akamatsu and ''Hanaukyo Maid Team'' by Morishige.<ref>''Negima'', by Ken Akamatsu. Del Rey/Random House, Vols. 1-15, 2004-2007; ''Negima'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2891; ''Hanaukyo Maid Team'', by Morishige. Studio Ironcat, Vols. 1-3, 2003-2004. ''Hanaukyo Maid Team'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2438. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref> The male protagonist does not always succeed in forming a relationship with the woman, for example when Bright Honda and Aimi Komori fail to bond in ''Shadow Lady'' by Masakazu Katsura.<ref>''Shadow Lady'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2924. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref> In other cases, a successful couple's sexual activities are depicted or implied, like ''Outlanders'' by Johji Manabe.<ref>''Outlanders'': http://www.angelfire.com/anime/mangatemple/outlanders.html.</ref> In still other cases, the initially naive and immature hero grows up to become a man by learning how to deal and live with women emotionally and sexually, like Yota in ''Video Girl Ai'' by Masakazu Katsura, Train Man in ''Train Man: Densha Otoko'' by Hidenori Hara, and Makoto in ''Futari Ecchi'' by Katsu Aki.<ref>''Video Girl Ai'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1538; ''Train Man: Densha Otoko'', Hidenori Hara. Viz, Vols. 1-3, 2006; ''Futari Ecchi'':  http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=3800. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref><ref>Perper, Timothy and Martha Cornog. 2007. "The education of desire: ''Futari etchi'' and the globalization of sexual tolerance." ''Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and Fan Arts'', 2:201-214.</ref> In ''poruno-'' and ''eromanga'' (''seijin'' manga), often called ''hentai'' manga in the U.S., a sexual relationship is taken for granted and depicted explicitly, as in work by Toshiki Yui <ref>Toshiki Yui: http://lambiek.net/artists/y/yui_toshiki.htm; http://www.yui-toshiki.com/shed/. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref> and in ''Were-Slut'' by Jiro Chiba and ''Slut Girl'' by Isutoshi.<ref>''Slut Girl'', by Isutoshi. Eros Comix, Nos. 1-6, 2000; http://www.fantagraphics.com/cart/showcat.cgi?Category=Comics+Erotica&SubCategory=Mangerotica&PageNo=10; ''Were-Slut'', by Jiro Chiba. Eros Comix, Nos. 1-8, 2001-2002; http://www.fantagraphics.com/cart/showcat.cgi?Category=Comics+Erotica&SubCategory=Mangerotica&PageNo=12. Accessed 2007-12-28. </ref> The result is a range of depictions of boys and men from naive to very experienced sexually.
 
Heavily armed female warriors (''bishōjo senshi'' or ''sentō bishōjo'') represent another class of girls and women in manga for male readers.<ref>Cite P&C IJOCA. For the ''sentō bishōjo'', translated as "battling beauty," see Kotani, Mari. 2006. "Metamorphosis of the Japanese girl: The girl, the hyper-girl, and the battling beauty." ''Mechademia: An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts'', 1:162-170. See also William O. Gardner. 2003. "Attack of the Phallic Girls: Review of Saitô Tamaki. Sentō bishōjo no seishin bunseki (Fighting Beauties: A Psychoanalysis). Tokyo: Ôta Shuppan, 2000." at http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/review_essays/gardner88.htm. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref> Some warrior women are battle cyborgs, like Alita from ''Battle Angel Alita'' by Yukito Kishiro, Motoko Kusanagi from Masamune Shirow's ''Ghost in the Shell'', and Chise from Shin Takahashi's ''Saikano''.<ref>''Alita'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2427; ''Ghost in the Shell'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1590; ''Saikano'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2405. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref> Others are human, like Attim M-Zak from Hiroyuki Utatane's ''Seraphic Feather'', Johji Manabe's Karula Olzen from ''Drakuun'', and Alita Forland (Falis) from Sekihiko Inui's ''Murder Princess''.<ref>''Seraphic Feather'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=1338; ''Drakuun'': http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/9607/manabe/drakuunindex.html; ''Murder Princess'': http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=7215. All sites accessed 2007-12-28.</ref>
 
With the relaxation of censorship in Japan after the early 1990s, a wide variety of explicitly drawn sexual themes appeared in manga intended for male readers that correspondingly occur in English translations.<ref name = "PCmono"/> These depictions range from mild partial nudity through implied and explicit sexual intercourse through bondage and sadomasochism (SM), zoophilia (bestiality), incest, and rape.<ref name="CCIES"> Perper, Timothy and Martha Cornog 2003 "Sex, love, and women in Japanese comics." In Robert T. Francoeur and Raymond Noonan, editors. ''The Comprehensive International Encyclopedia of Sexuality.'' New York: Continuum. pages 663-671. Section 8D in http://kinseyinstitute.org/ccies/jp.php. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref> In some cases, rape and lust murder themes came to the forefront, as in ''Urotsukidoji'' by Toshio Maeda<ref>Clements, Jonathan. 1998. "'Tits and Tentacles': Sex, Horror, and the Overfiend." In McCarthy, Helen & Jonathan Clements. 1998. ''The Erotic Anime Movie Guide.'' Chapter 4, pp. 58-81. See also http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2500. Accessed 2007-12-28.</ref> and ''Blue Catalyst'' from 1994 by Kei Taniguchi,<ref>Taniguchi, Kei. 1994. "Blue Catalyst." San Antonio, TX: ''Emblem'' (Antarctic Press), Numbers 6-8.</ref> but these extreme themes are not commonplace in either untranslated or translated manga.<ref name="PCmono"/><ref>Smith, Toren. 1991. "Miso Horny: Sex in Japanese Comics." ''The Comics Journal,'' No. 143, pp. 111-115.</ref>
 
=== Gekiga ===
 
''Gekiga'' literally means "drama pictures" and refers to a form of ''aesthetic realism'' in manga.<ref name="SchodtG">Schodt, 1986, ''op. cit.'', pp. 68-73.</ref><ref name="GravettG">Gravett, 2004, ''op. cit.'', pp. 38-42.</ref> Gekiga style drawing is emotionally dark, often starkly realistic, sometimes very violent, and focuses on the day-in, day-out grim realities of life, often drawn in gritty and unpretty fashions.<ref name="SchodtG"/><ref name = "GravettGekiga">Gravett, Paul "Gekiga: The Flipside of Manga." http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/058_gekiga/058_gekiga.htm (Accessed December 20, 2007)</ref> ''Gekiga'' arose in the late 1950s and 1960s partly from left-wing student and working class political activism<ref name="SchodtG"/><ref name="Isao">Isao, Shimizu 2001."Red Comic Books: The Origins of Modern Japanese Manga." In John A. Lent, editor ''Illustrating Asia: Comics, Humor Magazines, and Picture Books.'' Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0824824716.</ref> and partly from the aesthetic dissatisfaction of young manga artists like Yoshihiro Tatsumi with existing manga.<ref>Isao, 2001, ''op. cit.'', pp. 147-149.</ref><ref name="Nunez">Nunez, Irma 2006. "Alternative Comics Heroes: Tracing the Genealogy of Gekiga." ''The Japan Times,'' http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20060924a1.html (Accessed December 19, 2007)</ref> Examples include Sampei Shirato's 1959-1962 ''Chronicles of a Ninja's Military Accomplishments'' (''Ninja Bugeichō''), the story of Kagemaru, the leader of a peasant rebellion in the 1500s, which dealt directly with oppression and class struggle,<ref name="SchodtG1">Schodt, 1986, ''op. cit.'', pp. 70-71.</ref> and Hiroshi Hirata's ''Satsuma Gishiden'', about uprisings against the Tokugawa shogunate.<ref name="Hirata">For Hirata see http://www.darkhorse.com/search/search.php?frompage=userinput&sstring=Hirata&x=11&y=9 (Accessed Decenber 19, 2007)</ref>
 
As the social protest of these early years waned, gekiga shifted in meaning towards socially conscious, mature drama and towards the avant-garde.<ref name="GravettG"/><ref name="Nunez" /><ref>Udagawa, Takeo 2007. "Home Manga Zombie: Manga Zombie - Preface." http://comipress.com/special/manga-zombie/manga-zombie-preface (Accessed December 19, 2007)</ref> Examples include Koike and Kojima's ''Lone Wolf and Cub''<ref name="LWC"/><ref>Schodt, 1986, ''op. cit.'', p. 72.</ref> and ''Akira'', an apocalyptic tale of motorcycle gangs, street war, and inexplicable transformations of the children of a future Tokyo.<ref name="Akira">''Akira,'' by Katsuhiro Otomo. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 6 Vols., 2000-2002.</ref> Another example is Osamu Tezuka's 1976 manga ''MW'', a bitter story of the aftermath of the storage and possibly deliberate release of poison gas by U.S. armed forces based in Okinawa years after World War II.<ref>Cite manga itself</ref> Gekiga and the social consciousness it embodies remain alive in modern-day manga. An example is ''Ikebukuro West Gate Park'' from 2001 by Ira Ishida and Sena Aritou, a story of street thugs, rape, and vengeance set on the social margins of the wealthy Ikebukuro district of Tokyo.<ref>CITE MANGA</ref>
 
'''End of added material'''
 
== References and Notes==
 
'''Please do not change the reference formatting.'''
 
{{reflist}}
 
 
== Stephenson's introduction to Manga copied here ==
 
One of the most popular forms of entertainment in [[Japan]] is '''[[manga]]''' (漫画), meaning '[[comic]]' or '[[cartoon]]'; in recent years, Japanese-style comics have also become more popular overseas, and the word is now firmly established in the [[English language]] to refer to these.
 
From a [[Western society|Western]] perspective, manga appear similar to the more adult-orientated [[graphic novel]], but in Japan they are a staple of [[Japanese popular culture|popular culture]] and are read by people of all ages. They also serve as an interesting way of getting the [[news]]: government ministries as well as corporations have often used manga to put across complicated ideas to the public.<ref>Kinsella (2000). For a controversial example of the use of manga to explain defence policy, see ''Mainichi Daily News'': '[http://mdn.mainichi.jp/culture/waiwai/archive/news/2007/07/20070724p2g00m0dm010000c.html Defense Ministry turns to 'Lolita' manga character to reveal inner self]'. 24th July 2007.</ref>
 
Typically, manga are printed in black and white, and as is the case with much other Japanese reading matter, they are read from right to left, top to bottom, starting from the 'back' of the book.
 
In Japan, manga fans can be seen reading their favourite stories in 24-hour convenience stores or with [[coffee]] in special round-the-clock 'manga cafés' (漫画喫茶 or マンガ喫茶, ''manga kissa''). Another place to find the legions of manga readers is at the three-day 'Comic Market' (コミック・マーケット ''Komikku Māketto'') in Tokyo, Japan's largest public indoor gathering; at this magazine fair a vast number of manga are available to browse and buy.<ref>''Comiket.co.jp'': '[http://www.comiket.co.jp/info-a/WhatIsEng080225.pdf What is the Comic Market?]'
 
:I've copied this introduction to [[history of manga]] where you can modify/delete as you like. As for other comments, I'll try to have a look at the rest of this over a few days. ~~~~
 
== Comments and Suggestions ==
 
This page is for writing the history manga article starting from the Wikipedia article most of which I wrote and referenced. It needs some major work, including the addition of an entirely new section on manga before WW2 (Meiji and Tokugawa periods, including kibyōshi). The text is my own, stripped-down, de-Wikified, and rewritten version of the original article. [[User:Timothy Perper|Timothy Perper]] 10:25, 27 September 2008 (CDT)
 
From John Stephenson, Talk:Manga:
 
if you are the sole author of all the material you import from Wikipedia, then the fact that it originally appeared over there is irrelevant - it can appear on Citizendium with no credit to Wikipedia and under the CZ creative commons licence rather than the Wikipedia one. The only thing you have to do, apart from perhaps writing more to cover gaps left by removing Wikipedians' contributions, is put the <nowiki> {{WPauthor}}</nowiki> tag at the top of the Talk page, below <nowiki>{{subpages}}</nowiki>, including a declaration that the material is yours. Something like: <nowiki>{{WPauthor|WP credit does not apply - material on WP written by me|[[User:Timothy Perper|Timothy Perper]] 04:03, 28 September 2008 (CDT)}}</nowiki>In cases of articles written on WP by other people, you can import them as well, but there must always be a credit to Wikipedia (by checking the 'Content is from Wikipedia?' box) and you have to commit to substantively improving the article, as otherwise it would be a candidate for deletion. John Stephenson 23:29, 27 September 2008 (CDT)
 
===Debates about the origins of manga, history===
I think this section is confusing and focuses too much on things that are only peripherally relevant. It's not clear what is meant by "two broad processes," and beginning with a highly abstract discussion of Murakami and Tatsumi seems odd, since neither of them are talking about manga specifically, or if they are, they are overlooking a great deal that is obvious to most historians of manga. For example, it was only after manga began to include serious themes that they become popular with adolescents and eventually adults, which would seem to directly contradict Murakami's assertion that there was a shift to "cute and harmless."
 
There is no discussion of what we mean by manga. Manga can refer to caricatures and satirical images, as well "story manga," and discussion about the origins of manga needs to begin with a distinction drawn between various forms that fall under the rubric of "manga." The Chōjūgiga scrolls Schodt talks about are not in fact narrative in nature. They are a series of amusing, satirical, and very "cartoony" scenes, but there is no sequential element. When we look at manga as "sequential art," we find that some Heian or Muromachi period scrolls can be loosely defined as sequential art, but Kern's argument that kibyōshi and gōkan were predecessors to modern story manga is convincing because 1) they were specifically created as entertainment, 2) virtually all text is incorporated into the image and is indeed one visual element in the image, and 3) they were mass-produced and mass-consumed commercial products.
 
I feel the section as it stands is a hodge-podge of overly academic overviews of obscure arguments and miscellaneous statements from the English-language literature. In my frank opinion, the bulk of the English-language literature (with notable exceptions) has been written by dilettantes who are unfamiliar with the huge body of Japanese-language work on the subject. The fact that artist Rakuten Kitazawa's name is not mentioned is illustrative, as is the absence of any reference to Isao Shimizu, the pre-eminent (if uninspiring) historian of manga.
 
Before I knew Tim was creating sandboxes, I had actually created [[User:Matthew_Allen_Thorn/manga_sandbox|one of my own]] where I had begun writing an article from scratch. As you can see, it hasn't gotten far. But since I really don't how where to begin in editing Tim's sandbox on manga history, I think I will continue to plug away on my own. Since manga history is, along with shōjo manga, one of my areas of expertise, and since I have access to the Japanese-language literature on the subject, I would like to focus on the history of manga section (article?) for the time being, and I hope you will forgive me if I more or less "go it alone" for the moment. [[User:Matthew Allen Thorn|Matthew Allen Thorn]] 23:39, 29 September 2008 (CDT)
 
: Yes, Isao Shimizu is mentioned -- he's in reference 152 and 153. By all means work on the material! Actually, Murakami is very specifically discussing manga and anime, and I too think he's wrong -- but it is what he says (at least as well as that can be summarized in two sentences). But I'm not trying to give the "right" answers, but summarize a variety of opinions about the history of manga. And, to be fair, I don't think Adam Kern, Richard Torrence, or Kinko Ito are dilettantes.
 
: The article doesn't cover pre-World War 2 material. We'll get to Rakuten Kitazawa but not in the After-WW2 section. Then we can decide if we want to look at history starting from the present and going backward, or starting from the past and coming forward.
 
:Each has advantages and has disadvantages. The advantage of the now ----> past approach is that it starts with material familiar to the reader and looks into its origins. The disadvantage is that the arrow of history is reversed. The advantage of the past ----> now approach is that it keeps the chronological sequence in the proper order (and is the approach you'd use in a course where the students have to sit through the entire semester). The disadvantage is that we're not dealing with a captive audience of students, but lay readers. To start with the scrolls or with Rakuten Kitazawa means starting with material that 99.9% of our readers never heard of, don't care about, and think (if they think about it at all, which I doubt) is minor trivia in the history of Japan.
 
: I opted for the first, though the second is more accurate chronologically, if not psychologically. (By "psychologically," I mean the reactions of someone here in the US who has read ''Death Note,'' ''Bleach,'' and ''Full Metal Alchemist'' and has never heard the name "Meiji" in his life -- "Doesn't that have something to do with ''Rurouni Kenshin''?" he asks.) In Japan, where your students ''all'' know what Meiji refers to, yes, start there or even earlier; here, and writing for an Anglophone audience, I think it's better to start with something they know and work back. A difference of approach; neither of us is right or wrong.
 
: Anyway, let's see what comes of this. [[User:Timothy Perper|Timothy Perper]] 06:51, 30 September 2008 (CDT)
 
:: Another thought -- it rather sounds as if you read just the first section and not the rest of it. If so, I can see why you say "Hey, that's not a history!" -- and you'd be right. It isn't -- it's designed to set up the two general views of manga held by a number of writers. One -- you're in this group -- sees an essential continuity between post-WW2 manga and Japanese art before WW2, but other, equally persuasive writers have held that no matter what may have happened before the war, modern manga is influenced primarily by events following Japan's defeat and occupation by the US, and by events occurring even later during the present-day period of intense globalization of just about everything. I don't think Murakami would deny that Hokusai existed; I suspect he'd merely say that modern imagery of manga does not arise from any sources as old as Hokusai or even the ponchi-e artists. As I implied, this debate seems to me to be part of the ''nihonjinron'' argument and gets into politics I really don't understand. And I'd like to avoid it as much as possible, although I can imagine that it exercises Japanese intellectuals considerably. The overall article is fairly clear, I hope, that I fall into the continuity camp -- I see a very long tradition of Japanese art within the seemingly ultra-modern work of Sadamoto, Chiho Saito, and Erica Sakurazawa. BTW, I call these the Continuity versus the Deep Sundering Hypotheses. An oversimplification, yes, but it has more than a grain of truth to it. Maybe that will help clarify what I'm driving at. [[User:Timothy Perper|Timothy Perper]] 09:42, 30 September 2008 (CDT)

Latest revision as of 03:48, 22 November 2023


The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.


I am no longer editing here. Timothy Perper 23:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)