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Manga

...bibliographic notes about manga...

Postcards from Wartime Japan: Cartoons, Propaganda, and Everyday Life

October 2, 2026 / / Comments Off on Postcards from Wartime Japan: Cartoons, Propaganda, and Everyday Life

Guest post by Anqi Chen

30 Japanese wartime cartoon postcards arranged on a black background

A selection of Japanese wartime postcards illustrating military life through cartoons and popular imagery.

What can a postcard tell us about war? A rare collection of Japanese wartime postcards held by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum offers an unusual window into the visual culture of Japan’s wartime years. Produced during Japan’s invasion of China and the broader Asia-Pacific War, these postcards reveal how military life and wartime experiences were depicted for popular audiences. Combining illustration, humor, propaganda, and personal correspondence, they provide valuable primary sources for researchers and students interested in wartime visual culture, popular media, and everyday life.

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Beyond Jiji Manga: A New Digital Anthology of 20th-Century Manga

July 2, 2026 / / Comments Off on Beyond Jiji Manga: A New Digital Anthology of 20th-Century Manga

Guest post by Jayden Mitchell

For those of you who have followed our Jiji Manga Wiki, you may remember that we hold a nearly complete collection of the Jiji Shinpō manga supplement, Jiji Manga, published from 1921 to 1931. After the publication of the final issue, Jiji Manga was renamed Manga to yomimono (漫画と読物, Manga and Readings), and beginning with Issue 537, it also appeared under the title Manga to shashin (漫画と寫眞, Manga and Pictures). Under these new titles, the supplement continued publication for just over another year, from July 1931 until October 1932.

Screenshot of a Japanese-language webpage for a digital manga anthology

The new digital anthology makes rare manga by artists associated with Jiji Manga available for online exploration

We are pleased to announce that Ohio State has gained access to a newly digitized anthology of these later issues, providing online access to Issues 505–572 of Manga to yomimono and Manga to shashin. Complete transcriptions of section titles make the collection fully searchable, while high-resolution digital scans allow researchers to examine each issue in remarkable detail.

Together with our print collection of Jiji Manga and its accompanying Wiki, researchers now have access to nearly the entire run of the publication and its successor titles. This expanded access opens new opportunities for research on Taishō- and early Shōwa-period Japan, including popular culture, politics, publishing history, and the early development of modern manga.

Links

Links to the database:

  1. Issues 505-521
  2. Issues 522-546
  3. Issues 547-564
  4. Issues 565-572

For more information about this resource, please contact Japanese Studies Librarian Dr. Ann Marie Davis at davis.5257@osu.edu.  Additionally, to learn more about the Jiji Manga Wiki and how to use it, please see our earlier blog post introducing the collection and demonstrating its search features.

Jiji Manga’s New Year Humor In Interwar Japan

January 23, 2026 / / Comments Off on Jiji Manga’s New Year Humor In Interwar Japan

Guest post by Anqi Chen

A comic showing an enormous crowd of people celebrating the beginning of spring

Full image of The Bustle of the Beginning of Spring (Click Image to Enlarge)

If you enjoy Japanese manga, history, and politics, OSU Libraries has something especially compelling for you. In January 1902—more than a century ago—a cartoon series titled Jiji Manga (時事漫画, literally Current Manga) was launched as a supplement to the newspaper Jiji Shinpō (時事新報, Current Events). The series was edited by the renowned manga and nihonga artist Yasuji Kitazawa—better known by his pen name Rakuten Kitazawa (北澤楽天, 1876–1955)—a pioneering figure in the development of modern manga.

Founded by Fukuzawa Yukichi (福澤諭吉, 1835–1901), one of the most influential intellectuals of modern Japan, Jiji Shinpō had a wide national readership. Jiji Manga, issued as a separate illustrated supplement, adopted a distinctly visual and experimental approach, presenting political news and social criticism through humor and caricature. According to the Bujalance Collection, Jiji Manga was the first periodical to use the term “manga” in its title in a modern sense. Each issue featured a single full-page editorial cartoon, often accompanied by ironic dialogue that reflected Rakuten’s sharp, satirical take on contemporary politics. As the creator of thousands of early editorial cartoons and comic strips that influenced generations of artists, Rakuten is now widely regarded as the founding father of modern manga. 

Cartoon of a crowd of people speaking in Japanese

Fig. 1: Close-up on the upper left

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The Carefree Gameboard of Asō Yutaka’s Nonki na Tōsan 

October 27, 2025 / / Comments Off on The Carefree Gameboard of Asō Yutaka’s Nonki na Tōsan 

Guest Post by Mitchell Clark  

Japanese board game print featuring cartoon characters doing various actions across 37 film-roll-shaped spaces.

Nonki na Tōsan Shusse Sugoroku, or Carefree Dad Success Story Gameboard.

One of the many strengths of the manga collection at OSU is a subcollection of gameboard prints, or sugoroku. Our collection contains dozens of these, dating from as far back as the Edo period to as recently as the 1980s. One sugoroku, dating to 1925, features one of Japan’s earliest serialized comic strips, Nonki na Tōsan, or Carefree Dad (often translated as Easygoing Daddy).

Nonki na Tōsan was first published in the newspaper Hōchi Shimbun in 1923—interestingly, in the wake of the Great Kantō Earthquake. Its lighthearted nature was seen by publishers as a salve to lift spirits at a time when the capital region was still reeling from disaster. Inspired by the American comic Bringing Up Father by George McManus, Nonki na Tōsan became immensely popular for its slice-of-life comedy and portrayal of everyday Japanese virtues. Created by Asō Yutaka, the cartoon quickly inspired Nonki na Tōsan merchandise, toys, games, and even three silent films released in 1925.

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Manga Artists at OSU: A Creative Exchange with Marco Kohinata & Keita Katsushika

September 23, 2025 / / Comments Off on Manga Artists at OSU: A Creative Exchange with Marco Kohinata & Keita Katsushika
3-picture photo collage

Pictures taken with manga artists Katsushika Keita and Kohinata Marco during their tour of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

Last week, our library had the pleasure of welcoming two up-and-coming manga artists—Marco Kohinata and Keita Katsushika—from the MINT Project (Manga International Network Team). Their visit to The Ohio State University was part of a larger tour in Columbus in conjunction with Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), a popular four-day citywide festival celebrating cartoon and comic art.

As part of their visit, the artists toured the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, home to the largest collection of cartoon art in the world, and the site where we keep our libraries’ rare and historical manga.  As a token of appreciation, the MINT team gifted us a selection of the artists’ works—as well as original drawings—an honor that will enrich our collection and inspire scholars.

Following the tour, Marco and Keita visited an upper level Art History class, where they held a panel talk and responded to a series of thoughtful questions posed by Adam Jimenez (OSU Class of 2012) from the Japan Publishing  Industry Foundation for Culture (JPIC). Their answers offered unique and inspiring insights into their creative journeys, the challenges of getting published, and the realities of working in the manga industry today. What follows is a synopsis of their discussion:

Introducing the panel of manga artists

The panelists, manga artists Keita and Marco, as well as moderator Adam Jimenez and their interpreter are introduced by DEALL Professor Naomi Fukumori

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Leveling Up the Jiji Manga Wiki: Fresh Updates + Video Walkthrough

June 12, 2025 / / Comments Off on Leveling Up the Jiji Manga Wiki: Fresh Updates + Video Walkthrough
Collage of Jiji Manga Covers

A collage of Jiji Manga covers retrieved from the University Libraries’ Digital Collections

Inspired by American-style newspaper comic supplements, Jiji Manga was one of Japan’s first modern comic strips. It featured cartoons by Kitazawa Rakuten (北澤楽天) and his contemporaries, translations of foreign comics, as well as puzzles, photographs, and editorial articles. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum holds 476 of the 504 published volumes—making it one of the most complete runs in the world.

To help make this remarkable resource more discoverable, our library launched the Jiji Manga Wiki over fifteen years ago (a project still in progress). This past summer, thanks to the dedicated efforts of student workers Anqi Chen and Joseph Santiago, many gaps in the Wiki were finally filled. Their careful reading of prewar, non-standardized Japanese texts has allowed us to add complete contents transcriptions for almost every volume of the magazine—bringing us closer than ever to completion.

Jiji Manga Video Tutorial Transcription

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Prized Sketch by Tezuka Osamu for Shonen Club series ‘Donguri March’

March 10, 2025 / / Comments Off on Prized Sketch by Tezuka Osamu for Shonen Club series ‘Donguri March’

One of our prized holdings held at the Billy Ireland is an original sketch by the prolific artist TEZUKA Osamu, famously dubbed the ‘Godfather of Manga’ (マンガの神様).  Set during the post-World War II era (1945-52), this rare piece features ubiquitous markers of the American Occupation –such as the Coca Cola sign in the shop window (panel 4), and the “Off Limits” sign on the fence (panel 7). Notably, Japanese men are seen shining shoes for American GIs, one of whom has a presumed Japanese ‘girlfriend for hire,’ known as a panpan girl, on his arm.

Until recently, our library was not sure what manga series this draft sketch was intended for. However, a couple years ago, thanks to the power of social media and crowdsourcing, I discovered through a wonderful follower (@agujeta) that this piece originates from Donguri Kōshinkyoku (or Donguri March in English), a manga series that ran from January to June of 1959 in Shōnen Club Magazine (Shōnen Kurabu / 少年倶楽部, later known as 少年クラブ in 1946). Per the official Tezuka Osamu web site, this short-lived series follows the ambitions of the cartoon’s main protagonist, Kinoshita Toukichirō, a first-year junior high school student who works at a bookstore and aspires to become a publisher. This drawing was apparently unfinished. The character Tōkichirō’s clothes have not been drawn on the top row.

To learn more about this rare holding, please check out this wonderful Curator Talk, recorded in 2020 by my colleague Dr. Kay Clopton, a specialist in manga sound effects and currently the Social Sciences and Humanities Librarian at OSU.

Note: This item, made available for research and educational purposes, may be protected by copyright; the user is responsible for making a final determination of copyright status.

Teaching Postwar Counterculture with Japanese Gekiga

December 5, 2024 / / Comments Off on Teaching Postwar Counterculture with Japanese Gekiga
Sample set of 4 gekiga publications

Sample set of four gekiga titles used for “Group 9”
in a recent class on post-war Japanese counterculture

It’s been a while since the last blog post, but never fear, we are still working hard to build and activate our cool manga collection! Speaking of “cool” — we recently had a cool opportunity to explore our manga sub-collection of gekiga (劇画) during a class visit with Professor Keita Moore this semester. In his course “Elements of Japanese Culture” (DEALL 2231), Prof. Moore brought his students in to the BICLM to view some of our gekiga and to learn more about Japanese postwar protest and opposition.

Known for its more mature themes and cinematic flow, gekiga (often translated as “dramatic pictures” in English) is a type of avant-garde manga that departed in style from mainstream Japanese comics in the late 1950s. In contrast to the prevailing manga that were drawn for children (jidō manga or kodomo manga) by artist Tezuka Osamu, gekiga emerged with new content for adult readers, many of whom harbored doubts about the postwar status quo.  In many ways, the genre of gekiga gave shape to these doubts, and spoke to societal issues of the times, ranging from economic and social inequality, Japan’s Cold War military alliance with the United States, and the threat of nuclear warfare.

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More “Boys’ Love” (or “BL”) Titles Donated to the Manga Collection!

March 27, 2024 / / Comments Off on More “Boys’ Love” (or “BL”) Titles Donated to the Manga Collection!

Part of a wonderful anonymous donation added recently to the general collections.

The genre known as “boys’ love (BL)” or “yaoi” is deep and expansive, covering all manner of settings, scenarios, and characters. Collecting LGBT+ manga titles is a priority for us, and so we are thrilled to acquire these books through a recent gift in kind from several donors! Here are some highlights that are now available for check-out in our circulating collections:

Cover art for "Ten Count" vol. 1 [Aug. 9, 2016]

Cover art for “Ten Count” vol. 1 [Aug. 9, 2016]

First on the list is Ten Count, an award-winning series by Rihito Takarai. Ten Count follows Tadaomi Shirotani, a salaryman plagued with obsessive-compulsive disorder that manifests in his intense germophobia. In order to improve his condition, Shirotani is instructed by a therapist, Riku Kurose, to write a list of ten actions he is unable to do, and then he is to work toward completing each one as a form of exposure therapy. However, things get complicated when Kurose falls in love with Shirotani. What secrets will come out as their relationship intensifies?

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Glimpses from the Vault: The Tokyo Puck (Tōkyō pakku) Originals and Reprints

February 7, 2024 / / Comments Off on Glimpses from the Vault: The Tokyo Puck (Tōkyō pakku) Originals and Reprints

Among the many unique manga serials held at OSU’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (BICLM) are three original issues of Tokyo Puck (東京パック), an early Japanese satirical comic newspaper launched by Kitazawa Rakuten (北沢楽天, 1876-1955) and published from 1905 to 1923 (with a 5-year interruption circa the First World War). This Japanese manga newspaper was inspired by the American magazine Puck (published from 1877 to 1918), one of the earliest humor magazines in the US to solely feature cartoons, caricatures, and political satire.

Colorful newspaper cover page with a geisha, flying beer bottles and a drunken soldier

The cover page of an issue of Tokyo Puck (Volume 2, Number 11, published June 1, 1906), held at the BICLM. PN6790.J32 T65 v.2:no.11

Recently I had the opportunity to click some pictures of two of our Tokyo Puck issues during a class visit with students from “The Art of Colonial Taiwan,” (ArtHist 5002). In addition to our Tokyo Puck samples, the students in this class browsed a variety of materials depicting Taiwan and other Japanese colonies in historical cartoon maps, water colors, and artist scrolls created by famous manga artists of the early 20th century.

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