This year’s manga seminar just ended. As in past years, it seems like we were just getting into a stride. The end came too soon. Well all I can do at this point is start thinking about next year’s course. I asked the students for input and got some great ideas.
One of the questions I always face is about where to start, how far back to go in constructing this 1-credit, 10-week course. This time we started with Tezuka’s Black Jack (OSU catalog). That was a big hit, so I’m going to keep it for next fall’s course. However, I am thinking to assign Kuwata Jiro’s Bat-manga (OSU catalog) as the first week’s reading. There’s an interesting article about it on the Valdosta Daily Times web site by Dean Poling, “COMICS: Batmanga”
Meanwhile, Ohio State’s holdings of Kuwata Jiro’s works are expanding with the acquisition of the Manga Shop Series. We’ve received a grant from the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources’ Multivolume Sets Project recently to purchase a second (circulating) copy of the first 150 volumes in that series — and OSU will continue to purchase a 2d copy for volumes being published into the future. The second set is on order now. Meanwhile, Mayumi Kamata (GA working in the Cartoon Research Library) is already cataloging the first set that arrived about a month ago.
