The Ohio State University

What is manga?

There’s an interesting discussion over at Manga Village News about the definition of manga.

What is Manga?

Ever since Tokyopop created their line of American created titles, dubbed OEL (Original English Language) manga, fans have been debating if they should be called manga. What is manga? Is it a style, or set of drawing conventions? Is it a country/ethnic specific creation? Or is just as the word translates to, funny pictures, or comics?

The discussants reject a definition based on “style” (big eyes, etc), which is a relief. They pretty much fall into two camps –

1) “comics from Japan.”

John Thomas: ……”culture-specific story lines and themes that can only come from Japanese natives.”
…..”what’s so appealing about manga? I think it’s about diversity. There’s all sorts of stories being told in manga so each person can find their niche….”
….”movement lately away from Western paradigms and culture….”

Alex Hoffman: “culture specific content.”

Katherine Farmer: “… we need to take economics into account. The structure of the Japanese manga publishing industry is radically different……”

2) strong storytelling:

Dan Polley: “manga has a story to tell; a lot of American comics have a character to tell.”

Lori Henderson: ….”The art and greater propensity for character stories…..”…. “more flexible content.”

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I haven’t ventured much into the world of OEL manga (original English language manga or mangaisme, global manga), but picked up some recommended titles from the debate that I will check out.

The simplicity of thinking about manga as “comics from Japan” rings true to me. Still, nobody would be interested in manga if the stories were not compelling.

In the four years that I have taught the “Analyzing the Appeal of Manga” seminar we always conclude that the basis for the “appeal” is the storytelling. With manga that don’t appeal to everyone in the class (Swan + Sexy Voice and Robo come immediately to mind) we always identify plot as the basis of the problem. (How can someone who struggles with practice keep winning international competitions??? It is troubling to think about Sexy Voice being only fourteen years old — her age undermines the credibility of the plot sometimes.)

Any other ideas on how to define manga?

3 comments May 4th, 2009

Kuwata Jiro’s Bat-manga

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.

Add comment March 16th, 2009

Discussing manga bibliography with Egami Toshinori of Kyoto U Library

Last month Toshinori Egami (江上敏哲), a rare book librarian at Kyoto University Library who has been visiting and cataloging rare books at Harvard-Yenching Library for the past year, came to Ohio State to see the manga collection in the Cartoon Research Library. We also talked about blogging, wikis, and other kinds of digital support services that librarians can provide for Japanese studies. Egami-san published a very detailed report of his visit on Kyoto University Library’s blog:

http://www.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/modules/wordpress/wp-trackback.php/61

Also, he posted it on the HVUday blog he maintained during his sabbatical in Cambridge, in a better presentation (with some phrases bolded in red, etc): http://hvuday.seesaa.net/article/84766971.html

Reading Egami-san’s blog entry vividly reminded me of the fascinating discussions we had that cold, wintry, February day. I enjoyed talking about manga bibliography (マンガのビブリオグラフィー（書誌学）の研究) with someone who not only loves manga, but is also a specialist in Japanese rare books — what a great opportunity that was! I especially appreciate that he wrote about my strategy of developing a “broadly representative” manga collection, with emphasis on reference materials and significant works.

Here are links to a few of the rare materials in Ohio State’s manga collection that Egami-san mentioned in his report:

• 東海道五十三次漫画絵卷
  (A digital copy is available at Nagaragawa Garou web site)
• 時事漫画 (OCLC)
• 日本漫画史 細木原青起著(1924)
• 漫画 / 新日本漫画家協會機關誌 (OCLC)
• 日本漫画家名鑑500 : 1945-1992
• 日本の漫画家カタログ
• 「漫画百年」（東京漫画スケッチ会）(not yet cataloged)
• 漫画の描き方に関する資料
  *新漫画の描き方 (1928)
  *漫画スケッチの猫き方(1943)
  *ワイド版マンガのかきかた (1980)
  **NOTE: For a longer list of “how to draw manga” books, many of which are available at Ohio State, see Takeuchi Osamu’s bibliography, “マンガの描き方講座：　書目”　in his マンガの批評と研究+資料(2003), 108-112.

Add comment March 14th, 2008

Shiriagari Kotobuki in Bijutsu Techo Nov 2007 issue

The last time I wrote about Shiriagari Kotobuki there was a nice link from the Completely Futile blog (Thanks so much!!!). That kind of positive feedback is really wonderful!

In the latest November ‘07 issue of Bijutsu Techo Kotobuki discusses the Choju Jinbutsu Giga, the 12th century scroll of frolicking animals that is often considered to be Japan’s first manga, with art historian Yamashita Yuji. They discuss the scroll from their respective points of view. The issue coincided with an exhibit of all four scrolls at the Suntory Museum.

73 titles now come up in a Worldcat.org search on Shiriagari Kotobuki — including some new ones that I should order for Ohio State’s collection!

Add comment December 17th, 2007

Kyoto International Manga Museum

The Kyoto International Manga Museum opened on November 25! Its web site is a major new resource about manga:
http://www.kyotomm.com/

2 comments November 28th, 2006

Anime Punch — Manga Panel

The Columbus Anime Convention — “Anime Punch” will be next weekend! I’ll be there on Sunday talking about Ohio State’s manga collection and about manga in general. Here’s a link for more information –

http://www.animepunch.org/

5 comments March 27th, 2006

Inu Yasha

The last reading in the freshman seminar was Inu Yasha by Takahashi Rumiko. We had a good discussion about what makes it such a popular manga. Also, we reflected on what we’d all learned over the past ten weeks. The seminar was a great success, thanks to a wonderful group of students. We had a lot of lively discussions and everyone participated actively.

For the last class I brought the manga collection’s treasure, an original page from a story manga by Tezuka Osamu. It was exhibited during the Astro Boy Birthday (April 7, 2003) celebration and exhibit.

Also, I brought some other resources related to the class discussions that day – on Takahashi Rumiko, otogi-zoshi, yokai (demons, ghosts, ) etc –

Add comment March 14th, 2006

Ishinomori Shotaro

My freshman seminar ended last week. One of the mangaka that we read is Ishinomori Shotaro. I just put in an order for the 500 volume Ishinomori daizenshu (complete works) that has just started coming out. It will be published at the rate of about 40 volumes every three months during 2006-2008.

Here are some resources in the manga collection related to Ishinomori Shotaro –

Add comment March 14th, 2006

Alison Raab’s thesis

Alison Raab’s MS thesis, “Manga in Academic Library Collections: Definitions, Strategies, and Bibliography for Collecting Japanese Comics,” is available online at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill’s SILS Electronic Theses and Dissertations repository:
http://etd.ils.unc.edu/dspace/handle/1901/233

Alison’s thesis makes very interesting reading! She advocates collecting manga as part of Japanese studies collections in general, and provides practical advice on selecting/collecting manga.

In Chapter V (”Manga in the Field: Manga Collection Strategies in Academic Libraries) she discusses manga collections at Ohio State and U Kansas. Alison refers to Ohio State’s approach as “comprehensive.” Actually, I describe my approach to collecting manga as “broadly representative” rather than comprehensive. In the case of manga, this distinction seems important to me. However, this small correction does not detract from an otherwise excellent paper.

Great work, Alison!!

1 comment February 28th, 2006

Four Immigrants Manga

The first assignment for the manga seminar is Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama’s The Four Immigrants Manga translated, with an introduction and notes by Frederik L. Schodt.
Ohio State’s copy of the original 1931 edition (Manga yonin shosei / Henry Kiyama Yoshitaka 漫畵四人書生 / ヘンリー木山義喬) (published in San Francisco) is from the collections of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, Bill Blackbeard, Director.
We’re also reading Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.

1 comment January 12th, 2006