Japanese Collections

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.

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.

Guest post by Jayden Mitchell

A sampling of some of our materials from this collection

Long-time readers of our blog may remember a post we published in 2015 about the Yurii Kyogoku Collection, a donation of more than 500 Japanese books that once formed part of the library at the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah. Topaz was one of ten camps where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated during World War II, making the surviving books important witnesses to a difficult chapter in American history.

The collection was donated to Ohio State by Yurii Kyogoku, who later worked as a Japanese cataloger at Ohio State University Libraries for many years. In our earlier blog post, we shared a list of approximately 60 titles from the donation—a substantial sample, but only a fraction of the collection as a whole.

Prompted by renewed interest in the collection, we recently collaborated with Collections Analyst Karen Ferris to compile a comprehensive inventory. The resulting bibliography identifies 497 volumes and provides the most complete record of the collection assembled to date.

Interestingly, the vast majority of the books—470 volumes—were published before 1945 and are believed to have originated from the personal library of Itsuzō Kyōgoku (1887– ), a Buddhist clergyman who immigrated to the United States in 1919. During his incarceration at the Topaz Relocation Center, Kyōgoku served on the camp’s Adult Education Committee and became the largest contributor to the camp’s Japanese-language library by bringing much of his own collection into the camp. After the war, the books were returned to him, although many had deteriorated beyond repair. The remaining 27 volumes in the donation were published after 1945 and are therefore more likely to have belonged to his daughter, Yurii Kyōgoku, who later served as a Japanese cataloger at Ohio State University Libraries before donating the collection.

The collection is especially strong in Buddhism, philosophy, religion, language, and Japanese culture, while also encompassing a wide range of literary and historical works. Researchers interested in exploring the collection can browse the complete inventory of the 497 volumes.

Some items from the collection include bookplates such as these.

Notice the “Topaz Public Library” stamp on the endpaper here.