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Manga

...bibliographic notes about manga...

Author: davis.5257@osu.edu (page 1 of 2)

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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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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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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The Fumio Fujiki and Tokio Tobita Collection of Manga, Part II

August 4, 2023 / / 1 Comment

The following is Part II of a two-part essay that was published on the Spotlights blog of the The North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC) in October 2022. The essay was co-written by Jeremy Joseph (OSU Class of 2024) and Japanese Studies Librarian, Dr. Ann Marie Davis. Part I of this essay is available here.

Capturing the Mundane to the Extraordinary: Tobita’s Valuable Sketches

A trove of details, from the mundane to the extraordinary, about life at Sugamo naturally surfaced as a result of this Project. For example, extensive interviews with Tobita revealed that he began gifting his art to fellow inmates at the behest of Prince Nashimoto Morimasa, an uncle-in-law of Emperor Shōwa and Tobita’s fellow inmate and confidant at Sugamo. When Prince Nashimoto was released in April 1946, he asked Tobita to offer him one of his drawings as a parting gift.

Figure 5. In “Inmates Sleeping in a Cell,” Tokio Tobita depicts convicts suffering haunting nightmares as well as a cacophony of late-night prison sounds. The emblem “American Red Cross” is visible on the backside of a presumably rationed and donated leaf of paper. Pencil on paper, 13.8 × 21.5 cm. Fumio Fujiki and Tokio Tobita collection, The Ohio State University, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum; SPEC.CGA.SUG.2012.

Tobita had drawn pictures for himself in private, but he had never shared his work before the prince’s request. After some thought, he drafted a cartoon-like watercolor, entitled Senpan haishoku no zu (roughly translated, “An Illustration of the Cafeteria Line for War Criminals”) in which about two dozen Class-A and Class-C suspects, including Hideki Tojo, Prince Nashimoto, and Tobita himself, stand in single file as they advance toward a meal distribution table. At the head of the line, a couple of men bow to fellow prisoners who are serving their food. An American serviceman stands by idly observing with a cigarette in his mouth.

After composing this watercolor, Tobita began drawing manically to alleviate his extreme anxiety and fear of execution as he awaited sentencing before the Tokyo Trials. Reflecting this mood, his earliest drawings took up haunting scenes, such as the routine cavity searches of naked convicts and the confiscation of shaving razors by guards at public baths. In one such troubled drawing (Figure 5), a prisoner struggles with insomnia while his cell mates sleep through an onslaught of threatening noises that breach the vent in their prison cell door. While most of the men snore, two are shown experiencing dark nightmares, as indicated by image-filled “speech” bubbles, one with a horn-headed monster and the other a knife-wielding assailant and bomber plane flying overhead.

Figure 6. The cover page of P-ko Sugamo Seikatsu, a scrapbook containing sixty-six sheets of hand-colored 4-coma (4 panels per page) “gag” manga strips by Fumio Fujiki. This serialized cartoon strip, named after the “everyman” prisoner, “Mr. P-ko” often appeared in the bi-weekly prison newspaper, “Sugamo Shimbun.” Hand painted on paper, 24.8 x 17.1 cm. Fumio Fujiki and Tokio Tobita collection, The Ohio State University, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum; SPEC.CGA.SUG.2012.

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The Fumio Fujiki and Tokio Tobita Collection of Manga, Part I

April 4, 2023 / / Comments Off on The Fumio Fujiki and Tokio Tobita Collection of Manga, Part I

The following is Part I of a two-part essay that was previously published on the Spotlights blog of the The North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC). It was co-written by Jeremy Joseph (OSU Class of 2024) and Japanese Studies Librarian, Dr. Ann Marie Davis. Note: To conform with library collection titles, all Japanese names in this article follow Western conventions with given names appearing first and family names last.

The cover page of Sugamo Life

Figure 1. The cover page of Sugamo Life, a sketch book containing 65 rough cartoons by convicted war criminal Fumio Fujiki. The original art cover verso has a brief handwritten description identifying the images as rough sketches from Sugamo Prison sent by request to the U.S. Department of State. Watercolor and ink, 20 × 28 cm. Fumio Fujiki and Tokio Tobita collection, The Ohio State University, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum; SPEC.CGA.SUG.2012

Emblematic of rare and distinctive manga collection at OSU is the Fumio Fujiki and Tokio Tobita Collection, held at the University Libraries’ Billy Ireland Cartoon & Library Museum (BICLM). Stored in a full-size document box (measuring 5 inches in width), the collection is relatively small, yet offers a seismic punch. Its many files of sketches and cartoons offer first hand testimony to the daily experiences of roughly 2,000 alleged and convicted war criminals incarcerated at Sugamo Prison (巣鴨拘置所 Sugamo Kōchiso) after World War II. The sketches also reveal everyday interactions between Japanese Prisoners of War and American guards during the post-war occupation era (1945-52). The act of producing such art was, in itself, a significant gesture that not only reduced the anxieties of prison life but also served as a vehicle for meaningful exchanges between the Japanese inmates and American GIs running the prison.

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Our New and Improved Manga Resource Guide

October 11, 2021 / / Comments Off on Our New and Improved Manga Resource Guide

By Chase Conner

Some of you may have already noticed that our Manga Studies library resource guide has gotten a facelift. If you haven’t checked it out lately, now is the time for a fresh visit! With the recent updates, we wanted our manga guide to better reflect the diversity of our collection and simplify access for researchers and students.

 The most notable change to this guide is its visual overhaul. Upon opening the page, you will be greeted with a lovely assortment of photos of some of our rare and distinctive manga materials stored at The OSU Libraries’ Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. On the right panel, you will now find a navigation box for searching our online library catalog for any piece or title that catches your interest. We’ve also added links to a key word search and a list of manga genre terms to help narrow your online catalog search.

Also on this refreshed guide, you’ll find a showcase of selected manga titles that are available in circulation at OSU. From time to time, we will update this showcase, so please visit us regularly to learn about the latest additions to the collections!

Another change to this guide is a panel of links to manga and anime journals, other relevant OSU library resources, and a small showcase of circulating materials in manga studies. These showcases are by no means a comprehensive but serve as a launching point for helping you find what you need. 

Whether for leisure or research purposes, we hope our new layout will make searching for manga more appealing and approachable. Please check it out sometime and let us know if you have any questions or suggestions for further improvements!

Checking Out Manga – Three Online Manga Readers

February 24, 2021 / / Comments Off on Checking Out Manga – Three Online Manga Readers

Image: Screen Captures of 3 Featured Manga Reader Catalogs:
ShonenJump+, Manga Library Z, and Sukima

By Chase Conner

Hello again, everyone. I hope the new year is being kind to you all. Today we’d like to return to our list of online manga resources compiled originally by Michiko Ito at UKansas. So let’s look at some of the list’s “Open Access Comics,” which allow us to read manga for free online! There is a plethora of content available on the Internet these days, and many manga publishers have jumped on the bandwagon to provide online comic apps. In addition to newly published manga, we can find many out-of-print comics that have found new life through online manga readers. Let’s get started and take a look at a few resources for accessing some.

ShonenJump+ Website Banner

少年ジャンプ＋ (Shonen Jump+)

Shonen Jump has always been a big name in the industry and one that anyone with a passing interest in manga is likely aware of. Given its vast influence and collection of popular print titles, it’s no surprise that Shonen Jump is a leader in the digital comic market. On the Shonen Jump+ site, many segments of their popular manga titles — including One Piece, Death Note, Dragonball, Naruto, and more – are available at no cost! A good number of chapters are available for free, but newer chapters require the purchase of “points,” which users must redeem in order to read. While paying for points is certainly an option, this post aims to highlight its many great “open access” offerings as well.

MangaToshokanZ Website Banner

マンガ図書館Z (Manga Library Z) [http://www.mangaz.com/]

マンガ図書館Z (manga toshokan Z) or Manga Library Z is another site that offers plenty of manga completely free of charge. Specifically, the titles included here include numerous out-of-print series that have been granted uploading rights by the original creators. While its various titles are not as widely known as Shonen Jump+’s, researchers and manga fans alike will certainly value this web site for its older and off-the-beaten-path titles. In addition to the many free manga on this site, there is also some adult-oriented manga, which are locked behind a paywall. Because you might encounter images of these adult titles while browsing the front page, I would advise exercising caution when browsing, especially if you have privacy concerns.

Sukima Website Banner

スキマ(Sukima)

Sukima is yet another valuable online resource for reading manga in Japanese. The Sukima site essentially operates like many other online manga readers that sell access to large collections of titles — including the more recent volumes – through a pay-per-point redemption system. Despite this limitation, I find that Sukima’s big appeal is that it also offers a plethora of new and old manga titles completely free of charge! It’s true that the open access manga tend to lean towards older and lesser known titles, but among these you’ll also find some of the popular classic titles like Kimagure Orange Road or even more recent titles like Gokushufudō (Way of the House Husband). You’ll definitely want to take a trip through Sukima’s library. While an account is not required to read the free manga, users must create a username and password to purchase or peruse some of the more mature titles for the 18-and-over crowd.

I recommend that anyone check out these three sites to see what titles you can find — You may just find something new and interesting! If you encounter something that you would you like to read in print at OSU Libraries, please feel free to contact OSU’s Japanese Studies Librarian, Ann Marie Davis,  at davis.5257@osu.edu, with questions and suggestions.

 

Manga Resources While Teaching and Learning from Home

April 11, 2020 / / Comments Off on Manga Resources While Teaching and Learning from Home

“Girl in Mask” clip from the anime Laughing Salesman
(笑ゥせぇるすまん) Ep. 4, adapted from the manga
by the same title created by Fujiko A. Fujio,

One of my colleagues, Michiko Ito, Japanese Studies Librarian at the University of Kansas, recently put together a truly fantastic library guide that lists tons of links to online, Japanese-language manga (including comics, graphic novels, and anime) and manga resources.  Her collection definitely deserves a shout-out and share, so  I am shamelessly copying much of it verbatim here.  As Ito notes herself, a word of caution and a disclaimer is in order:  This online guide is meant to provide links to web resources created by third parties. Contents available through these websites may contain materials not suitable for educational purposes. The compiler of this guide has no control over these websites and cannot be held responsible for website contents.

To jump down to the various sections below, click on the section guide you want to see first:

Open Access Comics,
Websites by Comic Publishers,
Serialized Web Comics,
E-comic Stores,
Online Archives and Databases, and
Organizations, Museums, and Institutes.

Open Access Comics

This section lists individual Open Access (=free) manga, selected by Ito:

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Websites by Comic Publishers

The following websites are operated by major comic publishers to announce their new comic publications. Some publishers separately operate serialized web comics (see the section immediately below.) Free previews are available:

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Serialized Web Comics (includes free previews)

This section lists selected websites for serialized web comics, most of which are operated by well-known comic publishers. Each website includes dozens of titles, and in most cases, the first few episodes and the most recent episodes are available for free. Registration and/or purchase is often required to read full contents, such as when users are required to purchase “coins” or “points” to read chapters. Note: some of these services are limited to within Japan, and some require credit cards issued in Japan.


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E-comic Stores

Many of these E-comic store websites provide free previews, and they typically require membership or registration for purchase.  As with the list above, some services are limited to within Japan and/or require  a credit card issued in Japan. (If your membership is canceled, you may not retain access to the materials you purchased.)

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Other Comic Websites

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Online Archives and Databases


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Organizations, Museums, Institutes

 

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