Written by Kapil Vasudev, Education Librarian, with intro by Ann Marie L. Davis
Happy New Year! This week we are preparing an interactive exhibit table and special panel on our world-class manga collection for the annual 2020 Oyahocon! More to come on that later, but for now, it’s time for this very helpful, two-part, guest blog, written by Kapil Vasudev, Education Librarian at OSU. Kapil wrote this blog after delivering a well-received half-day workshop on Japanese and Korean comics as part of the 2019 National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA). Together with Dr. Kay Clopton, Mary P. Key Resident for Cultural Diversity Inquiry, he offered an informative presentation on “Teaching, Manga, and Manga Clubs.” What follows is a summary article:

An issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump, the most popular manga magazine, featuring characters from Dragonball. (Source: Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
A Brief Introduction to Manga for Teachers, Part 1
Manga – the Japanese style of cartoons, comics, and graphic novels – has become a fixture in American culture. While it was once rare to find even American comics in libraries, it is now common to see entire library sections devoted just to English translations of manga. This series of blog posts aim to provide an introduction to manga for teachers seeking to engage with this popular art form and incorporate it into classroom activities. This week’s post discusses the origins of manga and the manga publishing industry.