I think it’s fair to say that manga has seen explosive growth worldwide within the past 30 years and this has led to several misconceptions about the age of the medium of manga and the amazing history behind it. I quite often hear people describing manga as a new medium and I can’t help but feel that saying this is belittling to the many people who’ve worked hard to make the medium of manga what it is today and the many cultural influences behind it. Taking all of that into account, let’s take a look at the amazing history of the medium of manga.
It’s interesting to note that the word “Manga” is much older than many people believe it to be. This word, which is made up of the characters “漫画” which translates as whimsical pictures, was originally coined by Santō Kyōden in 1798 to describe one of his picture books. Later on, the legendary Japanese artist Hokusai drew a collection of sketches covering a wide variety of topics that would later be referred to as “Hokusai Manga”. While these uses of the term manga are quite different to the modern incarnation of the word, they’re nonetheless an essential part of manga history.