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.
The first manga magazine was released in 1874 and was titled “Eshinbun Nipponchi”. While this magazine was ultimately a flop, lasting only 3 issues, it paved the way for other manga magazines such as Shonen Sekai, released in 1895, Shojo Kai in 1902 and Shojo Sekai in 1906. These magazines consisted of articles, prose stories and “Emonogatari“, a format which had several images on each page displaying the story while text beside or below the picture described and progressed the story being told.
However, it wasn’t until after World War II that manga in its modern form began to take shape and this was due to many different catalysts. Occupied Japan saw many American troops stationed there and, amongst other things, many soldiers brought over Western comics which would go on to influence the many budding mangaka. At the same time, Osamu Tezuka began to release his manga series such as Ma-chan’s Diary, his first manga which was released in 1946, New Treasure Island, The Mysterious Underground Men amongst many others. In the same year, Machiko Hasegawa began releasing Sazae-san, a 4-koma manga that followed the titular character Sazae Fugata in a variety of comical situations while also dealing with a changing Japan. Both mangaka ended up becoming incredibly influential in their field and would go on to inspire the artwork and panel layouts of many others.
At this time, manga was still considered to be entertainment specifically targeted towards children. By the time of the late 1950s, many mangaka were frustrated by this restriction and sought to develop manga aimed at an older audience with the late, great Yoshihiro Tatsumi coining the term “Gekiga” in 1957 which replaced the character 漫 with 劇, with the intention of changing manga from “Whimsical Pictures” to “Dramatic Pictures”. Gekiga featured a more realistic art style compared to the manga of the time and also tackled stories with darker themes and more graphic content.
While Yoshihiro Tatsumi and many others were revolutionising manga aimed at men, a group of women known as the Year 24 group set about revolutionising manga aimed at women. These women such as Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya and Riyoko Ikeda took shojo manga, which was typically telling simple, safe stories, and began to incorporate more complex themes such as sexuality, the role of gender, psychological content etc. while also reinterpreting shojo artwork by removing or obscuring the borders of panels, including higher levels of detail as well as introducing more flowery imagery.
From these humble beginnings, manga has become popular worldwide with an industry that is valued in the billions and while, like any industry, people are always going to focus on the newest releases and their creators, it’s important that we remember and honour the mangaka and their creations that influenced and developed much of modern day manga. Let me know your thoughts on the amazing history of the medium of manga, your thoughts on early manga, what you think of Osamu Tezuka and Michiko Hasegawa, the influence of both the gekiga movement and the Year 24 Group and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!