Whenever I take a look at the history of manga, I always manage to find something interesting or fascinating that I’ve yet to discuss. In this case, I’ve known about akahon manga for a while now, mainly due to my adoration for Osamu Tezuka, but I thought it would be interesting to take a look at akahon manga, their place in manga history and why manga fans should be aware of them.
Starting off with the word “Akahon” itself, it is written in Japanese as 赤本 with the first character, 赤, meaning red and the second character, 本, meaning book. The term originally referred to children’s books which were released in the Edo-period of Japan but would later refer to the manga that was produced in early post-war Japan. These manga were printed on cheap paper that had a reddish brown colour, were sold at low prices and typically targeted children.
These akahon manga were generally considered by Japanese society at the time to be of low-quality with little to no artistic value. This was due to a variety of factors such as the crude artwork, the overreliance on slapstick and the poor implementation of copyright which regularly saw unlicensed works involving copyrighted characters or individuals being produced. A particularly important breakthrough for akahon manga came about with the release of New Treasure Island by Osamu Tezuka. Released in 1947, New Treasure Island ended up becoming an enormous success with about 400,000 copies sold.
For modern manga fans, one of the more surprising elements of akahon manga will have to be the variety of art styles presented. While Osamu Tezuka and many others decided to draw their manga in a style reminiscent of Disney, other akahon manga drew their inspiration from the many Western comics left behind by American military personnel or from older forms of Japanese artwork.
I’ve mentioned the cheap paper but I also want to draw attention to some other aspects of the production of akahon manga. Many of the publishers of akahon manga did not have access to printing plates and made a very interesting decision in order to be able to produce multiple copies of akahon manga. This process consisted of having people trace over the artwork of the original akahon manga to reproduce the art. As you can imagine, many mangaka were not pleased about this system as the artwork would shift in quality depending on who was retracing it and create inconsistencies in the style.
It was ultimately good that the manga industry evolved past the point of akahon manga as it allowed for higher-quality releases with the mangaka’s original artwork intact as well as more in-depth stories and characters. Regardless, the impact that akahon manga had cannot be disregarded as it provided the start to the careers of a variety of important mangaka as well as the development of manga techniques and art-styles. Let me know your thoughts on the interesting history of akahon manga, if you had heard of the term before, what you think about the production and styles of these manga 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!