History of manga
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The History of manga begins in the 19th Century. Manga is a Japanese term that generally means "comic".
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[edit] Hokusai manga
The Hokusai manga is a series of sketchbooks by the Japanese artist Hokusai published in 1814–1878 in fifteen volumes. Although now a renowned artist in Japan, when he was a teenager he was expelled from the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō by his master in 1785 for disregard of the artistic principles. During his lifetime he developed unique artistic styles that initially were recognized more in Europe than in Japan. It was Hokusai who first used the word manga that is translated loosely into English as pictorial whims (whimsical pictures). At this early stage the pictures were indeed unassociated with each other. Hokusai's work contains sketches from a variety of topics that include historical persons, architecture, occupations, gods, monsters, mountains, flora and birds. The very sketch-like nature was intended on not focusing on detail, but instead concentrating on the idea behind the picture.
[edit] Ukiyo-e
Hokusai created many woodblock prints which can be classified as Ukiyo-e. Ukiyo-e rose to great popularity in the metropolitan culture of Edo (Tokyo) during the second half of the 17th century, originating with the single-color works of Hishikawa Moronobu in the 1670s, because it could be mass produced easily.
It was at this stage that collective works were no longer random but were told in story form as a collection of sketches, often a dozen to each story.
[edit] Ponchi-e
Ponchi-e was an evolution of Ukiyo-e with a great deal of influence from the Western world. Japan's trade with western countries, particularly the United States caused an art style change in an attempt to adopt outside influences into their own culture. Japan successfully incorporated many western practices during this time including its government and education systems. Ponchi-e was different from Ukiyo-e because the sketch style of drawing was no longer drawn and, instead, artists began concentrating on using line, form and color. The old practice of using twelve drawings to a story was also beginning to phase out and many were then using 4 panels for each comic. During 1946, in the Osaka edition of Shokokumin Shimbun (Mainichi School Children's Newspaper), Diary of Ma-chan debuted with a four-panel Ponchi-e style newspaper strip which was authored by a 17-year-old university student, Osamu Tezuka.
[edit] Osamu Tezuka
Soon Diary of Ma-chan became a specialised publication of its own. Osamu Tezuka's work continued with Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island) in 1947. This is the manga that made Tezuka a household name in Japan. It is an action-adventure drama inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's book, about a boy named Pete whose discovers a map to Treasure Island and embarks on a voyage to find it. The Western-style art and fast-paced storyline attracted much attention, and it became a best seller with 400,000 copies sold, laying the groundwork for the manga craze and its modern style. Tezuka began work on first full-scale long serial (released periodically, in the same way manga today is released on a regular basis), Jungle Taitei in 1950. It was to be known in the west as Kimba the White Lion. Tezuka began releasing manga in many different genres with content that was suitable for adults. This caused great interest in manga in general, and its popularity grew.
[edit] Gekiga
Between the 1960s and the 1970s, there were two forms of comic serialisation. One, the manga format, was based on the sales of magazines. The other, gekiga, was based on a rental format, much in the same line as the modern movie rental systems. Manga was based on weekly or biweekly magazine publications so the demand for prompt production and deadline was paramount. Consequently, most manga artists adopted Tezuka-style drawing where characters are drawn in a simpler but exaggerated manner - most typified by large, round eyes which are regarded as a defining feature of a Japanese comic in the west.
Gekiga on the other hand did not have any deadline, and can be seen as analogous to graphic novels in the USA. The artist could use much more detailed drawings and more realistic portrayal of character. As well, a greatly complex and mature story line was also available. For this reason, gekiga was considered to be much more artistically superior. However, gekiga's rental business model eventually died out in the 1970s, while comic artists in manga format significantly improved their graphic quality and story. Eventually, gekiga was absorbed into manga and now are used to describe manga style which does not use cartoonish drawing. A famous gekiga style manga in the West is Akira.
[edit] Manga in the 21st century
Manga has become increasingly popular outside of Japan, although many of the most popular artists are Japanese. Western companies translate and modify the content to suit the audience in their country. Initially pages were reversed horizontally because Japanese read right-to-left although companies are no longer doing this to preserve the author's intended layouts and character designs.
