User:Timothy Perper/Sandbox2

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Contents

[edit] This is TP's Sandbox2 page

This page revises the History section (section 2) of the Manga entry. Please read, contribute, make suggestions, and ask questions. Please put them down below where it says "Comments here."

Please don't format the revised section. That gets done after it's all finished. Not formatting now also avoids some Horrible Glitches, best left asleep somewhere in cyberspace.


[edit] Revised text of History Section

Historians and writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga. Their views differ in the relative importance they attribute to the role of cultural and historical events following WWII versus the role of pre-War, Meiji, and pre-Meiji Japanese culture and art.

The first view emphasizes events occurring during and after the US Occupation of Japan (1945-1952), and stresses that manga was strongly shaped by United States cultural influences, including US comics brought to Japan by the GIs and by images and themes from American television, film, and animated cartoons (especially Disney) (Kinsella 2000; Schodt, 1986). Kinsella (2000) also sees a central role for how the booming post-war Japanese publishing industry helped create a consumer-oriented society in which publishing giants like Kodansha could shape popular taste.

Japanese scholars like Takashi Murakami (2005) have also stressed events after WWII, but Murakami (2005) sees Japan’s staggering defeat and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as having created long-lasting scars on the Japanese artistic psyche, which, in this view, lost its previously virile confidence in itself and sought solace in harmless and cute (“kawaii”) images. However, Takayumi Tatsumi (2006) sees a special role for a transpacific economic and cultural transnationalism that created a postmodern and shared international youth culture of cartooning, film, television, music, and related popular arts, which was, for Tatsumi, the crucible in which modern manga have developed.

Insert transnationalism footnote here from Comments section below.

Other writers stress continuity of Japanese cultural and aesthetic traditions as central to the history of manga. This view is exemplified by the work of Frederik L. Schodt (1986, 1996), Kinko Ito (2005, 2006), and Adam L. Kern (2006, 2007).

Schodt (1986) points to the existence in the 1200s of illustrated picture scrolls like the Tobae scrolls that told stories in sequential images with humor and wit. Schodt (1986) also stresses continuities of aesthetic style and vision between ukiyo-e and shunga woodblock prints and modern manga (all three fulfill Eisner’s criteria (1985) for “sequential art”). Schodt (1986, page 62) also sees a particularly significant role for kami-shibai, a style of street theater where itinerant artists displayed pictures in a light box while narrating the story to audiences in the street. Torrance (2005) has pointed to similarities between modern manga and the Osaka popular novel between the 1890s and 1940, and argues that the development of widespread literacy in Meiji and post-Meiji Japan helped create audiences for stories told in words and pictures.

Kinko Ito (2000, 2004) also roots manga historically in aesthetic continuity with pre-Meiji art, but she sees its post-World War II history as driven in part by consumer enthusiasm for the rich imagery and narrative of the newly developing manga tradition. Ito (2000, 2004) describes how this tradition has steadily produced new genres and markets, e.g., for girls’ (shojo) manga in the late 1960s and for ladies comics (redisu) in the 1980s.

Kern (2006) has suggested that kibyoshi, illustrated picture books from the late 1700s, may have been the world’s first comic books. These narratives share with modern manga humorous, satirical, and romantic themes. Although Kern does not believe that kibyoshi were a *direct* forerunner of manga, nonetheless, for Kern (2206, 2007) the existence of kibyoshi points to a Japanese willingness to mix words and pictures in a popular story-telling medium. The first recorded use of the term "manga" to mean “whimsical or impromptu pictures” comes from this tradition in 1798, which predates Katsuhiko Hokusai’s better known later usage by several decades (Kern, 2006, pages 139-144; Figure 3.3).

Similarly, Inoue (1996) sees manga as being a mixture of image- and word-centered elements, each pre-dating the American occupation of Japan. In his view, Japanese image-centered (pictocentric) art ultimately derives from Japan’s long history of engagement with Chinese graphic art, whereas word-centered (logocentric) art, like the novel, was stimulated by social and economic needs of Meiji and pre-War Japanese nationalism for a populace unified by a common written language. Both fuse in what Inoue (1996) sees as a symbiosis in manga.

Thus, these scholars see the history of manga as involving historical continuities and discontinuities between the aesthetic and cultural past as it interacts with post-World War II innovation and transnationalism.

References

Condry, Ian 2006 Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Path of Cultural Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3892-0. (This reference goes with the transnationalism footnote.)

Eisner, Will 1985 Comics & Sequential Art. Tamarac, FL: Poorhouse Press. ISBN 0-9614728-0-2

Inoue, Charles Shiro (macron over "o" in Shiro) 1996 Pictocentrism -- China as a source of Japanese modernity. In: Sumie Jones, editor Imaging/Reading Eros. Bloomington, IN: East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University. pages 148-152.

Ito 2000 is already in the ref list.

Ito, Kinko 2004 Growing up Japanese reading manga. International Journal of Comic Art, 6(2):392-403.

Kern, Adam. (editor) (2007). Symposium: "Kibyoshi: The World’s First Comicbook?” International Journal of Comic Art, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2007, pages 1-486.

Murakami Takashi, Ed. (2005) Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture. New York: Japan Society, softbound. ISBN 0-913304-57-3.

Tatsumi Takayuki 2006 Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3774-6

Torrance, Richard 2005 Literacy and literature in Osaka, 1890-1940. Journal of Japanese Studies, 31(1):27-60.

[edit] Please Put Comments here

September 14, 2007, by TP. This revision paints a more complex picture than the original. The major change, in my opinion, is that the original entry was little more than a set of biographical notes about various manga artists, and made no effort to discuss the actual history of manga. For fanboys, the only thing that counts is their favorite manga artist and the infinitesimal details of his/her work. So they might well be bored witless by the preceding. (TP)

But, in actuality, history is much more than mere biography. It deals with how change occurs and what causes it. So this revision discusses some general ideas various writers have had about the history of manga and its place in the larger history of Japan and, more recently, the world. Today, manga is what these folks call "transnational" or "global," meaning that influences flow back and forth in dynamic exchange. (Sept 14, 2007; TP)

The problem here is summarizing in two sentences books that are hundreds of pages long. That's an inescapable matter of making judgment calls. (Sept 14, 2007; TP)

I want to use Kern's Figure 3.3 for the first usage of manga. The original is certainly in the public domain, but Kern's book is NOT. (Sept. 15, 2007).

[edit] Comments on transnationalism

From Peregrine Fisher

I cobbled together a couple of refs that say manga can be based on "anime films" and "movies." I also cited the Star Wars manga itself, which isn't the best way to prove it's a manga, but I think it's adequite. If we're comfortable saying movies = live-action films, then we're good to go.
If a manga series is popular enough, it may be animated after publication. although sometimes manga are drawn centering on previously existing live-action or animated films.[1][2] (e.g. Star Wars[3]).
Anyways, that's the state of things. - Peregrine Fisher 01:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
^ Johnston-O'Neill, Tom (08/03/2007). Finding the International in Comic Con International. The San Diego Participant Observer. Retrieved on 2007-09-15.
^ Brienza, Casey (July 13, 2007). Videogame Visions Udon’s ‘Street Fighter’ titles join game-based manga scene. Wizard. Retrieved on 2007-09-15.
^ Hisao Tamaki (w,p,i). "George Lucas" Star Wars: A New Hope Manga, #1 July 15, 1998 Dark Horse Comics.

(TP): Here's the paragraph. Whaddya think?

For Murakami and Tatsumi, transnationalism (or globalization) refers specifically to the flow of cultural and subcultural material from one nation to another. The term does not refer to corporate transnationalism nor to tourism. One example is the creation of Star Wars films in the United States, their transformation into manga by Japanese artists, and the re-importation of Star Wars manga to the United States. Other examples are the transfer of hip-hop culture from the United States to Japan (Condry 2006) and Mugen’s painting graffiti on Hiroshima Castle in early Tokugawa Japan in episode 18 of the anime Samurai Champloo, an example of “tagging.”

Is there a way to do real footnotes in Wiki, I mean footnotes with words? If there is, this would go into a footnote together with whatever references you think it needs. The Condry reference is up above. This is an example of disambiguation, although some of the more rigid Wiki-lawyers around might start their fretful and anxious litany of complaints.

Timothy Perper 16:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can do real footnotes with citations and/or words. Please see Toilets in Japan for examples of both. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, think I've caught on to what's going on. I added the star wars sentence to User:Timothy Perper/Manga (diff). If we want to put the above paragraph down with the references, we just put it between two ref tags, <ref>Paragraph goes here</ref>.Whatever is between the ref tags gets a little number in the body, and then appears down in the ref section. It may seem like using the various citation templates like Template:Cite book have some effect on the <ref></ref> tags, but they don't. We could have just pasted your hand written citations between the ref tags, and they would have appeared at the bottom.
As to the paragraph itself. without refs for the star wars and samurai champloo statements, they are bordering on original research. The star wars mangaka are Japanese, I'm pretty sure, but I don't have any ref saying that they aren't americans. Similarly, graffiti is an american invention, but we don't have a ref to back that up either. We could find refs to prove those two things, but then we're still leaving a logical step up to the reader. "These guys are Japanese, so it's an example of re-importation." The first we can prove, the second is left up to the reader. Maybe Murakami, Tatsumi, or Condry could give us our examples?
It all depends on how nit picky we want to be. In the journals you contribute to, these would be obviously true statements that you could use. At wikpedia, we're supposed to only summarize, but I wouldn't be surprised if we could pass the featured article test with that statement left in. - Peregrine Fisher 18:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I have a Star Wars manga by Kia Asamiya. It's the official adaptation of Episode I. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Kia Asamiya's Star Wars as well as his Batman manga are a **very** good example. For example, Batman, Child of Dreams, by Kia Asamiya. DC Comics, 1 Vol., 2003. (original Kodansha, 2000). And this (which I own) was simultaneously publshed by Kodansha and by DC Comics! [Needs citation, which I'll try to find; it might be on book cover.] Nihonjoe, can you let us now the exact reference to the Asamiya you just referred to? Thanks.
I don't want this paragraph to get too long, and that means picking a few GOOD examples that we could expand in a later subsection of the article itself. I included the material in the service of an idea that isn't original with me at all, but that I'm borrowing (summarizing) from the (published) work of Murakami, Tatsumi, Condry, and Wong.
I *do* have a reference for the Samurai Champloo example. It's a review of Samurai Champloo that will appear in Mechademia, where (as I've said) Martha and I are book review editors. But it hasn't been published yet -- it's "in press" as they say in scholarly publishing. If we can use it, then we're OK, because tagging Hiroshima Castle is such a gorgeous example of transnationalism. But, if -- as I rather suspect -- we're not *really* supposed to use sources that are in press, then I'd say that as much as I like this example, it's a candidate for the Alexander Technique. (Nihonjoe, that refers to Alexander the Great, who solved the problem of untying the Gordian Knot by hacking it to pieces with his sword.) In brief, we cut the reference to Samurai Champloo.
The reference is Benzon, William L. (in press) Post-Modern is Old Hat: Samurai Champloo. (Review of Watanabe, Shinichirô (director). 2006. Samurai Champloo. Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc.) Mechademia: An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, Volume 3.
I like Peregrine Fisher's desire to drive every nail home.
Right now, this part of the history section is in progress, so we can discuss this and solve the problems together.
Just so we're all on the same page (heh-heh), I have a transnationalism paragraph on TP/Manga2. I assume that's where we're working on?
Timothy Perper 21:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

TP again -- I just visited Anime News Network, under manga, and found Star Wars easily enough. There are a bunch of links from there, one of them saying that Media Works, which is a Japanese publisher, brought out the Star Wars manga in Japan. Then, though I haven't traced this linkage yet, Dark Horse licensed it. Dark Horse ALSO has a line of American-drawn Star Wars comics; those we don't want. Just these "transnational" ones. Over to you, Peregrine. Timothy Perper 22:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

TP again -- not for inclusion as such in this paragraph, but a clarification anyway. "International" =/= "transnational." For example, "Fed Ex is an American company with an INTERNATIONAL presence." Meaning it's based here, but goes all over the world. But, "Manga and anime are TRANSNATIONAL phenomena." Synonym: "globalization." Meaning that they started in Japan, and (thank you international youth culture) spread everywhere and were imitated, adopted, adapted, and made local by the inhabitants of many nations, As that happens, local tastes and interest affect the newly adopted product. These changes are then (sigh) said to be "glocalized," a portmanteau of "globalization" and "local." I have a bunch of references to this and to the "glocalization" word. But this kind oif detail we don't need. Just a pointer and a summary that such things exist. Timothy Perper 23:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The anime news network articles made me realize that starwars.com is owned by Lucasfilm, so I think we can use this to back up "One example is the creation of Star Wars films in the United States, their transformation into manga by Japanese artists, and the re-importation of Star Wars manga to the United States." It says that it was originally pubished in Japan, then Dark Horse released an american version.
Transnationalism has a page here that we can link to, so that should help in explaining it.
We probably shouldn't use the Samurai Champloo example until the corresponding issue of mechademia comes out. Just the rap statement is probably enough by itself, but I'll do a few google searches and see if I can find something else we can use. - Peregrine Fisher 23:30, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
this could be used to say something like
Another example is the transfer of hip-hop culture from the United States to Japan (Condry 2006) and its use in the anime Samurai Champloo. - Peregrine Fisher 23:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Let's Alexander the Samurai Champloo material, meaning cut it. How about Batman by Asamiya instead? I don't want this to get too long. Timothy Perper 05:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems like hip hop in Samurai Champloo is a good example of transnationalism. There seem to be a number of books that have at least some discussion of the two, see here. We could also talk about the hip hop group Gorillaz using anime in their videos if we wanted more to say later in the article. - Peregrine Fisher 06:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree that hip-hop is an excellent example. I have a number of these books, except the Rahn book, which is something like $90 on amazon.com. My love for this field doesn't go THAT far. Benzon, whose review of Samurai Champloo I mentioned, talks about the hip-hop connections in Samurai Champloo. I also agree that this material should go later, under another heading.
I checked the "transnationalism" entry in Wiki. Except for the editor's claim that it's a political/ethical movement, the entry isn't a bad summary of what the people I've been reading have to say about transnationalism. We might need to disambiguate somehow to avoid seeming to take a POV on this subject (which the transnationalism entry surely has -- it's quite positive).
In the next couple of days, can we put the Introduction into the Manga article? I posted an alert about that on the manga and on the manga-anime work group talk pages, so if the introduction is OK, we can shift it in. I've never done anything like that, and I'd like to leave the mechanics up to you as being much more experienced with Wiki than I am. I'll check the refs, especially the urls. The original article has a header "Origins" or something like that; we can replace that too with "Introduction."
Is OK?
Timothy Perper 06:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good. We'll go live with the intro sometime in the next couple of days. I was thining that what you've written at User:Timothy Perper/Manga2 could go under the heading of origins, or maybe we should make a history section that has a few sub-sections. That's the way African American literature and Poetry, both featured articles, do it. - Peregrine Fisher 06:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup. About the history section, yes, we need subheadings. "Origins" is one possible level 1 heading; so is "History." Then, the material on TP:Manga2 -- the material we're working on now -- gets a level 2 subheading, followed by the next section, and whatever comes after that. If we're going to try to make this an FA-qualifiable article, then IMITATE <gr>.

Also over the next several days, I'm going to go off-line and start on the next sub-section, which will be called something like A Timeline of Recent Manga.

We have to do something about the biographies. The only thing I could think of was a section called "Biographies of Selected Manga Artists." Actually, I'd like to remove those biographies and work in what we need into the other sections. But that will take some thought.

Timothy Perper 07:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Introductory paragraph

It says

"Historians and writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga. Their views differ in the relative importance they attribute to the role of cultural and historical events following WWII versus the role of pre-War, Meiji, and pre-Meiji Japanese culture and art."

This is carefully written to avoid POV. Compare it to:

"Manga has been shaped by two broad and complementary processes: cultural and historical events following WWII and events occurring in pre-War, Meiji, and pre-Meiji Japanese culture and art."

Don't be too quick to say that version 2 is "better." It isn't. Let me explain why.

The second paragraph makes an assertion and, at an absolute minimum, needs references. Considering how complicated the literature is, it will need 5-10 references. At the moment, the second version sounds as if the writer were pushing a particular viewpoint. It elicits (or should elicit) the reaction "Oh, yeah? Sex who?" from a critical reader.

Yes, the second version is shorter and, in some ways, clearer. But it also violates Wiki guidelines about POV and OR. By contrast, the first version is merely a preview of what is coming next.

The difference is that version 1 is scholarly writing, whereas version 2 is journalism. Nothing wrong with journalism, but this kind of writing is frowned upon in Wiki. And, I think, with good reason: an author can VERY easily sneak in a hidden POV that will escape someone who reads it only quickly.

If one wanted to be very, very careful, version 1 could be rewritten to read:

The historians and writers on manga discussed below have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga. Their views differ in the relative importance they attribute to the role of cultural and historical events following WWII versus the role of pre-War, Meiji, and pre-Meiji Japanese culture and art.

But that's too cumbersome, though it's legalistically more accurate. So I opted for the version we have.

Hence version 1 is the one that's in the revision, not version 2. I hope that's clear...

Timothy Perper 02:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)