User:Timothy Perper/Sandbox3

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[edit] Origins Section to Manga Revision, Part 2

This is a WORKING PAGE for revisions of the Manga entry, history/origins section, and follows the material on Sandbox2. The material here is NOT FINAL.

This section deals only with manga AFTER WW2. The next section, which will be coming soon, will deal with the origins of manga in pre-War, Meiji, and pre-Meiji times.

Please leave comments, questions, corrections, and so on below, in the Comments section. Also please DO NOT format this material -- doing so causes Horrible Glitches, best left asleep in the corners of cyberspace.


[edit] Part 2 of Origins of Manga

[edit] Manga After World War II

Modern manga originates in the Occupation (1945-1952) and post-Occupation years (1952-mid-1960s), when a previously militaristic and ultranationalist Japan was rebuilding its political and economic infrastructure (Footnote 1, Schodt 1986). Although United States Occupation censorship policies specifically targeted art and writing that glorified war and Japanese militarism (Schodt 1986), those policies did not prevent the publication of other kinds of material, including manga. Furthermore, the 1947 Japanese Constitution (Article 21) prohibited censorship of all forms (Kodansha 1999). One result was an explosion of artistic creativity in this period (Schodt 1986).

In the forefront of this period are two manga series and characters that influenced much of the future history of manga. These are Osamu Tezuka’s Mighty Atom (Astro Boy in the United States; begun in 1951) and Michiko Hasegawa’s Sazae-san (begun in 1946).

Astro Boy himself was both a superpowered robot and a naive little boy (Schodt 2007). Tezuka never explained why Astro Boy had such a highly developed social conscience nor what kind of robot programming could make him so deeply affiliative (Schodt 2007). Both seem innate to Astro Boy, and represent a Japanese sociality and community-oriented masculinity differing very much from the Emperor-worship and militaristic obedience enforced during the previous period of Japanese imperialism (Schodt 2007). Astro Boy quickly became (and remains) immensely popular in Japan and elsewhere as an icon and hero of a new world of peace and the renunciation of war, as also seen in Article 9 of the Japanese constitution (Kodansha 1999; Schodt 2007). Similar themes occur in Tezuka’s New World and Metropolis (Schodt 1986, 2007).

By contrast, Sazae-san (meaning “Ms. Sazae”) was drawn starting in 1946 by Michiko Hasegawa, a young woman artist who made her heroine a stand-in for millions of Japanese men and especially women rendered homeless by the war (Gravett, Schodt). Sazae-san does not face an easy or simple life, but, like Astro Boy, she too is highly affiliative and is deeply involved with her immediate and extended family. She is also a very strong character, in striking contrast to the officially sanctioned Neo-Confucianist principles of feminine meekness and obedience to the “good woman, wise mother” (ryousai kenbo, りょうさいけんぼ; 良妻賢母) ideal taught by the previous military regime (Ohinata 1995, Yoshizumi 1995). Sazae-san faces the world with cheerful resilience (Craig book, Gravett), what Hayao Kawai (1996) calls a “woman of endurance.”

Tezuka and Hasegawa were also both stylistic innovators. In Tezuka’s “cinematographic” technique, the panels are like a motion picture camera that reveals details of action bordering on slow motion as well as rapid zooms from distance to close-up shots (Schodt 1986). This kind of visual dynamism was widely adopted by later manga artists (Schodt 1986). Hasegawa's focus on daily life and on women's experience also came to characterize later shojo manga (Gravett, Sanchez).

Between 1950 and 1969, increasingly large audiences for manga emerged in Japan with the solidification its two main marketing genres, shonen manga aimed at boys and shōjo manga aimed at girls (Schodt 1986, Toku 2005). Up to 1969, shōjo manga was drawn primarily by adult men for young female readers (Schodt 1986, Thorn 2001). Two very popular and influential male-authored manga for girls from this period were Osamu Tezuka’s 1953-1956 Ribon no Kishi (“Princess Knight” or “Knight in Ribbons”) and Matsuteru Yokoyama’s 1966 Mahōtsukai Sarii (“Little Witch Sally”).

Ribon no Kishi dealt with the adventures of Princess Sapphire of a fantasy kingdom who had been born with male and female souls, and whose sword-swinging battles and romances blurred the boundaries of otherwise rigid gender roles (Schodt 1986). Sarii, the pre-teen princess heroine of Mahōtsukai Sarii, [Footnote 2] came from her home in the magical lands to live on earth, go to school, and perform a variety of magical good deeds for her friends and schoolmates (Yoshida). Superficially Sarii may seem to resemble Samantha, familiar to American viewers as the witch from the 1964 US television show Bewitched, or Jennifer from the 1942 film I Married a Witch, but unlike Samantha, a married woman with her own daughter, Sarii is a pre-teenager who faces the problems of growing up and mastering the responsibilities of forthcoming adulthood. Mahōtsukai Sarii helped create the now very popular mahō shōjo or “magical girl” subgenre of later manga (Yoshida). Both series were and still are very popular (Schodt, Yoshida).

[edit] Shōjo Manga

In 1969 a group of women mangaka later called “The Magnificent 24s” made their shōjo manga debut (the term comes from the Japanese name for 1949, when many of these artists were born; Lent existing reference #1, Gravett). The group included Hagio Moto, Riyoko Ikeda, Yumiko Oshima, Keiko Takemiya, and Riyoko Yamagishi (Gravett) and they marked the first major entry of women artists into manga (Schodt, Gravett). Thereafter, shōjo manga would be drawn primarily by women artists for an audience of girls and young women (Toku 2005, Schodt, Thorn). In 1971, Ikeda began her immensely popular shōjo manga Beresaiyu no Bara (“The Rose of Versailles”), a story of Oscar François de Jarjayes, a cross-dressing woman who was a Captain in Marie Antoinette’s Palace Guards in pre-Revolutionary France (Schodt, Gravett, Tchiei Part 5). In the end, Oscar dies as a revolutionary leading a charge of her troops against the Bastille. Likewise, Hagio Moto’s work challenged Neo-Confucianist limits on women’s roles and activities (Ohinata 1995, Yoshizumi 1995), particularly in her 1975 They Were Eleven, a shōjo science fiction story about a young woman cadet in a future space academy (Hagio Moto, 1975/1996).

These women artists also created considerable stylistic innovations. In its focus on the heroine’s inner experiences and feelings, shōjo manga are “picture poems” (Schodt) with delicate and complex designs that often eliminate panel borders completely to create prolonged, non-narrative extensions of time (Schodt, Thorn, Gravett, Toku 2005). All of these innovations – strong and independent female characters, intense emotionality, and complex design – remain characteristic of shōjo manga up to the present day (Sanchez, Tchiei Part 5).

MORE TO COME

References:

Gravett 2004 already in

Hagio Moto 1975/1996 They Were Eleven. In: Matt Thorn, editor Four Shojo Stories. San Francisco. Viz. Original story published 1975; US edition, which I'm citing, 1996

Kodansha 1999 Japan: Profile of a Nation, Revised Edition. Tokyo:Kodansha.

Kawai, Hayao 1996 The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan. Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications. Chapter 7, pp. 125-142.


Ohinata, Masami 1995 The mystique of motherhood: A key to understanding social change and family problems in Japan. pp. 199-211. In: Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda (editors) Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York. See comment below about the formatting.

Schodt 1986 already in

Schodt 2007 Astro Boy Essays; already in

Tchiei, Go 1998 A History of Manga, parts 1-5. Listed at http://www.dnp.co.jp/museum/nmp/nmp_i/backindex.html Referencing this: the URL above lists all 5 parts. The reference in Footnote 1, below, gives one of the five separately. I imagine that all 5 have to be listed in our bibliography.

Thorn, Matt 2004 Shôjo Manga—Something for the Girls. http://matt-thorn.com/shoujo_manga/japan_quarterly/index.html

Toku, Masami (editor) 2005 Shojo Manga! Girl Power! Chico, CA: Flume Press at California State University, California.

Yoshida, Kaori 2002 Evolution of Female Heroes: Carnival Mode of Gender Representation in Anime. http://journals2.iranscience.net:800/mcel.pacificu.edu/mcel.pacificu.edu/aspac/home/papers/scholars/yoshida/yoshida.php3

Yoshizumi, Kyoko 1995 Marriage and family: Past and present. pp. 183-197. In: Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda (editors) Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York.

Footnotes

Footnote 1: This section draws primarily on the work of Frederik Schodt (1986, 1996, 2007) and of Paul Gravett (2004). Time-lines for manga history are available in Mechademia, Gravett, and in articles by Go Tchiei (http://www.dnp.co.jp/museum/nmp/nmp_i/articles/manga/manga2.html).

Footnote 2: Sarii is the Japanese spelling and pronunciation of the English-language name "Sally." The word "mahōtsukai" literally means "magic operator," someone who can use and control magic. It does not mean witch or magical girl (which is mahō shōjo in Japanese), because tsukai is not a gendered word in Japanese. This use of an English-language name with a Japanese descriptive word is an example of transnationalism in Tatsumi's sense.

More coming

[edit] Comments

The formatted content of this page goes to TP/Manga3.

(TP) The material on Astro Boy is taken primarily from Schodt 1986 and Schodt 2007. If you ask why we're citing Schodt so much, the answer is that except for Gravett 2004 there aren't any sources to equal his work. Individual papers exist, but for scope and knowledge, Schodt's work is definitive. You can't work without him in this field.

(TP) Although Schodt wrote a whole book about Astro Boy, there is much less in English on Sazae-san. Any astute critic -- as opposed, I mean, to a fanboy or otaku -- will know exactly what we mean when we say that Sazae-san is resilient, but finding a print or trustworthy web source for that is harder (over to you, Peregrine!).

(TP) I hope it's clear that this article is NOT trying to replace *individual* articles about various manga or artists. Here, we're trying to set these works into a larger historical context and see what surrounding social and historical forces shaped them.

Here is the Sazae-san ref. It says "Sazae-san...whose relentless optimism and in the face of hardships held out the hope that things would somehow turn out all right." Look at the last sentence in the second full paragraph on page 188. - Peregrine Fisher 03:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

(TP) I added an italicized Level 2 header to this section. I also also added an italicized Level 2 subheader to the FIRST part of manga origins in the Manga article itself. That ought to keep the subsections from being confused with each other.

(TP) The material on Sarii and Samantha is quite different from the Wiki article on "Sally, the Witch." On that page, the author adopts the POV that of course Mahoutsukai Sarii came "directly" from the US television show "Bewitched." Here, I adopt the NPOV position that there are differences between Sarii, Samantha, and Jennifer, and avoid all discussions of "influence."

(TP) There's another POV issue in the shojo part. For many American fanboys, shōjo manga is characterized by girls with big eyes and no or silly plots about superheroines. I am trying as much as possible to stay away from this, in my opinion, untutored and slightly contemptuous viewpoint. Just the facts, ma'am... dum de DUM dum.

(TP) I suspect that this will prove the least successful if paradoxically most popular section of the revision. That's not because it's wrong or simplified, but because the fanboys are going to see it as a WONDERFUL place to add their favorite manga in any order at all and without any regard to how significant those manga are in history. "What? You left out Daisuke the Ninja Boy? HOW DARE YOU! I will add it!!" Of course no one has ever heard of Daisuke the Ninja Boy (partly because I made him up), but that makes no difference. "I love Daisuke the Ninja Boy! That means I'm GONNA ADD IT!!!" Oh well, sigh... This is called the "spray-paint-can" school of Wiki editing. If anyone can edit Wiki, anyone can add Daisuke the Ninja Boy, thus producing the "Wiki-Goulash" that is so typical of Wiki articles,,,
Quoting Peregrine from TP/User:
Sazae-san refs. This ref says "For decades, Hasegawa's affectionate, unglamorized portrayal of an everywoman's good humor and quiet strenght (based on the mangaka's own life) conveyed the feminine insights that would have probably escaped most male cartoonists altogether. - Peregrine Fisher 21:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, that's Gravett and is in already as a reference.Timothy Perper 22:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
This ref talks about Shojo, but not Sazae-san. It says "Focusing on moods, plot, and poignant moments of revelation for its protagonists, shoujo anime and manga is one of the most beloved of the medium." - Peregrine Fisher 21:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
This is also a very good reference. Sanchez does a very good job with the material, I added him above as Sanchez.
I'm still doing the editing on this page, so Manga3 may not reflect the changes here.
Lemme see what I can do about Hasegawa. I should be able to come up with something, like rewriting the sentence to fit the reference.Timothy Perper 22:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

(TP) Here's the Yoshida reference:

Yoshida, Kaori 2002 Evolution of Female Heroes: Carnival Mode of Gender Representation in Anime. http://journals2.iranscience.net:800/mcel.pacificu.edu/mcel.pacificu.edu/aspac/home/papers/scholars/yoshida/yoshida.php3

Timothy Perper 23:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

(TP) Note about certain references. CRUCIAL Some references are in the form "Jones, 2005 Article Title. In: Smith 2005 Anthology Title. City:Publisher. pp. xx-xx." These references must have noth the Jones and Smith material. Timothy Perper 06:17, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
(TP) About "mahoutsukai." This is actually close to being a POV issue. In English, the usual words for translating maoutsukai are gender-coded, like witch and sorceress. But the Japanese word has no gender. Even the Wiki entry on Mahoutsukai Sally adopts the English-language, gendered title of Sally, the Witch. Likewise, Americans understand the title of I Married a Witch to mean "I" am male, and the witch is female -- and so she is: Veronica Lake, to be specific. We have to watch out for this.

[edit] Basic idea for this section

(TP) The approach I'm taking is that the history of manga is not a list of biographies, but a sequential and historically developing radiation of genres and subgenres. By "radiation," I mean that after WWII, manga starts with only few artists, Osamu Tezuka most notably, but also Michiko Hasegawa's IMMENSELY popular "Sazae-san." From this aesthetic center, there developed or evolved over the years a variety of genres, including action/adventure, and then, with Tezuka's Ribon no Kishi, a genre about and directed to girls. From there, each of these spokes, if I can be metaphorical, developed further genres and subgenres. e.g., the "magical girl" subgenre (= "mahotsukai") like Mahotsukai Sarii by Mitsuteru Yokoyama in the mid 1960s, and from there to the Showa 24 group of women mangaka who created true shojo manga, and so on in ever increasing complexities.

(TP What goes into each of these? I'm using several published time-lines of manga history, as well as Schodt's and Gravett's books. So manga mentioned in these sources are candidates for being included here. This means we have a CRITERION for including material, and we won't be swamped by various fanboys and fangirls saying that we JUST HAVE TO include their favorite if completely obscure manga. Timothy Perper 01:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds great. - Peregrine Fisher 01:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to do this stepwise because there is so much material. But, simultaneously, there isn't enough -- so we'll be seeing more of the Basic Three References: Schodt 1986, Schodt 1996, and Gravett 2004. First, I'll try to set the historical stage and move to the two iconic early manga, Tezuka's Astro Boy and Hasegawa's Sazae-San. Timothy Perper 13:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Finding refs for these super influential manga is like shooting fish in a barrel. This ref say "Sazae-san...whose relentless optimism and in the face of hardships held out the hope that things would somehow turn out all right." I think we can easily summarize that as "resilience." - Peregrine Fisher 16:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-WWII Manga

Hi Timothy and Peregrine, the pre-WWII history of manga section must have two important topics. The two are Rakuten Kitazawa and Ippei Okamoto's name, and Shin Manga-ha Shudan.

Rakuten Kitazawa and Ippei Okamoto are considered to be "founding fathers of modern manga" by many manga historians. For example, Tomofusa Kure's Gendai Manga no Zentaizo (現代漫画の全体像 Whole image of modern manga ISBN 4-575-71090-3) gave Rakuten Kitazawa and Ippei Okamoto's names as founding fathers of modern manga. I quote the corresponding section of the book.

Material deleted by Timothy Perper on October 12, 2007 after Kasuga-san posted notice on the Manga talk page today (on October 12, 2007) that this material is copyrighted. (9:42PM, October 12, 2007, local EDT time.)

The idea to consider Rakuten and Okamoto to be central characters of pre WWII manga history is common to not only Kure but also most manga historian in Japan. Also Isao Shimizu, an authority of pre-WWII manga, admits the two mangaka to be the founder of manga in his books; Nippon Manga no Jiten (日本漫画の事典 The cyclopedia of manga ISBN 4-385-15586-0), and Zusetsu Manga no Rekishi (図説・漫画の歴史 The illustrated history of manga ISBN 4-309-72611-9). Moreover, even Osamu Tezuka gave the name of the two mangaka at first, in the interview about pre-WWII manga that had influenced him (Manga no Ougi 漫画の奥義 The secrets techniques of manga ISBN 4-06-175991-4; p16).

Next, I should explain about Shin Manga-ha Shudan(新漫画派集団, New manga group), they contributed to form the manga style and spread popularity of manga in 1930's-1940's. But I am a little tired because I wrote long sentences in English after a long time. Please wait for the explanation of New manga group for several days. Thanks.--Kasuga 09:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)