Osama Tezuka Introduction. Frederik L. Schodt received a Japan Foundation Award in for his work in bringing Osamu Tezuka and other manga artists to the world!
Since first published in , Manga! The World of Japanese Comics has been the book to read for all those interested in Japanese comics. It is virtually the "bible" from which all studies and appreciation of manga begins. More Frederik L. More than that, given the influence of Japanese manga on animation and on American-produced comics as well, Manga! Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. Published May 15th by Kodansha International first published More Details Original Title.
Other Editions 6. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Manga! Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Manga! May 19, Caro the Helmet Lady rated it it was amazing Shelves: art , non-fiction , reads. Very interesting and highly recommended book for every manga fan.
Schodt introduces his readers into traditional and cultural background of manga and Japanese pop-culture in general. It's not a new book, so it doesn't include many new names and titles, that grew into fame after ies no Evangelion, no Ghost in Shell, not even Sailor Moon was mentioned , but it's still very informative and worth a read.
View all 6 comments. Sep 08, Andrew Guthrie rated it it was amazing. As a westerner who lives in Asia I must daily align my cultural background and biases to that of my host country. This is why Japan is such a fascinating place - with its own history of explicitly barring foreign influence while completely absorbing Chinese culture, a country that did not allow the importation of European books until the mid s, but that has now made the comic book it own wildly successful form.
The text explains, among other things, how Japanese characters are used as a graphic element in Manga, and Yukio Mishima's proud critiques of his country's Manga productions. So it's not just explication but entertainment! Jun 20, Octavio Aragao rated it it was amazing.
Digno da cabeceira de todo estudioso do ramo. I ran across this book in a comic shop a few months ago and remember how I had often seen references to it. I thought I should finally read it, however I decided not to that night, last week I finally laid my hands on it It is a good introduction and survey of the origins and artistic context of Japanese Manga, it looks at some of the historic artwork of Japan that can be associated with later Manga and also the particular history of Japanese comics in terms of things such as editorial cartoon I ran across this book in a comic shop a few months ago and remember how I had often seen references to it.
It is a good introduction and survey of the origins and artistic context of Japanese Manga, it looks at some of the historic artwork of Japan that can be associated with later Manga and also the particular history of Japanese comics in terms of things such as editorial cartoons and short serialized comic strips and the emergence of longer story comics. It also describes some milestone comics and representative samples of various genres, Shonen boys comics to Mah Jong comics.
There is also discussion of the work style of various manga artists. Only material up to when the book was written in is discussed and while there is detailed discussion of some genres others receive only a brief mention such as mecha stories about giant robot or other high tech paraphernalia. The author has a real appreciation for the material and also as far as I can tell a solid background in the subject matter.
He gives a good introduction into the sometimes esoteric world of Manga, Japanese art and culture more generally from the perspective of an American who has spent a great deal of time learning about these things. He is mostly concerned with discussing the variety and impact of Japanese comics in Japan, but there reception and influence elsewhere especially in America but also in Europe and Asia is discussed.
The book is mostly free of citations and footnotes, but includes an index and a list of references at the back. There are a few statistics on sales in the industry and the like added later I believe in the first paperback edition and there is an added introduction by the author that gives a quick run down on how things have changed in 14 years.
Obviously much has changed since then again. Even so the book provides an interesting background to those wishing to achieve a better understanding of Japanese comics and related media.
The main section of the book is mostly text but there are more than images interspersed with this mostly panels from manga but including photographs of various creators and other images to illustrate, demonstrate and reference the comics and themes being discussed. Some images take up much of a page, others are placed in the margins, the margins also contain captions and text boxes with short asides summarizing some manga or an interview with some creator.
The forwards, anthology of comics and back matter index, references and last words dispense with the margins. Most of the book is black and white but appropriately as it mimics the presentation of some manga collections the first few pages are in colour and present various images used in the book and covers of some notable manga, in full colour. These comics help illustrate some of the ideas of the main text and give the reader a taste of Japanese Manga which would have been much more difficult for an English audience to get in than in later years and are relatively enjoyable on their own also.
They are in black and white as is representative of manga. A few interesting artifacts of its early date occur. For example the title of the manga Kozure Okami is translated Wolf and Child, rather than the title Lone Wolf and Cub it would eventually be adapted and published under in English.
Oct 06, Lars Guthrie rated it really liked it. Andrew Peyrie, my good Goodreads friend, turned me on to this, and he has a stellar review posted. Schodt writes from experience. He is the author of several other works on Japanese culture, especially as related to graphic arts, and also translated the Osamu Tezuka's 'Astro Boy' series for the American market.
My only complaint is that it needs to be updated. Since its publication in , manga has had Andrew Peyrie, my good Goodreads friend, turned me on to this, and he has a stellar review posted. Since its publication in , manga has had a far stronger influence in our country, as can be seen by a quick look in the graphic novel or young adult sections of bookstores and libraries.
However, it's a work that is still relevant, and its overview of the history of the Japanese comics industry, which has had a much greater impact on their culture than the American comic industry on ours since World War II, is invaluable. It also contains some fascinating nuggets of information. I learned that it was Hokusai who coined the term 'manga,' that Japanese writing with its ideogrammatic basis not only predisposes the Japanese zeitgeist toward visual story-telling, but in its original form contained a forerunner of the modern smiley face, and that western graphic artists living in Japan in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century had a significant impact on that country's publishing.
Additionally, 'Manga! A chapter on Japanese norms and attitudes regarding morality and transgression called 'Regulation versus Fantasy' left me with more questions than answers. They were quite excited, and often went out of their way to be helpful. Tezuka, Japan's "God of manga," was an enthusiastic supporter of my project, and he and his company aided me greatly in gaining access to other artists and the manga industry.
Perhaps because of his success with his Astro Boy animation series in the U. He later graciously agreed to write the foreword for my book, and when the book was first published he even held a special signing for me at a major Tokyo bookstore.
People lined up outside the entrance, mainly to get Tezuka's autograph, and true to form he usually wound up not only signing, but drawing a wonderful illustration of his popular characters. And because of his presence huge stacks of the books were quickly sold—to scores of people who couldn't read English at all. At this one event, I think I sold more books than at any other event in my life. I did the bulk of the writing for Manga! It was a struggle for me in many ways.
As mentioned, my writing skills were more than a bit rusty. I remember showing one chapter to my girlfriend at the time and weeping in frustration when she told me it wasn't very good. Other friends also read my drafts and made suggestions, and I rewrote chapters over and over again. And this was all for the best. It is something I now do for all my books. Peter, who served as my editor, was in the beginning still in London, but he wrote letters there being no email in those days , encouraging me and making many valuable suggestions about what to rewrite and what to cut.
I still have a stack of letters that we sent back and forth, often with humor and interesting anecdotes. In retrospect, Peter was the sort of editor that doesn't exist today. Sort of my own personal Maxwell Perkins, the famous editor of many of the great American novelists of the s and 30's. For Peter, I think, working on my book was also an opportunity to initiate a fun project in the company he had just joined, and to help create something new and perhaps important.
My writing process was very mid-twentieth century. It required quite a bit of physical effort. No one I knew had a computer then. I first wrote everything out in long-hand on yellow tablets. I was a self-taught typist, and not very good, but I painfully typed up my hand-written drafts on an IBM Selectric typewriter. I gradually learned that everything had to be rewritten many times, and rearranged, so I would type chapters up, then get down on the hardwood floor of my tiny apartment, and with a scissor and glue sticks do a literal and cut-and-paste routine, creating one very long continuous feed of edited paper.
Then I would go back and type everything up again on new sheets of paper. And then repeat the process. Jack Kerouac is famous for typing his novel On the Road on one long sheet of paper during a three week period.
I spent far, far longer than that, but I did work from long, assembled sheets of paper. I tried to give a comprehensive overview of manga history and genres, so even if the reader didn't know anything about Japanese comics, it would be a great place to start.
In the back I also included 96 pages of four translated long-arc manga excerpts to provide readers a direct manga experience.
And these were also a lot of work. At the time, I was convinced that Americans would never be willing to read manga in their native original format, because it would require reading from the top right of the page to the bottom left corner, and turning pages from right-to-left. I thought that manga would have to be converted as much as possible to something resembling an American comic. So for the four selections, I tried to ask the artists in Japan to send me then-expensive mirror-image photostats of their art work.
I erased the text in the word-balloons, often resizing the balloons and reshaping them to a more horizontal format. My friends Leonard Rifas a comic book artist and publisher and Linda Pettibone a local graphic artist , helped me learn how to do comic book lettering, using the famous Ames guide tool and Rapidograph ink pens, so I was also able to render the translated text in the word balloons into American comicbook-style uppercase lettering. It may not have been top-notch professional lettering, but it was good enough.
In many places I also modified the artistic Japanese sound effects on the pages, using white-out and drawing in my own versions, in English trying to maintain as much of the original flare of the Japanese characters as possible. Today, little of this work is necessary, as most American manga fans are now perfectly happy to read manga Japanese-style, from right to left "backwards" from the English perspective , and they often prefer that Japanese manga "sound effects" be left as "art work," and given a tiny text footnote translation somewhere else on the page.
I didn't know anyone who had a fax machine in those days, it was pre-FedEx, and there was a tight deadline. So when everything was done, I put the entire manuscript and art work in a box and went to the airport. There I met a courier I hired at what then seemed a fortune who hand-carried everything to the publisher in Tokyo.
Written and published at a time when manga was virtually unknown to the average comics reader in the West and when only a very few examples of manga had been translated, Schodt was hoping to provide an introduction to the art form, garner interest in manga, and share his love and excitement for the medium. Although Schodt would follow up Manga! The editions of Manga! These examples are among some of the earliest manga in translation readily available to a general English-language audience.
Brief biographies of the four mangaka are provided as well. Even decades after it was first published it remains an informative and valuable study. Manga and its development reflect, is influenced by, and emphasizes the changing state of Japanese culture, politics, and social mores.
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