(10/8/07)
I’m actually writing this the day after Day 2 before I head to Day 3 because last night, after the convention, I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at Party for the People in BK. (It was excellent, but that is a different post entirely.) After P4P (or PftP as it is also known) I spent the night snacking and chatting with my room-mates DW and RL, and DW’s sister and our friend JW, aka Janejane.
JW asked a lot of fun questions about my recent (?) interest in anime/manga, since we hadn’t talked in a minute. So I decided to talk here a little bit about what I’m trying to do.
This is true of a lot of pop culture media but anime/manga (as most people in the US know it today) is full of the problematic gender/race/class stereotypes that permeate its source society (Japan/USA). A lot of people in the U.S. today think that anime has something to do with crazy big-eyed and impossibly skinny animated characters often involved in either magical/fantasy fighting scenarios or octopus sex. While this kind of anime/manga is very visible (because it sells really well), it is NOT representative of the complicated and deep history of manga/anime in Japan and the world.
First, to define terms:
Anime (Japanimation) is a controversial term, but I’m going to use it to refer to media originating in Japan as well as influenced by Japanese style animation media (like Korean, Chinese, and U.S.-produced works).
Manga is comic-book format anime-style literature. Basically: stylized comics originally from Japan or strongly influenced by Japanese anime style.
So … some people trace the origins of manga back to Hokusai Manga, a compilation of sketches (“random pictures” is the translation of “Manga”) by Hokusai the famous woodblock painter of 16th c. Japan. Many people also point to Walt Disney and other Euro/U.S.-American comics and cartoon artists as influences.
But fast-forwarding a bit, manga in the 60’s (a time when the Japanese left was a lot stronger than it is today) was a medium often used to depict stories of working-class and out-caste struggles in Japan. Manga was considered an element of working-class culture and the culture of resistance. John Lie, a Korean-Japanese-American scholar who wrote the book Multiethnic Japan (2001),* wrote that for many leftists, Shirato Sanpei’s manga and gekiga portrayed the ethnic and class diversity of Japan, as well as institutionalized discrimination. Many readers of the 60’s era would later say that through manga, they “learned about revolution.” (Lie, p.71)
Fast forwarding again to2004, a manga series about the Nanking Massacre was pulled out of a major weekly Japanese manga magazine after right-wing protestors and politicians made a fuss. The protestors claimed that there was no conclusive evidence to prove that the Japanese Imperial Army raped and massacred the people of Nanking when it invaded China during the Sino-Japanese War. (Thompson, p.278)** This and many other forces – like rampant consumerism – have shaped the current climate of Japanese manga production, which affects manga translation and sales in the U.S.
At first, I was feeling a little wishy-washy about what I’m going to describe next, but I’ve decided after talking more with JW (and others) that my project in teaching anime and manga after school should involve both Study and Production. (I capitalized those two words because:) Study is a concept that includes not just actual studying of past manga and anime, but also involves the idea that you can’t produce new/good stuff without knowing what’s already out there, what’s been done well and what’s been done badly. Production is the concept of not just making manga comics physically, but making an impact on manga culturally. We’ll see. These are my grandiose plans for now, at the beginning of the semester. I just wish I could do this more often.
* Lie, John. Multiethnic Japan (2001).
** Thompson, Jason. Manga, the Complete Guide (2007).
I’m actually writing this the day after Day 2 before I head to Day 3 because last night, after the convention, I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at Party for the People in BK. (It was excellent, but that is a different post entirely.) After P4P (or PftP as it is also known) I spent the night snacking and chatting with my room-mates DW and RL, and DW’s sister and our friend JW, aka Janejane.
JW asked a lot of fun questions about my recent (?) interest in anime/manga, since we hadn’t talked in a minute. So I decided to talk here a little bit about what I’m trying to do.
This is true of a lot of pop culture media but anime/manga (as most people in the US know it today) is full of the problematic gender/race/class stereotypes that permeate its source society (Japan/USA). A lot of people in the U.S. today think that anime has something to do with crazy big-eyed and impossibly skinny animated characters often involved in either magical/fantasy fighting scenarios or octopus sex. While this kind of anime/manga is very visible (because it sells really well), it is NOT representative of the complicated and deep history of manga/anime in Japan and the world.
First, to define terms:
Anime (Japanimation) is a controversial term, but I’m going to use it to refer to media originating in Japan as well as influenced by Japanese style animation media (like Korean, Chinese, and U.S.-produced works).
Manga is comic-book format anime-style literature. Basically: stylized comics originally from Japan or strongly influenced by Japanese anime style.
So … some people trace the origins of manga back to Hokusai Manga, a compilation of sketches (“random pictures” is the translation of “Manga”) by Hokusai the famous woodblock painter of 16th c. Japan. Many people also point to Walt Disney and other Euro/U.S.-American comics and cartoon artists as influences.
But fast-forwarding a bit, manga in the 60’s (a time when the Japanese left was a lot stronger than it is today) was a medium often used to depict stories of working-class and out-caste struggles in Japan. Manga was considered an element of working-class culture and the culture of resistance. John Lie, a Korean-Japanese-American scholar who wrote the book Multiethnic Japan (2001),* wrote that for many leftists, Shirato Sanpei’s manga and gekiga portrayed the ethnic and class diversity of Japan, as well as institutionalized discrimination. Many readers of the 60’s era would later say that through manga, they “learned about revolution.” (Lie, p.71)
Fast forwarding again to2004, a manga series about the Nanking Massacre was pulled out of a major weekly Japanese manga magazine after right-wing protestors and politicians made a fuss. The protestors claimed that there was no conclusive evidence to prove that the Japanese Imperial Army raped and massacred the people of Nanking when it invaded China during the Sino-Japanese War. (Thompson, p.278)** This and many other forces – like rampant consumerism – have shaped the current climate of Japanese manga production, which affects manga translation and sales in the U.S.
At first, I was feeling a little wishy-washy about what I’m going to describe next, but I’ve decided after talking more with JW (and others) that my project in teaching anime and manga after school should involve both Study and Production. (I capitalized those two words because:) Study is a concept that includes not just actual studying of past manga and anime, but also involves the idea that you can’t produce new/good stuff without knowing what’s already out there, what’s been done well and what’s been done badly. Production is the concept of not just making manga comics physically, but making an impact on manga culturally. We’ll see. These are my grandiose plans for now, at the beginning of the semester. I just wish I could do this more often.
* Lie, John. Multiethnic Japan (2001).
** Thompson, Jason. Manga, the Complete Guide (2007).
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