Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics

"It’s not the most recent book on the subject, but it’s an excellent history of manga. It catalogues manga’s most important genres, creators, and characters. Fred Schodt really, really knows his stuff. He starts with an eleventh century scroll by a priest in which you see strange little beasts; we can definitely see this as an ancestor of manga and anime. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter You see what he’s talking about when he analyzes a particular genre, because he includes all these wonderful picture from the early Japanese history all the way through to recent Japanese manga. He focuses on Osamu Tezuka, who did Astro Boy . Tezuka is very very famous; he is considered the god of manga and anime. Fred Schodt actually knew Tezuka quite well, and he gives the reader a good sense of what he was like. Overall, Fred Schodt conveys an understanding for why manga are important and the varying ways in which they appeal. Before the internet was everywhere, if you rode the subway in Japan, half the people would be reading some genre of manga. Now more people are reading their phones. Manga have migrated into phones, but people are also checking the internet as well, actually. Manga and anime have also inspired a new media mix—video games and other different sorts of entertainment available through your cell phone. So while perhaps manga are no longer as dominant as they once were, they are still a very, very important component of the media market. As for effects on the culture, manga adopted many of the tropes of traditional culture and reinterpreted texts for contemporary audience, for instance, the classic work of Japanese literature Tale of Genji , which is a real touchstone in Japanese culture. It’s an extraordinarily beautiful and heartbreaking story of a young prince who had many love affairs; it has become a manga and animated movie. You also can see so much of Japanese tradition and folklore in anime. For instance, the amazing supernatural creatures in manga and anime are part of the rich animist history of Japan."