The History of Manga, Part II: The 60s

Osamu Tezuka inspired a movement of art, and while flower power and the Beatles were rocking it out in the West, a whole new generation of artists stood up to follow in Tezuka's footsteps, each wanting to be the next Tezuka. In this section, I will discuss the most prominent artists, who did the bulk of their work, or their most famous works, in the 60s, and the effect that they had on manga. First and foremost, the one that came closest to being the next Tezuka was Tezuka's own student, Shotaro Ishinomori.

He was never quite the same since the toaster incident

Ishinomori is most famous for his 1963 work, Cyborg 009. Like Astro Boy that preceded it, it was a science fiction featuring a robotic main character. However, it distinguished itself from Astro Boy by having the first superhero team in Japanese manga; the manga focuses on a cast of nine cyborgs created by an evil organization, who band together and fight for their freedom. Each cyborg has a different power; super-speed, shapeshifting, fire-breathing, x-ray vision, super-strength, telekinesis, etc. This focus on teams of heroes, each with a different power, would be a staple of many shonen manga (manga marketed to preteen and early teen boys) for years to come. The manga was incredibly successful and ran for 17 years, from 1964 to 1981, and was unfinished when Ishinomori died, though a conclusion is being written by his student, Masato Hayase. It also had numerous anime adaptations, from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Cyborgs Assemble!

Ishinomori also wrote one of the first manga geared towards adults, in 1969, with Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae (roughly translated as Sabu and Ichi's Detective Tales). This award-winning manga is set during the Edo Period of Japan, and features a duo of a detective and a blind swordsman. With the vast majority of manga up until this point being marketed towards younger boys and girls, the idea that university-age students read manga was relatively unheard of. Sabu to Ichi was one manga that changed the game, featuring graphically violent and sexual scenes, and heavier, deeper dialogue. The manga also serves as an example of Ishinomori's grasp and improvements on Tezuka's cinematographic style.

Plus it just looks intense

But Ishinomori's influence extends far beyond just manga and anime; it crossed over into live-action TV. Specifically live-action TV of the tokusatsu genre. See, there are two broad genres of live action TV in Japan, dramas and tokusatsu. Dramas generally refer to what we would know in America as soap operas, but also include comedies, detective stories, historical stories (known as taiga dramas), and horror stories. Tokusatsu, on the other hand, refers to the techniques used to make the series: it is an abbreviation of the word tokushu satsuei, which means "special effects". In other words, tokusatsu shows (and films) are marked by their heavy use of special effects, often involving rubber suits, giant robots, and fake-looking monsters. Generally, they're marketed to a younger audience. Godzilla is an example of a tokusatsu film, and if you've ever heard of the Japanese Spider-man, that is also a tokusatsu series.

With great power comes giant robots

It was in 1971 that Toei Company approached Ishinomori, wanting him to write them a tokusatsu show. Just a bit earlier, Ishinomori had written a one-shot called The Skull Man, which featured the first anti-hero in manga, and presented it as an idea for Toei. The producer expressed concern that a hero with a skull may be a bit too scary for the intended audience of children. So Ishinomori changed up the design a bit, made the hero look less like a skull and more like a grasshopper, and what he came out with was Kamen Rider.

And since then, no superhero rode a motorcycle until Ghost Rider

Kamen Rider (Masked Rider) became the first "henshin" superhero, that is, superheroes that transform by striking a pose, and the show gained instant popularity, lasting nearly 100 episodes. But the franchise didn't end there; it ended up with 22 spin-off shows, and several movies and TV specials. A few years later, in 1975, Ishinomori created yet another tokusatsu, this one called Himitsu Sentai Goranger. It featured a team of five different-colored superheroes fighting against an evil international secret society. Sound familiar? It should; it was the first entry in what would become the Super Sentai series, which was later cut and dubbed into Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.

Another thing you have to thank Tezuka for, indirectly

These two franchises created by Ishinomori, Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, are currently two of the three most popular tokusatsu franchises (the third being Ultraman). But this success in live-action TV didn't deter Ishinomori from writing manga; far from it, Ishinomori currently holds the Guinness world record for most comics written by one person, with over 128,000 pages written.

Not quite as influential as Ishinomori, but still a heavy influence on a wide variety of genres, was Mitsuteru Yokoyama. Like Shotaro, he was inspired by Tezuka, particularly with his early work Metropolis, and this inspiration is seen in his minimalist style. His most famous work was Tetsujin 28-go (roughly translated as Iron Man #28 but released in America as Gigantor), which was also the first manga in the Super Robot genre. Unlike the manga and anime that followed featuring giant robots with pilots, the titular robot was remote-controlled by a ten-year-old boy. The story also takes place in World War II, with Yokoyama's experiences in the war as a primary source of inspiration.

Cover of the Tetsujin 28-go manga

Yokoyama wrote a number of other sci-fi stories featuring giant robots, such as Giant Robo, Mars, and Babel II. He also popularized the ninja genre with Iga no Kagemaru and The Masked Ninja Akakage. He also wrote a number of biographical manga, adapted from historical books; while a great number were about famous Japanese lords, his longest and most famous is Sangokushi, an adaptation of the Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

But most interesting of all was that this pioneer of the Super Robot genre was also a pioneer of the Magical Girl genre, with Mahoutsukai Sally, or Sally the Witch, written in 1966. Yokoyama was largely inspired by the American sitcom Bewitched, which was popular among Japanese girls at the time, but made the main character a preteen girl instead of a middle-aged woman. While another Magical Girl manga, Himitsu no Akko-chan, had been written earlier, Sally established some of the mainstays of the Magical Girl genre. To put it in perspective, the author who started the genre including Gundam, Evangelion, and Gurren Lagann was also responsible for starting the genre including series such as Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Pretty Cure. Not what you'd expect from a guy who rarely even wrote female characters.

But really, would you let this guy near your daughter?

This brings up an interesting point about this decade of manga: Despite the first modern manga author being a woman (Hasegawa), manga artistry was a very male-dominated profession during the 50s and 60s. Even series aimed at girls were mostly written by men, and the genres popular among young girls (romance, fantasy romance, magical girl) were pioneered by men. In spite of the fact that manga originated as being very left-wing and liberal, and that Hasegawa had already challenged traditional gender roles in Sazae-san, manga during the 60s was still very conservative in terms of gender roles. Even in the actual manga they wrote, besides those directed towards girls, strong female characters were rare, and some even lacked significant female characters altogether. As an example, out of the cast of nine heroes in Cyborg 009, a cast that was ethnically diverse enough to include Japanese, Chinese, Americans, Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans, only one member was female, and her already-minor role only gets less significant as the series goes on. This male dominance of the manga industry would change greatly in the next decade.

There were a number of other pioneers of important manga genres during the 60s. One such pioneer was Shigeru Mizuki, who wrote one of the first horror manga, Hakaba no Kitaro (roughly translated as Kitaro of the Graveyard). While Mizuki wrote it in 1959, it was based on an even older folk tale of a boy born in a graveyard that could communicate with spirits. Mizuki's Kitaro became the definitive and most famous version, and featured a wide cast of traditional Japanese spirits. Though the manga itself did not last very long, Toei Animation's anime adaptation was so well received, it has been remade every decade since the 60s.

Don't let the childlike appearances fool you. Those kids will eat your soul.

Another prolific author of the 1960s was Fujio Akatsuka, the writer of the aforementioned Himitsu no Akko-chan, one of the first manga of the Magical Girl genre. However, Fujio Akatsuka was more known for creating the gag manga, the Japanese term for comedy manga, with Tensai Bakabon, which roughly translates to "Bakabon the Genius". If you have ever heard the term "baka" once before, you will see the irony in that title (if not, it means "stupid"). The manga is named after the main character, Bakabon, a dull, mischievous kid with a crazy father. Eventually, the father becomes more popular and becomes the main character of the series, and still remains a Japanese pop culture icon.

Pure comedy genius

Finally, there is Ikki Kajiwara, father of the sports manga. There are three of his works worth mentioning. The first is Kyojin no Hoshi, or Star of the Giants, a manga centered around Japan's number-one sport of baseball. It focuses on a young pitcher who follows his father's footsteps by joining the Yomiyuri Giants, one of the biggest baseball teams in Japan, and struggling to keep up with the expectations. Despite the realistic setting, the way baseball is played in this manga is incredibly exaggerated and fantastical, geared more towards younger audiences, especially in contrast to Kajiwara's later works.

The second is Tiger Mask, the first professional wrestling manga, featuring a former heel wrestler who turns good in order to save an orphanage, and suddenly becomes targeted by the evil wrestling organization that trained him. The series was popular enough to inspire not only future wrestling manga, but real-life wrestlers have used the character of Tiger Mask as their gimmick. Though the matches are more realistic than Star of the Giants' baseball games, the characters and plot are quite exaggerated.

Then again, same goes for real-life wrestling.

The third one is Ashita no Joe, roughly translated to Tomorrow's Joe and sometimes known as Rocky Joe in some places in Europe. It focuses on the life of a drifter named Joe, who meets a drunk former boxer desperate to relive his glory days, who teaches him how to box. Joe is no doubt one of Kajiwara's most realistic works. Not only are the boxing matches and training realistic, but the setting perfectly captures the uncertainty and hardships of those living in the slums in postwar Tokyo. Ashita no Joe became so popular that a funeral was held after Joe's main rival died, and even today it remains a favorite among the Japanese.

After all, Sylvester Stallone never rocked hair like that

By the end of the 60s, most of the main genres of manga had been established. But as the 70s came around the corner, there still some important, game-changing revolutions that would take place and affect the future of manga.

The History of Manga, Part I: The 40s-50s

Many people use "manga" to describe graphic novels from Japan, or with a Japanese-influenced style, but the word "manga" isn't quite that specific. The Japanese word "manga" is used to describe the medium of comics. Basically anything with pictures and text used to depict a story is considered "manga" in Japan. And with that in mind, manga is actually an art form hundreds of years old; illustrated scrolls like Choju Jinbutsu Giga have been around since the 13th century. But manga as we know it today largely came into being after Japan's historical defeat in World War II.

Chances are, this isn't what you had in mind when you thought of "manga".

During the imperialist Meiji, and subsequent Taisho and Showa, rules, freedom of speech was unheard of; the government frequently censored potentially subversive literature, and the Special Police captured and tortured any suspected thought-criminals. Basically, they were very much like the fascists they allied with. But with the American occupation and new constitution, this was overturned. The occupation only censored art that glorified militarism, and the new constitution prohibited all censorship. Naturally, the removal of censorship caused an explosion of art, including comics.

Because of its association with the new concept of freedom of expression, manga, especially in these early postwar years, has always been more left-leaning and liberal, compared to the generally conservative mainstream Japanese society. This is by no means a surprising phenomenon; it's exactly like how the artsy guy at your college is more likely to vote for Obama than Romney in the upcoming election. Art requires free expression to truly be art, and expression is generally a liberal thing. So manga offered people living in postwar Japan an avenue to push the envelope of the constrictive conservative Japanese society.

In fact, nowhere is this more evident than the first postwar manga, Sazae-san, written by Machiko Hasegawa (I'm writing all names in Western order; given name before family name). Now if you're looking for the graphic novel style of manga that most people associate manga with, you won't find it in Sazae-san; it's in the format of a four-panel comic strip, similar to the kind you'd read in newspapers. In fact, Sazae-san was first published in a local newspaper in 1946 before it was picked up by Tokyo's Asahi Shinbun in 1949. The manga became an instant hit, and Hasegawa ended up writing over 10,000 strips before retiring in 1974, and the anime adaptation is still ongoing with over 3000 episodes.

The first collected volume of Sazae-san, Japanese edition

Many people today look to Sazae-san as a retainer of traditional Japanese culture and family values, but this is almost the opposite of the reason the strip became so popular. Sazae-san was a slice-of-life comic strip in which the titular character, Sazae Isono, was living an average life of a Japanese woman after the war; homeless and poor. This made her very relatable to a wide Japanese audience. The manga presented challenges that many Japanese faced at the time, but in a light-hearted and comical fashion, allowing an element of comic relief in the stressful lives of postwar Japanese people.

What made Sazae-san controversial, however, was in the character of Sazae. She was a very liberated and strong woman who cared more about being herself and pursuing a life of her own than attracting a husband. When she eventually did marry, she ended up bossing her husband around, and later on, even joined a feminist movement. These ideas were very challenging to a culture that had an incredibly conservative view towards women, and had barely challenged the belief that men were the head of the household. Hasegawa herself indicated that she believed that Sazae's family would be a picture of the modern Japanese household. Japan today is very egalitarian compared to the postwar society, and perhaps that is one reason people today see Sazae-san as more traditional.

Osamu Tezuka in all his beret glory

But while Hasegawa's Sazae-san spoke to the Japanese society at large, Hasegawa did not have nearly as much influence on Japanese manga as an art form as Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka is most known for his 1952 work, Mighty Atom. You may know it better as Astro Boy. Tezuka also adapted it to the first TV anime in 1963. As you may already know, Astro Boy is a science-fiction work about a robot boy created by a scientist to replace his dead son, eventually rejected by him, discovered by another scientist, and becoming a crime-fighter.

The cover to the Japanese edition of Astro Boy

While this bare-bones story may not seem incredibly original, Tezuka revolutionized the art form of manga by his style. His art was incredibly simplistic and minimalist, inspired mostly by Western comics, particularly Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop comics. His exaggeration of certain features, particularly the eyes, was inspired by these comics, and the large eyes would remain a staple in manga for the remainder of its history. Tezuka also used what he called a "star system", in which characters introduced in one series would make appearances in others, giving a feel of a shared universe.

But most impactful and revolutionary was Tezuka's cinematographic technique, which had mostly to do with the paneling. While most Western comics had an incredibly rigid sequential style of panels, Tezuka intentionally arranged the panels to match the reader's viewing speed and give off the illusion of motion. This non-conventional and motion-focused arrangement of panels is essentially what defined Japanese manga and made it distinct from American comics.

An example of Tezuka's use of both cinematographic paneling and tigers in his manga

But why did Astro Boy become popular enough for his style to make any difference in the first place? Again, it probably had to do with the end of World War II. After 1945, Japan was a country that had lost its innocence. The militaristic government had glorified war, the Japanese army did the most unimaginably cruel and brutal things not only to those they defeated, but even their own soldiers, the Americans destroyed city after city, and the millennia-old belief in the Emperor's divinity was shattered. No Japanese was left unscarred by what had happened. Though some tried to deny it, they were all painfully aware not only of what horrors war can bring, since they suffered the absolute worst attacks in the history of war, but also that they were the ones in the wrong.

For these people, Astro Boy served as a symbol of innocence. He was a new hero that fought for the sake of peace. Sure, he had a tragic past, being rejected by his own creator and sold to the circus. But this did not leave him disillusioned about his own identity or about mankind; he still fought for the sake of both humanity and robotkind. For a nation that had glorified war for so long, Astro Boy provided them with hope that they could put these militaristic ways behind them, restore their innocence, and become a nation of peace. And when you look at his boyish, big-eyed design, what could he possibly be, if not the very incarnation of innocence?

Awwww, isn't he adorable?

Osamu Tezuka is rightfully known as the godfather of manga. He inspired a whole generation of manga artists, some of whom I will discuss in the next section, all who emulated his minimalist, cinematographic style. He also founded the first animation studio in Japan, Mushi Production. Furthermore, he did not just remain in the sci-fi genre, but branched out to a wide variety of genres over the course of his career; most notably the jungle adventure Jungle Emperor, or Kimba the White Lion as it's known in the West, the gender-bending fantasy Princess Knight, the historical fiction/biographies Adolf and Buddha, the medical fiction Black Jack, and his immortality-centered life's work Phoenix, which was left unfinished.

"I would've been immortal if my author hadn't died..."

It is impossible to overstate Tezuka's influence. He single-handedly created modern Japanese anime and manga. In fact, both Walt Disney (who inspired him in the first place) and Stanley Kubrick wanted to hire him, but he turned them down. Aside from the massive international popularity of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion inspired a baseball team mascot (the Seibu Lions) and a Disney movie.

The Disney formula: Anime + Shakespeare = Money

Tezuka wrote over 700 series in his lifetime, and wrote manga until the day he died. If he could have, he would have written manga after he died.

Having discussed Hasegawa and Tezuka, the grandmother and grandfather of manga, this section of the history of manga has come to a close. Tune in next time as I move on to discuss the generation that Tezuka inspired.

I Bid You Welcome

Greetings, travelers. If you're here on purpose and not by accident or because of a guy putting a gun to your head, it's probably because you've found yourself in the strange, foreign, and unfamiliar world of Japanese manga, and are lost and in need of guidance. Maybe you've tried to read manga but are confused, maybe you love manga and want more but don't know where to look, maybe someone you love loves manga and you don't understand it, maybe you think "manga" is a kind of food. It doesn't matter. You're here, and that's all that counts.

Allow me to be your guide. I am a Canadian who was raised in Japan for most of my life, and have been following anime and manga for years. This additional exposure to the culture has given me awareness to more manga than the average North American reader, with additional viewpoints to the medium that the average North American reader may not even consider.

Many North American manga fans barely explore beyond the borders of what is available to them, and think manga starts with Dragon Ball Z or Akira or something like that. While those are indeed very good and influential works of art, there is so much beyond those borders that made the titles we love, like One Piece, Naruto, and Death Note, what they are. To that effect, I will be starting out this blog with an introduction into the history of manga. I hope it to be informative and enjoyable to read.

And without further ado, I bid you welcome to the Mangaverse.