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.