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.