The U.S. Navy introduce themselves to Japan - via manga

[Paul]

Since the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "USS George Washington" will be docking in Japan at some point in 2008, the U.S. Navy has decided to introduce itself to the Japanese public in a rather interesting way; <a href="http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53641&archive=true">via manga</a>. The plot will involve "two central protagonists, a male and a female sailor" who no doubt embark on fun adventures aboard the <em>George Washington</em> during its voyage to Japan. We don't expect this one to be violent!

This is an interesting parallel that harkens back to the end of World War II when, in an attempt to rebuild Japan with a clear Western "influence", the country was flooded with American pop culture and essentially, comics - so much so this is what kick started Japan's modern manga revolution.

 

[McIcy]

It'll probably be some sort of detective thing like NCIS or better still lots of jolly sailors singing and dancing like a 1950's black and white movie

 

[Ryo Chan]

It'll probably be some sort of detective thing like NCIS or better still lots of jolly sailors singing and dancing like a 1950's black and white movie

there was me thinking it would involve some F18's and the hero standing infront of the american flag

 

[NekoJoe]

This is an interesting parallel that harkens back to the end of World War II when, in an attempt to rebuild Japan with a clear Western "influence", the country was flooded with American pop culture and essentially, comics - so much so this is what kick started Japan's modern manga revolution.

Hmmmm. I disagree with this conclusion, it's not that simple.
The American occupation did have an influence in continuing the manga trend, but Japanese people wanted home grown stories, Kamishibai proved to be a popular until TV took off.

Another factor is cost, manga was cheap to produce with red-ink covers printed on rough paper, when compared to the prewar children's magazines published as early as 1914. Manga was a cheap form of entertainment.

Manga was popular before WWII, and even used for propaganda purposes by the Japanese government and also by the Allies against the Japanese.

Saying along came the Americans and bang manga became popular, isn't quite the real story. It's more a case of manga being popular before WWII and exponentially grew along with everything else in Japan.

 

[Paul]

This is an interesting parallel that harkens back to the end of World War II when, in an attempt to rebuild Japan with a clear Western "influence", the country was flooded with American pop culture and essentially, comics - so much so this is what kick started Japan's modern manga revolution.

Hmmmm. I disagree with this conclusion, it's not that simple.
The American occupation did have an influence in continuing the manga trend, but Japanese people wanted home grown stories, Kamishibai proved to be a popular until TV took off.

Another factor is cost, manga was cheap to produce with red-ink covers printed on rough paper, when compared to the prewar children's magazines published as early as 1914. Manga was a cheap form of entertainment.

Manga was popular before WWII, and even used for propaganda purposes by the Japanese government and also by the Allies against the Japanese.

Saying along came the Americans and bang manga became popular, isn't quite the real story. It's more a case of manga being popular before WWII and exponentially grew along with everything else in Japan.

Cheers for the interesting information Joe.

Actually, I think I'm going to stand by what I said because I used the term "modern" manga specifically to mean the Osamu Tezuka generation that appeared almost immediately after WWII and based their art work on the likes of Betty Boop and Walt Disney's productions. Once Japan was "rebuilt" in the image of the West, we started to see more pulpy comics in the vein of superhero-themed stories like Astro Boy.

I've never really bought the idea that things like "Kamishibai" have directly bled into the kind of "modern" manga we see today simply because the general art styles and story telling traditions are fairly different. It's also worth nothing that on the Kamishibai wiki reference, it apparently died out in the 1950s, right about the time the likes of Tezuka started appearing.

 

[NekoJoe]

Cheers for the interesting information Joe.

Actually, I think I'm going to stand by what I said because I used the term "modern" manga specifically to mean the Osamu Tezuka generation that appeared almost immediately after WWII and based their art work on the likes of Betty Boop and Walt Disney's productions. Once Japan was "rebuilt" in the image of the West, we started to see more pulpy comics in the vein of superhero-themed stories like Astro Boy.

I still think you're over simplifying it.

Japan's been strongly influenced by the west way before WWII. That's the the Meiji era is all about! If you look at prewar comics of Japan, you can see an influence from Disney before then. What you've written implies that manga wasn't modern before the American's occupied Japan after WWII. You can see a clear and gradual evolution into modern manga that started before WWII. Numerous manga titles were done in the style we could regard as "modern" before WWII and would have influenced artists just as much.

What made Tezuka so special wasn't just his influence from Disney, Max Fleischer, or Hergé (which has clearly had just as much an influence on his art style if you look at certain characters), but Tezuka taking inspiration from cinema. What made Tezuka special wasn't just his western influence, but the other things he did, such as his panel layout and story telling methods, which were closer to cinema than American comics books. If you look at Tezuka's work often it's laid out like a film director or cinematographer would.

Kamishibai died out slowly as manga became a cheap form of entertainment along with TV becoming more mainstream.

There are many examples of manga pre-war that have had just as much influence on "modern" manga. What you've written implies that manga just suddenly switched over to a modern style when the Americans arrived, which isn't what happened.

 

[Paul]

To be honest I'm finding this hard to argue because I think both points of view are valid. The crux of what I'm trying to say is simply that if the U.S. didn't forcefully "influence" Japan's pop culture, we wouldn't have seen the manga (and subsequently, anime) revolution and everything would be different.

It's not really a case of over simplifying an entire cycle of evolution, rather I'm just pin-pointing the moment that the likes of Tezuka decided to create something original and resembling what we now know as manga; my view is that they originally derived their inspiration from the influx American pop culture, this to me correlates with the dates at which everything started moving in Japan.

I'm not saying you're wrong, our opinions just seem to differ on the origin theory.

 

[Xelis]

The war, mainly the nukes had a huge effect on Japan (obviously) but their boom in technology and economy, I dont think would have happened if it were not for that one event, and the same with Manga at the time, it was created to get moral back up and be light entertainment at a devastating time for them.

I also think that American pop culture has had a huge impact on manga because it was Disney and the Betty Boops that influenced that generation of drawing.