Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

This semester, I am taking a course on Japanese art history focusing on Meiji Period to WWII. For my final paper, I'd really like to do something about manga published before and during the war.

I already know a little bit about Tezuka Osamu and the post-war manga boom, but I know next to nothing about pre-war manga. Does anyone know any good sources where I can find information?

My school has a good sized library collection devoted to East Asia, which I'm going to raid for Spring Break (next week! ), but I was wondering if anyone here knew of any good sources.

Fred Schodt's Manga! Manga! would be a good book to consult if you haven't done so already. It includes some information on pre-WWII manga.

I just ordered that book from Amazon (local libraries don't have it, surprsingly). Thanks for the tip, Jet!

Have you ever read The Four Immigrants Manga by Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama? It's worth reading if you're interested in pre-WWII manga; it's the only one that I'm aware of that's translated into English. You're probably not going to find it on the manga shelf at Barnes & Noble or borders, but Amazon and other online book stores probably have it (I managed to find it in a university library). The translation and notes were written by Fred Schodt. It even has an endorsement from Stan somewhere on the cover.

It's an interesting manga because Kiyama wrote it for other Japanese-American immigrants, and in its original form, readers had to know both Japanese and English to read it (Kiyama's English is a little bit dodgy in places). It will probably be of particular interest to San Fransisco residents since Kiyama includes several real SF locations in the manga and covers several early 20th century historical events in SF such as the 1906 earthquake.

I talked to my art history teacher the other day, and she suggested that I change my topic. Unfortunately, there just aren't enough secondary sources on pre-war manga in English out there. I can find scores of them in Japanese, but in English, I could only find the ones you(Jet) recomended.

My new topic is "Manga as a Representation of the Nation." Since the subject of the course is "Japanese Art Representing the Nation and Represented by the Nation" (not "Japanese Art History from Meiji to WWII," as I misinterpretted), the subject fits perfectly. I'll discuss the popularity of manga overseas, and the Japanese government's use of manga characters to promote foreign interest in Japanese culture, i.e. the appointment of Doraemon as "Anime Ambassador" and the use of Detective Conan characters in an informational pamphlet for the upcoming G-8 Summit.

Thank you once again for your help, Jet. I really appreciate it.