This edited volume explores political motives, discourses and agendas in Japanese manga and graphic art with the objective of highlighting the agency of Japanese and wider Asian story-telling traditions within the context of global political traditions. Highly illustrated chapters presented here investigate the multifaceted relationship between Japan’s political storytelling practices, media and bureaucratic discourse, as played out between both the visual arts and modern pop-cultural authors. From pioneering cartoonist Tezuka Osamu, contemporary manga artists such as Kotobuki Shiriagari and Fumiyo Kōno, to videogames and everyday merchandise, a wealth of source material is analysed using cross-genre techniques. Furthermore, the book resists claims that manga, unlike the bandes dessinées and American superhero comic traditions, is apolitical. On the contrary, contributors demonstrate that manga and the mediality of graphic arts have begun to actively incorporate political discourses, undermining hegemonic cultural constructs that support either the status quo, or emerging brands of neonationalism in Japanese society. The Representation of Politics in Manga will be a dynamic resource for students and scholars of Japanese studies, media and popular cultural studies, as well as practitioners in the graphic arts.
Author(s): Roman Rosenbaum
Series: ASAA East Asian Series, 20
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2020
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
Notes on contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction: the political potential of manga
Manga and politics – the visual literacy of statecraft
Prolegomenon: are manga political? From the political cartoons to the politics of graphic art
Educational versus political manga
A brief history of politics in Japanese manga
From local to global cartoon controversies: a brief dialectic
Japan’s own cartoon affair: Toshiko Hasumi and the Syrian refugee affair
Manga as overt political artefact
Conclusion
Chapter overview
Notes
References
Chapter 2: Re-envisioning the Dark Valley and the decline of the peace state
Introduction
Media and memory
Fan discussions on the intersection of pop culture and politics
The Asia–Pacific War era in manga
February 26th in fantasy manga
Fantasy Februaries and the narrative allure of conspiracy and coups d’état
Potential policy implications
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 3: Kobayashi Yoshinori’s just war and unjust peace: Sensō ron, arrogant-ismand selective memory
Introduction
Purity, righteousness, and beauty in Kobayashi’s—and Japan’s—just war
The just war’s unjust peace and resulting societal breakdown
Kobayashi’s prescription: gōmanism (aka: arrogant-ism)
Conclusion: Kobayashi’s fugue state and Shinmin no michi (the path of the subject)
Notes
References
Chapter 4: Sexual politics in manga: Pan-Pan Girls confronting the US occupation, Vietnam War and Japan’s Article 9 revision
Introduction
Pan-Pan Girls contesting the “workshop of democracy”
Pan-Pan Girls advocating anti-Anpo and anti-Vietnam views
Pan-Pan Girls sneering at the Article 9 revision
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 5: NEETs versus nuns: visualizing the moral panic of Japanese conservatives
Introduction
Christianity and the historical politics of alterity
Overcoming Christianity in Shōnen media
Redeeming Christianity in Josei Manga
Outgrowing Christianity in Indie Manga
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 6: The body political: women and war in Kantai Collection
Introduction
Gameplay and ideology in Kantai Collection
Militarising the female body
Roles of women in Kantai Collection
Sexual objects and ‘changing fate’: anime and manga adaptations
KanColle and right-wing rhetoric
Conclusions
Notes
References
Chapter 7: Towards an unrestrained military: manga narratives of the self-defenceforces
Introduction
Historical background
The self-defence forces and popular culture
Aozakura: the story of the National Defense Academy
Gate: Thus the Japan Self-Defense Forces Fought There
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 8: The political representation of Hiroshima in the graphic art of Kōno Fumiyo
Introduction
Towards a historiography of A-bomb Manga
Shattering the taboo of silence
Manipulating viewpoints in In This Corner of the World
Feminisation of belonging: escaping the nostalgia of furusato
In This Corner of the World as a site of parodic trauma
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 9: What Tezuka would tell Trump: critiquing Japanese cultural nationalism in Gringo
Introduction
A new Japanese family circa 1987
Fake news
Constructing Japaneseness
Will the real Japanese please stand up?
Conclusion: make Japan great again
Notes
References
Chapter 10: Questioning the politics of popular culture: Tatsuta Kazuto’s manga 1F and the national discourse on 3/11
Introduction
The ‘reality’ of Fukushima
A worker’s view from inside Fukushima
Behind the mask, behind the curtain
The red line of depiction
Politics of manga in the wake of 3/11
Notes
References
Chapter 11: Database nationalism: the disaggregation of nation, nationalism and symbol in pop culture
Introduction
Japanese nationalism(s)
Database nationalism
The Otaku self-defenseforces: database nationalism in Gēto
Magical girls at war: database national symbols in Sutoraiku witchīzu
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 12: Envisioning nuclear futures: Shiriagari Kotobuki’s 3/11 manga from hope to despair
Images of the nuclear in Manga Since That Day
Making radiation visible
Recourse to history: from Hiroshima to Chernobyl
The invisible and the unspeakable
The invisibility of forgetting
Notes
References
Chapter 13: Kokoro:
civic epistemology of self-knowledge in Japanese war-themed manga
Precedents of Kokoro in literature and social science research
Illustrating distortion through the traitor discourse
Kokoro as a civic epistemology of self-knowledge
Barefoot Gen: the vita activa of kokoro
Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths: the vita contemplativa of kokoro
Message to Adolf: problematising kokoro
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 14: In conclusion: Abenomics, Trumpism and manga
Notes
References
Index
