Sometimes I com across a book that, while outside of my normal area of study, is so mind-blowing, I really just want people to know about it. Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History, by Eike Exner is just such a book.

As a reader of Okazu, you’re probably familiar with orthodox manga history, tracing today’s modern sequential narrative art from Japan from early scrolls, through sketches of the Ukiyo-e period to (time jump) modern manga. In fact, I recently found a brand new history of manga which told that exact tale. Exner’s book stops the story and asks us to look – really look – at that time jump, and at one of the factors that shaped Japanese comicking into what we know today as manga.

The specific factor Exner focuses on is the shift from extradiagetic narrative, i.e., blocks of text – often literally-  outside the story that explain the story, to transdiagetic narrative tools like dialogue in speech balloons and sounds that both we and the characters in the story experience . Exner takes time to link together the influences from incredibly popular Western comics being translated in Japanese newspapers and magazines in the 1920s and 30s that jumpstarted the use of such tools in Japanese comics. He also discusses at length the word manga and again, covers the area that most modern manga histories gloss over, among which I include my own. ^_^

Exner is at great pains to carefully construct his argument. Again, like my own book, several of these chapters were presented or published elsewhere first, which means many of the most salient points are repeated, then built upon, until we can see how solid the scaffolding is to uphold the argument.

I found this book quite honestly fun to read; Exner’s voice is readable and friendly, with a sense of genuine conviction, rather than an argument that was made to be made. The illustrations not only helped seal the points, but I had great fun looking at the way Japanese lettering has morphed and shifted through the years. It was also quite eye-opening to see the evolution of what pop culture has considered “modern”… and, although Exner never says it, I dare say, “exotic.”

Ratings:

Overall – 9

If you have read all the conventional manga histories and are looking for something new and quite exciting in terms of manga history, I can highly recommend Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History, from Rutgers University Press!