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One of the best things that happens when one steps past “fandom” as an interest to “research” of that interest, is that one meets a community of people who are passionately analyzing, criticizing and rewriting the histories of those interests. The academic and independent anime, manga and comics (and larger pop culture) studies community has been one of the most welcoming group of people I have ever encountered. It has been possible for me to meet and correspond with some amazing minds from whom I have learned more than I could ever imagine. And, when I wrote my own book, their acceptance was heart-warming. So, as often as is possible, I like to return that favor and review a book you should definitely know about and read.

In 2022, it was a pleasure to read such a book,  Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History, by Eike Exner, in which Exner painstakingly fills in the  gaps in most histories of manga from Edo-period sketches <time jump> to  manga. To quote that review, “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 .”

In Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics, Exner builds a more complete history of manga from the perspective of what was happening with comic strips, then comic books, in Japan, to what we broadly categorize as “manga.” In chronological sections, the book peels away some of the accepted narrative that manga existed in it’s own uniquely Japanese vertical and was influenced only by previous Japanese art. Every section confronts an orthodoxy of thought about the creation, influences of and global spread of the manga phenomenon.

And this last piece is the main weakness of this book. I am friendly with Eike and have seen some of his struggles against these orthodoxies. I’m outside academia, so my support is relatively inconsequential, but I do support his work. Because he so clearly has struggled against being dismissed by the establishment in manga studies ( and, I presume,  Japanese cultural exceptionalism) the tone in this book is sometimes aggressive, almost angry. When arguing against strongly held, but disprovable, conceptions that are deeply entrenched in manga studies, I absolutely understand. When that same dismissive aggression gets turned upon fandom, it does feel a bit gatekeepy. Thankfully, that tone dies off quickly in the second half of the book, when he’s past much of the hidebound thinking about the creation of “manga,” (i.e., post-Tezuka).

There was so much information in this book, from the ongoing influence of western comics that has now become a dialogue between manga and comics worldwide – something I am also writing about right now for a project – to the continuds, ongoing influence of many creators and editors beyond the best-known names. I came away from this book having learned so much that I already know I’ll need to re-read this book and cement much of it in y mind. I’ve already used it as a reference in pieces for two other books and it’s not even out yet! ^_^

For a fresh, well-researched look at the history of manga, I highly recommend Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics by Eike Exner.

Ratings:

Overall -9

Many thanks to Yale Press for a review copy and a request for  blurb. I hope that will be on the book itself. ^_^