At one point in my work, I had to closely engage with the manga and anime industry (in the entertainment field, it’s quite normal for different areas of the entertainment industry to overlap: many games and movies are based on anime, and vice versa). However, I could never say I was a fan of this genre (unlike my older daughters). In my childhood, we didn’t have many comics, let alone their Japanese form in the style of manga, and my exposure to anime was limited to a couple of animated films that were allowed on Soviet cinema screens. I vaguely remember two: Taro, the Dragon Boy (which I really liked as a kid) and, later on, Puss in Boots: Travels Around the World. But we didn’t even know back then that this was anime.
After a closer encounter with it, I decided at some point to study the subject in more depth. Some aspects seemed quite strange to me, as someone raised in a completely different culture. For instance, when we were preparing to launch World of Tanks in South Korea, our Korean office practically created all the training materials from scratch, and to me, these pages on the site looked wild — it was a huge scroll of content in the form of a manga-style comic. But that’s just how they’re accustomed to receiving information.
As I delved deeper into the topic, I learned many interesting facts that all anime fans know, but the average person probably hasn’t even heard of. For example, many well-known Western franchises either have Japanese roots or were simply “borrowed” from Japanese creators due to a rather unique approach to copyright at the time. Here are just a few prominent examples to give you an idea:
- Disney’s “unique” story about a young lion named The Lion King, which was a tremendous success, is largely an American interpretation of Osamu Tezuka’s Japanese animated film Kimba, the White Lion. Not only the story but even many of the storyboards are almost identical. Interestingly, Osamu Tezuka is now revered in Japan as the father of all manga and anime, but he originally entered the profession under the influence of early Walt Disney cartoons.
- Nearly all Western franchises featuring giant humanoid robots trace back to Japan or were also “borrowed” from Japanese creators. The robots in the Robotech and MechWarrior universes bear a strong resemblance to their original versions from Ryosuke Takahashi’s anime.
I was already familiar with the history of the Western comics industry, partly thanks to the comic-format book The Comic Book History of Comics, which I previously wrote about in this blog.
Then a colleague, Ollie Barder—who seems to know everything about the mecha universe and Japanese anime and even writes a column about it for Forbes—recommended I read Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics. Initially published in 1983, the book’s author, Frederik Schodt, received the Osamu Tezuka Award for it. The book has been reprinted several times, but as far as I know, it has never been published in Russian. Nevertheless, it’s a go-to read for anyone seriously interested in the history of Japanese visual culture and the current manga-anime boom around the world. Many even reference it in their academic works.
And there’s good reason for that. Despite its title, this is not just a book about manga and anime genres. It’s a complete history of how Japan arrived at this form of art, what it developed from, the challenges it overcame, and what it eventually became.
The book is divided into two main parts. The first part tells the entire history of visual art in Japan. In the second part, the author presents four examples—short excerpts from manga by different authors, specially adapted for Western readers (remember, real manga is read right to left).
But, of course, the first part is the most interesting.
The author begins the story at a time when Japanese artists tried to capture scenes from contemporary life or mythological stories in standalone images. In Russia, something similar happened with lubok art. The book then explores why certain themes were present and how they were portrayed.
Gradually, the stories became more elaborate, and the art style became more complex. Japan then began closely following the developing comic scene in the West, as many Japanese artists kept up with their Western counterparts and Western cultural influence grew. There were comic strips in newspapers—short, humorous sketches between serious articles—just like in the West. Later, groups of artists emerged who used their drawings to promote their ideas (much like the propaganda illustrations from Russia’s Civil War and the proletarian struggle).
Then came a period of opposition. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, initiating a war with the United States. At this point, the imperialist government fully employed manga as a tool for propaganda. American counterparts were doing the same thing, and some Japanese artists even defected to the “enemy.” Images resonated much more strongly than dry text, making them highly effective in stirring emotions.
Censorship didn’t allow even the slightest deviation from approved themes. Any free-thinking was simply not tolerated. But when Japan capitulated in disgrace, the chains fell away, and artists began creating again. However, while post-war America waged a campaign against comics as promoting violence and immorality, Japan largely avoided this fate. Although there were efforts to curb the rising popularity of manga, they were ultimately unsuccessful.
What also helped was the elevated status of artists (unlike their Western counterparts, the artist here took most of the fame and earnings, not the publisher) and specific cultural differences that didn’t consider “toilet humor,” erotica, multi-volume graphic novels on specialized topics (including virtually every sport), and other themes taboo in the US at the time as inappropriate. Only much later would Frank Miller release his dark and gritty Sin City, inspired precisely by Japanese manga.
Then came a period of rapid development for the comics and manga industries, though they took different paths. As television became more accessible, manga gradually transitioned into anime, with the two art forms advancing hand in hand. American comics were far less connected to animation and film. Only in the past few decades have they found massive success (thanks to Marvel films), but they still don’t reach the scale of Japan.
In Japan, a manga and anime creator is often both the artist and the writer, and in the case of anime, even the director—a true parent of their work. Authors strive to reach almost every possible audience, from the young to the elderly, regardless of gender or social status. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have (or already have had) manga for infants. Manga books can be seen everywhere in Japan, and characters from popular anime become national icons, even immortalized with statues.
In short, this book is truly an excellent dive into the subject, helping to explain why manga is the way it is today and why famous manga artists and anime creators are so revered in Japan. And by “revered,” I’m not exaggerating—they’re practically seen as demi-gods there. It’s worth reading the book to gain a deeper understanding of Japanese culture.
That said, I found the text a bit dry. There are a lot of facts, but the book feels more like an encyclopedia than a narrative you can follow and engage with easily. Perhaps that’s why it took me quite a while to finish.
Near the end, the author addresses the challenges manga and anime face in breaking into Western markets, suggesting that this niche will always remain small. Almost forty years after the book’s publication, we can see that this “niche” has unexpectedly managed to overcome many barriers and is now popular worldwide. Even video giants like Netflix are rapidly expanding their anime catalog, adding classic works and eagerly acquiring new ones. However, I must admit that even if manga and anime were ever to reach the same cultural prominence they hold in Japan, that moment is still far off. It might never happen at all.
My rating: 3.5/5
[…] that comics are just for kids or the unintelligent. As the history of manga shows (see my review of Frederik L. Schodt’s “Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics”), sometimes comics can convey more knowledge than a specialized […]