Episode 620 – The Manga Revolution, Part 2

March 20, 2026

Histories of manga tend to skip from the colorful woodblocks of the Edo period directly to the post-WWII industry we’d recognize today. But what do we lose when we do that? And what do we gain when we do investigate the century or so that lies between those two moments?

Sources

Marks, Andreas. Japan’s Manga Revolution: From Painted Scrolls to Comic Books, 1680-1920

Koyama-Richard, Brigitte, ed. One Thousand Years of Manga.

Rousmaniere, Nicole Coolidge and Matsuba Ryoko, eds. Manga: The Citi Exhibition at the British Museum

Nicholas Theisen’s great essay on Kitazawa Rakuten and his legacy in manga (one of many, and they’re all worth a look)

Images

Kawanabe’s epic frog battle that totally has nothing to do with 1860’s politics.
Kawanabe’s “School of Monsters.”
One of the many covers of Rakuten Puck.
An early comic by Kitazawa Rakuten when he was still at Jiji Shimpo.
An example of a Yakubyogami print thought to ward off disease.
Okamoto wasn’t just an illustrator; this painting is from a visit to Hawaii in the 1930s.
A page from Okamoto’s guide showing the difference between manga (left) and honga (right).