Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics


Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics is a 1983 book by Frederik L. Schodt. Published by the Japanese publisher Kodansha, it was the first substantial English-language work on Japanese comics, or manga, as an artistic, literary, commercial, and sociological phenomenon. Part of Schodt's motivation for writing it was to introduce manga to English speakers. The book is copiously illustrated and features a foreword by Osamu Tezuka. It also includes translated excerpts from Tezuka's Phoenix, Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen, Riyoko Ikeda's The Rose of Versailles, and the Leiji Matsumoto short story "Ghost Warrior".
Manga! Manga! was enthusiastically reviewed in the mainstream and comics press and received a prominent endorsement from Stan Lee.
In 1996, Stone Bridge Press published Schodt's "sequel" to Manga! Manga!, Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. In the introduction to this book, Schodt states that a Japanese bistro in Berkeley, California, took its name from ''Manga! Manga!''

Contents

  1. Foreword by Osamu Tezuka
  2. A Thousand Million Manga
  3. # Themes and Readers
  4. # Reading, and the Structure of Narrative Comics
  5. # Why Japan?
  6. A Thousand Years of Manga
  7. # The Comic Art Tradition
  8. # Western Styles
  9. # Safe and Unsafe Art
  10. # Comics and the War Machine
  11. # The Phoenix Becomes a Godzilla
  12. The Spirit of Japan
  13. # Paladins of the Past
  14. # Modern-Day Warriors
  15. # Samurai Sports
  16. Flowers and Dreams
  17. # Picture Poems
  18. # Women Artists Take Over
  19. # Sophisticated Ladies
  20. The Economic Animal at Work and at Play
  21. # Pride and Craftsmanship
  22. # Mr. Lifetime Salary-Man
  23. # Mah Jongg Wizards
  24. Regulation versus Fantasy
  25. # Is There Nothing Sacred?
  26. # Social and Legal Restraints
  27. # Erotic Comics
  28. The Comics Industry
  29. # Artists
  30. # Publishers
  31. # Profits
  32. The Future
  33. # The New Visual Generation
  34. # Challenges for the Industry
  35. # First Japan, Then the World?