A demonic half-dog, half-man in a Japanese Heian-era outfit called a suikan watches from one corner of a wall. Elsewhere a young pirate boy grins so broadly that the bottom half of his face is enveloped in a perfect semicircle of teeth. Images like these are consumed by millions of people worldwide in comic books and graphic novels. But these particular ones were on the walls of San Francisco’s de Young Museum as part of “The Art of Manga,” the first North American museum exhibition dedicated entirely to the form.
The exhibit arrives at a moment when manga has finally come to be regarded as a prominent part of mainstream culture, even outside of its native Japan. One of the top-grossing movies in America in September was the anime film “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle,” based on a popular manga series. Many of the anime series that have become international streaming hits are based on manga titles. It is a phenomenon right now, but it’s even more than that. When Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, the curator of the de Young exhibit, sees manga, she sees where storytelling forms are leading. “I think that’s the future,” she told me during an advance preview of the exhibit.
It might very well be. Manga has proved to be an influential force across culture as not just art and literature, but also as a mirror to contemporary trends and politics. It’s a kind of art that has stood the test of time and is only increasing its cultural relevance.
The term “manga” — its translation is “pictures run riot” — first appeared in Japan in the late-18th century, but what people have defined as manga has changed across the centuries. The simplest definition would be that they are Japanese comics, a combination of text and image, that employ a specific visual vocabulary — a “transdiegetic” vocabulary, as Eike Exner calls it in his recent book “Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics.”
Despite its long history, only in the last few decades has it started to be seen as a form with cultural history and value. Studies show that reading is trending lower in our age of social media, artificial intelligence and relentless digital distractions, but the popularity of manga has been growing across the globe, appealing to readers of different ages and backgrounds.
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