The three manga below each represent shounen manga and remain celebrated examples of the style. Often, shounen manga is action and adventure-focused and usually falls into the categories of fantasy and sci-fi (though not always).
Over the decades, however, it has evolved to encompass any kind of genre fiction accessible to children and adults alike. Shounen manga is traditionally a style of manga intended to be enjoyed by boys and young men. This is a fantastic manga to teach the history and impact of World War II from not only a Japanese perspective but from the standpoint of innocents on the ground level people who will be impacted harder than anyone else. In This Corner of the World (and the animated film it inspired) is set in a small town in Hiroshima Prefecture, against the backdrop of World War II. In This Corner of the World by Fumiyo Kounoįumiyo Kouno is famous for creating historical manga set in her home of Hiroshima. Once freed, he is obsessed with following the rakugo tradition and becomes apprenticed to a harsh rakugo master, opening up the door to a great artistic tradition. The story follows a young prison inmate who, while incarcerated, witnesses a captivating rakugo performance. While theatrical traditions like kabuki and noh are relatively well-understood, rakugo remains a niche within Japan.įor new manga readers looking to understand this delightful and fascinating corner of Japanese performance art, Descending Stories (and the anime it inspired) is a great place to begin. Rakugo is a uniquely Japanese kind of performance art and one that few people outside Japan know much about. Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju by Haruko Kumota No manga has ever better captured post-war Japan’s state better than Akira, speaking as it does to themes of nuclear power, military might, new technological power, the threat of war and civil unrest, and more. Neo-Tokyo is plagued by terrorist gang warfare, and espers with telekinetic powers threaten to trigger complete collapse. Written and drawn by Katsuhiro Otomo, Akira is set in a cyberpunk Neo-Tokyo after a nuclear explosion triggered World War III.
Japanese emanga series#
This series (and the iconic anime film it inspired) represents the modern post-war Japanese zeitgeist better than any other piece of fiction ever made. Perhaps the most famous and successful manga ever created, Akira is also one of the smartest. But it’s these three that can teach non-Japanese readers something specific about Japanese history, tradition, and modern zeitgeist. Let’s start with that one! Manga for Understanding Japanese CultureĪrguably, every manga series has something to teach us about Japanese culture, given that it is created by a Japanese mangaka and its audience is predominantly Japanese readers. Here are five key genres of manga to get into and a bonus category for manga that can help us understand Japanese culture better. To read manga is to understand Japan better. There are also manga which can teach us a greater understanding of Japanese culture and history. There are manga for children and adults for men and women for fans of genre fiction and literary fiction. Manga (Japanese comic books) represent a specific form of art that combines narrative text with hand-drawn visuals, and it has as many genres and styles as traditional prose does. With manga being as synonymous with Japanese culture as sushi and haiku, it can be daunting to know where to start reading.
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