Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics

Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics Paul Gravett. Laurence King Publishing, 2004. 176 pp., 360 illus. £19.95 paper. ISBN 1–85669–391–0. This solidly researched introduction to manga belongs on the reading list of any student interested in Japanese popular culture. With 360 intelligently chosen illustrations, there is a real sense of allowing the strips to speak for themselves: the book's main strength is its range of material, from girls' comics to salaryman funnies. Thus, there is an implicit, and very welcome, challenge to the stereotypical view held in the West that manga are merely about sex and violence—‘tits and tentacles’ fodder for Beavis and Butthead-like teens. The ten chapters range from historical narratives (e.g. ‘From pay libraries to newsstands’) to more focused themes (‘Through a woman's eyes’), while the illustrational content also includes helpful extras such as a time-line and pie charts to indicate the genres sold. This care and attention...