RELIGION AND MANGA

Mark MacWilliams

Anyone who has read Japanese manga 漫画 (‘graphic novels’ or ‘comic books’ also sometimes referred to by Japanese as komikku コミック) real- izes that they often explicitly deal with the sacred. Manga often raise deeply spiritual questions about the world of suffering, evil and ignorance in which people live. Manga can also evoke a range of powerful senti- ments in readers from a sense of nostalgia, to awe, horror, and laughter in response to the challenges of life. As a mass medium, manga provides a classic example of how today’s popular culture has become a “matrix that counts for much of what counts as meaning” (Beaudoin 1998: 22). Manga are often used by Japanese religious organizations for purposes of proselytization. Aum Shinrikyō オウム真理教 (‘Sublime Truth’ sect), for instance, the now notorious group who were responsible for the 1995 Tokyo nerve gas attack, had their own in-house production staff, and pub- lished manga to spread the doomsday beliefs of their charismatic founder Asahara Shōkō. Manga are also produced by popular presses specializing in religion, like Suzuki Press, which publishes a 108 volume series, enti- tled, Bukkyō kommikusu 仏教コミックス (Buddhist Comics, 1989–1997), designed as a “comprehensive guide book in order to experience the Buddhism and Buddhist life” (Suzuki Publishing Co.). But even in mass marketed commercial manga, one finds a rich bri- colage of religious and occult motifs, supernatural beings, miracles, and famous Buddhist priests filling their pages. Classic examples include manga artist Mizuki Shigeru’s award winning series Gegege no Kitarō ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 and ‘the god of comics’, Tezuka Osamu’s famous works, such as Budda ブッダ (Buddha) and Hi no tori 火の鳥 (The Phoenix). Gegege no Kitarō is an extended ghost story (kaidan 怪談) that is richly populated by a large pantheon of specters, goblins, and apparitions who descend from traditional folkloric spiritual creatures dating to the Edo period (1600–1868). Tezuka’s Budda is his own ‘Japanese version’ of the story of the Buddha, while his masterwork, Hi no tori, is a multi-volume story about the human quest for immortality combining Japanese his- torical period dramas ( jidaigeki 時代劇) with science fiction, and linked together by its major characters’ rebirths over the aeons. Although these 596 mark macwilliams manga are commercially produced for entertainment, they also serve as sources for ‘imaginative consumption’ for their readers, who use manga ideas and symbols to construct their sense of the self, the world, and the sacred.

What are Manga?

Manga have a long history that has been traced back to picture scrolls of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. A key precursor, noted by many scholars, is the famous animal scrolls (Chōjū giga 鳥獣戯画) of Bishop Toba (Toba Sōjō, 1053–1140), who uses caricature to satirize the religious practices of his day (Repp 2006). There are also other picture scrolls (ema- kimono 絵巻物), which, interestingly, center on religious themes, such as the Jigoku zōshi 地獄草紙 (Hell Scroll) that are frequently cited as inspi- rational for contemporary manga artists (see MacWilliams 2008; Pandey 2008). Other, more recent precursors that bear mentioning are the amus- ing sketches and caricatures widely disseminated by woodblock printing in the Edo period (1600–1868). There were a great variety of graphic styles that became popular at that time, such as ōtsue 大津絵, tobae 鳥羽絵, kibyōshi 黄表紙, and ukiyoe 浮き世絵; these ran the gamut thematically, with amusing pictures of political satire, folktales, ghost stories, reli- gious pictures, scenes of daily life, and so on. Indeed, it is Santō Kyōden (1761–1816), a well-known kibyōshi illustrator who in 1798 first coined the term manga, as well as the famous ukiyoe artist, Hokusai (1760–1849), who popularizes it in his sketches of everyday life and the supernatural, Hokusai manga (Ito K. 2008: 28–29; Kern 2006: 139–44). What we refer to as manga today, however, is also influenced by west- ern caricatural art. This begins early on in the nineteenth century after Japan’s opening to the West with the arrival of foreign cartoonists like Charles Wirgman, who founded the Japanese version of Punch in 1862, and develops later in the twentieth century, when popular comic strips of American newspapers are introduced to Japan. With the rapid spread of modern print technologies, political cartoons, comic strips, and books soon became part of the new mix of Japan’s mass culture. After Japan’s defeat and its occupation after World War II, American comic books brought by American GIs added yet another influence, fur- ther stimulating manga’s evolution into the longer, fast-paced stories syn- thesizing images, panels, and speech balloons that we know today. This storybook format became popularized by post-war manga artists, and