ISSN 1349-5860 Contents High School Students Photo Collection Published Japanese Culture Now Manga: In early July TJF published tion is laid out like a magazine, bringing to read- Japan’s Favorite The Way We Are 2006 (in ers the hopes and dreams as well as worries and Entertainment Japanese; A4 size, 64 pages, woes of high school students just as they are. Media 3,000 copies), a collection Ninety works from The Way We Are photo of the prize-winning works collections can be viewed at the English website Meeting People from the Tenth Annual “The Way We Are: Photo Essays of High School Never Give Up! Photo and Message Con- Students in Japan.” Two easy-to-understand test. With the appearance rewrite versions of the Japanese captions and Access This Page! of this photo collection, the annual photo con- essays (one with and the other without yomi- “Tsunagaaru” to Open test program held since 1997 comes to a close. gana readings) are also provided for language Autumn 2007 This final collection features an 8-page color learners. Moreover, where necessary, footnotes retrospect commemorating the ten years of the and links to explanatory photos and in-depth The Way We Are 2006 contest with memorable photographs and a explanations are appended to the English trans- (Japanese edition): chronology listing the major events, key words, lations. For some photos, visitors can also listen Free copy to and trends for each year. As before, the collec- to an audio recording. the first 100 applicants Send an e-mail with your Manga to Be Used for Japanese-language Textbooks full name, delivery address (including country), and affiliated school to: TJF cooperates in the production first for Japanese language textbooks in China. [email protected] of Japanese-language textbooks Using manga for foreign language learning has to be published by the Dalian many merits: their effectiveness in stimulating The deadline for applications Education Bureau and Dalian student interest and motivating them to learn; is October 10. Education University. The text- usefulness of the dynamic of a manga story as books are for middle school stu- context for studying Japanese; ease in express- Publisher/Editor in Chief: dents studying Japanese as their ing human behavior and feelings and in elicit- Nakano Kayoko second foreign language in the northeastern ing readers’ empathy. Editing and Translation: Center for Intercultural Chinese city of Dalian. This is the first time that The manga story will appear on the Dalian Communication Japanese language has been accorded the status Education Bureau’s website in the fall of 2007. DTP: of second foreign language at the secondary level Iino Noriko (The Japan Forum) of the Chinese education system, so these text- books will be the first of their kind. The first volume will be ready for the new Shinjuku Dai-ichi Seimei Bldg. 26F school year beginning in September 2007. One 2-7-1 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 163-0726, JAPAN of the features of the textbook is their use of Phone: 81-3-5322-5211 manga stories instead of words-only text, a Fax: 81-3-5322-5215 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.tjf.or.jp Focus on Japan 2007: A Hot and Exciting Summer Featured in the Next Issue August 3-11, 2007, eight high school students from overseas were invited to visit Japan. These students, together with Takarabako is published and eight Japanese high school students, were divided into four teams of four members each. The four teams visited locations distributed by The Japan Forum. in Miyagi, Tokyo, Osaka, and Hiroshima, where they were shown around by the advisors and students of the photogra- This publication follows the phy club of a local high school and took photographs introducing the lives of local people. Details will be reported in Ta- practice of placing the Japanese karabako No. 14. The photos taken by the four teams will be uploaded on the following site from October. http://www.tjf. surname first. or.jp/focusonjapan/index_j.html. Japanese Culture Now http://www.tjf.or.jp/takarabako/ Japanese pop culture, in the form of anime, manga, Manga: and computer games, has increasingly attracted at- tention worldwide over the last several years. Not just a small number of enthusiasts but people in Japan’s Favorite general have begun to appreciate the enjoyment and sophistication of Japanese pop culture. This installment of “Japanese Culture Now” features Entertainment Media manga, Japanese comics. Characteristics of Japanese Comics Chronology of Postwar 1) The mainstream is story manga Japanese Manga The mainstream of manga in Japan today is “story manga” that have clear narrative storylines and pictures dividing the pages into 1940s ❖ Manga for rent at kashihon’ya (small-scale book-lending shops) frames containing dialogue, onomatopoeia “sound” effects, and win popularity ❖ Publication of Shin Takarajima [New Treasure Island] by other text. Reading through the frames, the reader experiences the Tezuka Osamu, birth of full-fledged story manga (1947) sense of watching a movie. 2) Not limited to children 1950s ❖ Monthly manga magazines published ❖ Inauguration of weekly manga magazines, Shukan shonen sande Manga magazines published in Japan generally target certain age and Shukan shonen magajin (1959) or other groups, as in the case of boys’ or girls’ manga magazines (shonen/shojo manga zasshi), which are read mainly by elementary 1960s ❖ Spread of manga reading to university students ❖ Popularity of “supo-kon manga” featuring sports (supotsu) and and junior high school students, and “young people’s” magazines a never-give-up spirit (konjo) (seinen-shi) for senior high school students and older young people. 3) Wide variety of themes 1970s ❖ All manga magazines suffer deficits due to paper shortage and steep rise of paper costs caused by oil crisis (1973) In the range of their themes and depth of drama, manga are as di- ❖ First Comic Market held (1975) verse as the cinema or printed fiction, everything from romance, sports, action, business, government, economy, medicine, science 1980s ❖ “Rabu-kome” (love and comedy) manga boom ❖ Manga Nihon keizai nyumon [Introduction to Japanese Econom- fiction, and fantasy to history, daily life, child rearing, animals, and ics in Manga] a great hit and information- and study-oriented much more. manga draw attention (1986) 4) Emphasis on characters ❖ Circulation of young people’s manga magazines surpasses that The popularity of a manga work depends on the main character(s). of boys’ manga magazines for the first time (1989) Many manga are designed to make readers reflect on a given theme 1990s ❖ “Harmful comics” (yugai komikku, or the manga containing ex- by identifying with the characters. cessively explicit sex and violence) become controversial 5) Publication in book form after magazine serialization ❖ The weekly manga magazine, Shukan shonen jampu, achieves A typical manga magazine consists of over 20 installments, each record circulation of 6.53 million copies in manga history (1995) between 10 and 20 pages in length. These stories are later pub- 2000s ❖ Sales of manga books surpasses that of manga magazines for lished in book form. Manga stories are rarely created from the out- the first time (2005) set for publication as a book. ❖ Online manga distribution via the Internet and cell phones begins A typical weekly boys’ manga magazine has 500 pages per issue and is sold for 250 yen. The covers and the first 10 or so pages are in color, all the rest in black and white. The photo shows three of The “Rabu-kome” Boom the most popular weekly manga magazines. Urusei Yatsura Tatchi Rabu Hina Shukan shonen jampu Shukan shonen magajin Shukan shonen sande [Weekly Boys’ Jump] [Weekly Boys’ Magazine] [Weekly Boys’ Sunday] © Rumiko Takahashi/ © Mitsuru Adachi/ © Ken Akamatsu/ © SHUEISHA © KODANSHA © SHOGAKUKAN SHOGAKUKAN SHOGAKUKAN KODANSHA Japanese Culture Now-1 Tezuka Osamu, Founder of Story Manga Tezuka Osamu laid the foundations for the modern manga genre Tetsuwan Atomu Hi no tori [The Phoenix] in postwar Japan. Shin Takarajima [New Treasure Island], which [Mighty Atom, Astro Boy] Tezuka’s life work. He The story of a kindhearted began this series in 1954 was published in 1947 when Tezuka was still a 19-year-old medical boy robot who fights for and continued it until student, became a best-seller, with 400,000 copies sold. This work peace. The series started his death in 1989. The in 1951. It was made into reader witnesses the introduced the cinematic techniques he adopted including multi- Japan’s first TV animation grand drama of human- angle shots, panning, and close-ups. Manga using such cinematic film (black and white) in kind, traveling back and 1963. forth in time between effects came to be called story manga and story manga later became the present, past, and the most common form of comics in Japan. © TEZUKA PRODUCTIONS/ future. KODANSHA Tezuka’s stories were more than entertainment, giving readers high drama revolving around characters with complex personalities. Burakku Jakku Some of his stories end in tragedy, reminding us of the transience of [Black Jack] life and the material world. He remained active as an artist until his Stars the unlicensed surgical genius, Black Jack, depict- death in 1989 at age 61. He not only produced Tetsuwan Atomu [Astro ing the preciousness and Boy] and many other story manga series but also was a pioneer in the transience of life and the field of anime. His manga have had tremendous influence on many sinful karma of human be- ings. Serialized from 1973 of the people who are now leaders in various fields, not only manga, to 1978. © TEZUKA PRODUCTIONS/ painting and other fields of the arts, but also medicine, technology, KODANSHA © TEZUKA PRODUCTIONS/ and the sciences.