Fukushima, golf and Jesus on a gap year: why no subject is now off-limits for manga
(The Guardian Japan)

Once regarded as too niche for the west, Japan´s comic genre has become a global phenomenon, generating billions of dollars. So why is it still so misunderstood?Manga in the frame: images from the British Museum exhibitionWhat is it about manga that makes it so compelling? Once a cult concern, the distinctive Japanese comics and graphic novels have now truly infiltrated the mainstream. From James Cameron producing a Hollywood movie of the cyberpunk fantasy Battle Angel Alita to Gucci creating a fashion range from Ide Chikae´s 70s girls´ volleyball series - manga is no longer the preserve of geeks. Last year, Japan´s home market officially totalled 441.4bn yen (over £3bn), while North America chalked up the best sales in a decade with over $1bn. A new exhibition at the British Museum, entitled Manga, traces the art form´s emergence as a global phenomenon.Yet despite its rocketing popularity, manga remains misunderstood. Ever since it arrived in the west with 1987´s samurai epic Lone Wolf and Cub and the thriller Mai the Psychic Girl, there were sniggering headlines: `Grown Men in Japan Still Read Comics and Have Fantasies,` reported the Wall Street Journal. That prejudice lingers today - Oxford University Press´s Advanced Learner´s Dictionary still defines manga, wrongly, as `a Japanese form of comic strip, often one with violent or sexual contents`. There is much more to manga than these descriptions suggest. In fact, manga offer an ever-growing diversity of characters, subjects, styles and even genres - thanks largely to the high percentage of women who work on them.Manga is at the British Museum, London, 23 May to 26 August. Paul Gravett is the author of Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics. Continue reading...