Volume IX, Number 2• Spring 2002
Manga!

The Making of a Sansei President
by Carl Gustav Horm

Where the Girls Are
by Shaenon Garrity

A Fan's Top Five
by Madeline Nakashima-Conway

Like a Demon on Wheels
by Kenneth Masaki Tanemura

Who is Fred Schodt?

In Their Own Words: Jack Matsuoka
by Ken Kaji

The First Modern Comic Book in America
by Kenji Murase

Stan Sakai: Samurai with a Pen
by Chiori Santiago

Taro Yashima: Pictures and Propoganda
by Leonard Rifas

Member News

Donor List

Program Calendar

Manga (comics) became an integral part of everyday life in Japan in the late 1950s with the publication of weekly shounen (boy’s) comics such as Shuonen Magazine and Shounen Sunday. These magazines originated in the gekiga, a long story form of comic drawings. Following the early success of boy heroes were an entire genre of girl heroines (shoujo manga—see p. 6). Millions of post-war commuters, students and salary workers, for whom the manga became a convenient form of distraction, made manga a national craze. This readily available form of literature conveyed imaginative and heroic stories that reflected emerging modern sensibilities and moralities.

In the 1980’s, a new movement in manga art shattered existing conventions. Science-fiction themes, paranormal genre elements and staggering illustrative virtuosity began pushing the boundaries of graphic fiction. One of the first manga translated into English and published in the US at that time depicted real apocalyptic destruction: Barefoot Gen is Keiji Nakazawa’s recollection of Hiroshima after the atom bomb and an enduring anti-war statement. A decade ago, Katsuhiro Otomo depicted in his Akira comic series the destruction of a glittering neo-Tokyo city, its skyscrapers brought to apocalyptic ruin by terrorist acts.
The world of cartoons is an important social influence in the United States, and serves a broad function for our society. We get sentimentally attached to our favorites: Charlie Brown, Spiderman, Batman and Robin remind us of our human fallibility and contribute to our innate hope for good and justice triumphing over evil. Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo (see p. 14) is a Nikkei version of those moral tales.

At their best, comics are part of our popular culture that express who and what we are. One of the first American comic books was a mirror of Nikkei immigrant experience (see p. 12); one of the newest examines the political turmoil that could surround the first Nikkei presidential candidate (p.4).

In our Nikkei community, Jack Matsuoka and Pete Hironaka were notable cartoonists who provided a humorous visual chronicle of specific Nikkei experiences. The character Matsuoka created in Sensei is straight out of Nihonmachi (an interview with Matsuoka appears in this issue’s “In Their Own Words, p.11). Hironaka’s collection of drawings, A Report from Round-eye Country, immortalized the 442nd infantry foot soldier, applauded pioneering politicians such as Daniel Inouye and Norman Mineta and reminded us that the World War II experience is a legacy we want our future generations to remember.

This issue is a tribute to them and others like them who “tell it like it is.” Through their pictures we can trace the ethnic roots of our history through good times and bad. We can sit back, re-read their amazing cartoons, smile and quietly reflect on the precious artistic legacy which adds to our understanding as Asian Americans; and we can discover in their art the full measure of pain, shame and the laughter shared during both good and turbulent times.

-Ken Kaji ,Nikkei Heritage editorial board