Featuring historical narrative scrolls and medieval theatre masks, a brand new manga exhibition in Paris traces the worldwide phenomenon’s historical past again to its roots in conventional Japanese artwork types.
“Manga. An Art of its Own!” opened Wednesday on the Guimet Museum in western Paris, which makes a speciality of Asian artwork.
Organizers have chosen to current historical artifacts alongside a few of the world’s most well-known fashionable mangas equivalent to “Dragon Ball”, “One Piece” and “Naruto”.
Noh theater masks, kamishimo (samurai outfits) and katanas (swords) are displayed subsequent to authentic drawings, with the structure supposed to replicate the creativity of contemporary comics which have taken the world by storm.
“This is not a comic book exhibition like the others: it’s an exhibition that places comic books in parallel with the Guimet’s collection,” exhibition co-curator Didier Pasamonik informed AFP.
In one occasion, guests can see an actual “dragonball”, a statue which was provided by a Japanese shogun to French chief Napoleon III, Pasamonik stated.
“This will allow young readers who know ‘Dragon Ball’ (the best-selling manga) to discover that it doesn’t come out of nowhere,” he added.
Elsewhere, guests are invited to find the origins of the phrase “manga”, fashioned from the Japanese phrases “man” (spontaneous) and “ga”(drawing).
It additionally explains how Japan’s encounter with the West within the late nineteenth century by commerce and cultural alternate helped give start to the artwork type.
Japanese artists seized on the European custom of newspaper caricatures and tailored it to their tradition, including Japan’s wealthy mythology and utilizing it in kamishibai, a type of conventional avenue theater.
Different manga types are represented, from shojo — works initially geared in the direction of ladies that later gained large reputation — to the gekiga motion, a darker and extra practical type supposed for adults.
An entire room is dedicated to famed Japanese Katsushika Hokusai’s “Great Wave off Kanagawa”, created with woodblock prints in 1831.
The paintings’s “clear and structured lines” already “foreshadow the aesthetics of comic books”, stated Pasamonik.
While giving the guests keys to understanding the historical past of manga, the present additionally makes an attempt to clarify the medium’s affect.
Series like “Astro Boy”, “Naruto” and “Akira” have performed “a fundamental role in the process of Japanization of European popular culture”, Bounthavy Suvilay, a lecturer on the University of Lille, writes within the exhibition catalogue.
They have created “a transnational community of fans, transcending linguistic and cultural boundaries,” she added.
The world of manga will also be seen in video video games (“Super Mario”, “The Legend of Zelda”), animated collection (“Grendizer”, “Captain Harlock”) and Pokemon playing cards.
It has even influenced style, as proven by Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Julien David outfits on present on the Guimet Museum.
© 2025 AFP