In Appendix of Manga: a Critical Guide we provide a number of links to manga related museums, libraries, and other institutions in Japan. Here we introduce some additional English language links that readers may find useful.

GENERAL INTRODUCTIONS
– “An Introduction to Manga” (British Museum)
https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/introduction-manga
*The blog, created for the 2019 “Citi Exhibition Manga” at the British Museum.

– Manga: Out of the Box
https://artsandculture.google.com/project/manga
*An introductory website about manga history and culture regarding manga. The history section offers what we might call a “traditionalist narrative” of manga history. We raised a caution to such a construction of “long tradition” of manga. See Chapter 2: Part I in the book.

 

REFERENCES & RESOURCES
– Japanese Media and Popular Culture
https://jmpc-utokyo.com/
* This website is “An Open-Access Digital Initiative of the University of Tokyo” and is an excellent encyclopedic resource covering a broad range of aspects and issues related to Japanese media and popular culture, including of course manga. The authors of its articles include some leading researchers in the field.

– Writings of Natsume Fusanosuke (The Comics Journal)
https://www.tcj.com/author/natsume-fusanosuke/
* Natsume Fusanosuke is Japan’s most famous manga critic whose writings, particularly in the 1990s, played a large role in the establishment of manga studies as an academic field in Japan. His work has long gone untranslated, but thanks to Portland State University’s Jon P. Holt and collaborator Teppei Fukuda, some of Natsume’s writings are finally available in English.  Also see Jon’s PSU webpage (https://works.bepress.com/jon_holt/).

– Anime and Manga Studies (bibliography)
https://www.animemangastudies.com/bibliographies/
*Here Mikhail Koulikov has built over many years the most comprehensive bibliography of publications related to manga and anime in the English language. The “Resources” section of the website also provides numerous useful links.

– Research in Women’s Manga Project
https://wmrp.jp/en/
*A research project headed by manga scholar Fusami Ogi, a Professor in the Department of English at Chikushi Jogakuen University, Japan. Their site introduces their many activities over more than a decade. There are also numerous useful links.

 

GENRES
– Gekiga (Masters of Manga)
– Yoshihiro Tatsumi on “gekiga”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80QWx9gUyg

– Saitō Takao on “gekiga”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rUTAHCqNRQ
*Short subtitled video interviews with two major figures in the development of gekiga.

– Shōjo Manga 
https://www.jfny.org/event/shojo-manga-the-power-and-influence-of-girls-comics/
*An online event “Shojo Manga: The Power and Influence of Girls’ Comics” held online by the Japan Foundation of New York. The speakers are Deborah Shamoon, Mia Lewis, Kazumi Nagaike and Erica Friedman.

– BL Manga
https://www.jfny.org/event/boys-love-the-history-and-transformation-of-bl-in-asia/
* An online event “Boys’ Love: The History and Transformation of BL in Asia” held online by the Japan Foundation of New York. The speakers are Akiko Mizoguchi, Hyojin KIM, Kristine Michelle Santos and  Thomas Baudinette.

 

OTHER MANGA HISTORY RELATED LINKS
– “The *Real* Origins of Manga”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktSOTpHCfTM
*Dr. Eike Exner, the author of Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History, explains the “real” origin of manga. While all the “origin” claims can be questioned—in the end, the “origin” is a discursive and retroactive construction from the present time, he highlights the less-historicized interactions between Western/American comics and Japanese manga in the earlier 20th century against existing domestically-focused narratives about manga history.

– Early Theorist of “Manga” as a Concept
https://macc.bunka.go.jp/1578/
Manga scholar Odagiri Hiroshi’s article on the one of the earliest theorists and historians of “manga” in Japan and beyond, artist and art critic Ishii Hakutei (1882-1958) and his positioning of “manga” in relation to Western art, illustration and caricature. This predates the primary concept of manga today as narrative comics, but hints at how multiple meanings of the word have continued to change beginning i the early-twentieth century, and reveals some of the connotations that still cling to the word in Japan. 

– Japanese Animated Film Classics
https://animation.filmarchives.jp/en/index.html
*The National Film Archive of Japan has created this website to make publicly available their collection of pre-1945 animation. There was interplay in the development of animation, or as it was then called katsudō manga, and Japanese comics. This can be seen for example in the voice balloons and emanata in the 1917 animation The Dull Sword, and in the animated versions of popular Norakuro comics.

– Kamishibai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmGGqKOxHEk
*Professor Sharalyn Orbaugh’s talk entitled “Japanese Propaganda and the Power of Love: Mobilizing the Wartime Empire.” Orbaugh discusses wartime kamishibai (lit. “paper theater) and how they served as propaganda for the homefront audience in Japan.

 

WORKING AS A MANGAKA and DRAWING
– Day in the Life: 
– Japanese Manga Creator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3rKrTehORY
– In a Japanese Manga Shared House
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wVQxAmaEQ4
* These excellent videos by YouTuber “Paolo from TOKYO” give a glimpse of some of the various working practices of manga creators. The first follows a working day by Miyajima Reiji, creator of the popular shōnen manga Rent-A-Girlfriend, and his interactions with his assistants in his studio. The second video follows a day in the life of a struggling young manga artist living and working in a share house supported by the Tokiwaso Project.

– Silent Manga Audition (SMA)
– Manga Classroom
https://www.manga-audition.com/manga-classroom/
– Youtube Channel Lectures
https://www.youtube.com/c/SMACTHESILENTMANGAAUDITIONCOMMUNITY
* A competition (audition) and creator support site created in 2012 by manga publisher COAMIX Inc, it offers “Manga Classroom” tutorials on the basics of manga drawing, composition and narrative structure though free short videos. The videos are also accessible on SMA’s YouTube channel.