Manga

Japan publishes an enormous amount of manga: roughly forty percent of everything printed in the country each year. Beyond Japan, the style has spread far past comic pages and now shapes Western youth culture in films, video games, advertising, and graphic design.

This richly illustrated guide traces the history and variety of Japanese comics from 1945 to the present, with many images and excerpts from a wide range of works. It examines what sets manga apart from American and European comics, and it centers on Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, who pioneered story-driven manga. From there it moves through boys' comics since the 1960s and the many genres and gender divisions within girls' and women's comics.

The book also explores gekiga, the darker and more realistic current in manga, with its violent samurai tales, unsettling horror, and apocalyptic science fiction. It considers the censorship and protest that comics have faced and the role manga plays as a major Japanese export with worldwide influence. The author, Paul Gravett, is a British writer and critic who writes about comics.