Chapter 15 Kusazōshi as Comic Books? Reading Early Modern Graphic Narratives from a Manga Studies Perspective
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Abstract
In chapter 15, “Kusazōshi as Comic Books? Reading Early Modern Graphic Narratives from a Manga Studies Perspective,” Jaqueline Berndt puts to the test the conceptualizations of kuzazōshi as comic books by subjecting two early modern graphic narratives to mangaesque reading. Berndt comes to this experiment as a scholar who works in the field of visuals arts and media cultures with a focus on manga and anime as multimodal serial narratives. The textual and visual analysis that is deployed in this chapter is eye-opening. Berndt asks us to think about aspects of visual storytelling rarely taken up by the scholar of early modern Japanese graphic narratives. She asks us to dissect the visual flow, to follow the gaze, to engage with the body language, and to explore the empathetic response enabled by the visual language. For Berndt, this analysis leads to the identification of inherent differences between story-manga and kusazōshi. Berndt also points to an exciting direction. She argues that illustrated novels (sashie shōsetsu) and picture stories (e-monogatari) produced between the 1930s and the 1950s can be viewed as “occupying an intermediate position between kusazōshi and contemporary manga narratives.” A must-read for anyone interested in the connection between early modern Japanese graphic narratives and manga.