Articles
Towards a Graphical Representation of Japanese Society in the Taishō Period: Jiji Manga in Shinseinen
Abstract
Throughout Japan's period of modernization, graphic art in its varied manifestations played a critical role in enlivening the narration of Japanese history. In comparison to the global popularity of contemporary manga, the Taishō period had its own graphic mode known as jiji manga (satirical social cartoons), which drew on the pop-cultural legacy of Kitazawa Rakuten, Okamoto Ippei and Shimokawa Ōten. Influenced by these superstars of graphic art at the time, many magazines and journals began to espouse graphic literacy by means of satirical socio-political cartoons in order to attract a broader readership. This examination of the graphical representation of Taishō history and society focuses specifically on the first six examples of jiji manga published after the inauguration of Shinseinen in monthly instalments from January to June 1920. The discussion of Shinseinen is usually limited to its pioneering work in the genre of tantei shōsetsu (detective novel), but as the following examination of the journal's graphic material reveals, it also functioned as a vehicle for the propagation of a variety of sometimes conflicting discursive formations, such as imperialism vis-à-vis Taishō modernism and militarism versus democracy . Drawn by the relatively unknown artist Tsutsumi Kanzō, the jiji manga in Shinseinen contain important contextual information about one of the most controversial periods of Japanese history, where a staggering variety of trans-cultural modes of representation clashed to reveal a composite picture of modernity.