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Roots

Edo Caricature

江戸の戯画・絵手本
Beginnings1814BandRootsKey works1
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What this genre is

The caricature ordinary people of Edo grew up with: Hokusai Manga, Toba-e, kusazoshi picture books. The word manga here meant a sketch drawn as the hand pleased, quite different from today's sense — but the word, and a public used to reading pictures, both carried into the modern era.

Roots — about this band: From Edo caricature to Tezuka. Where all of it begins.

Connections

Three kinds of line: direct evolution, influence, and born in reaction against.

Flowed into this

Grew out of this

Key works

📖
Hokusai Manga (1814)
葛飾北斎 / woodblock edition (15 parts)

Around 4,000 sketches Hokusai published as a drawing manual for his students. Figures, plants and animals, yokai, and the offhand gestures of ordinary townspeople — and it is this book that spread the word manga. It has no story and no panels, so it is a different thing from manga today, but it stands for a culture in which ordinary people enjoyed pictures.

Roots — walk the band

Genres in the same band, in order of year. You are at the highlighted one.

  1. 1150 Emaki & Caricature
  2. 1814 Edo Caricatureyou are here
  3. 1900 Satirical Cartoons
  4. 1923 Newspaper Strips
  5. 1931 Prewar Children's Manga
  6. 1935 Kamishibai
  7. 1946 Akahon
  8. 1947 Story Manga Revolution
  9. 1955 Rental Manga

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About this entry

Genre boundaries are drawn where the network of manga happens to concentrate, not by decree. Years are approximate. Where opinions differ, this page says so rather than picking a winner.