[LINK] On the kamishibai and manga and anime

[rfmcdonald]

Gerry Canavan links to an examination of kamishibai, a graphics style founded in 12th century Japan directly ancestral to modern manga and anime, says the original poster.

Storytellers would travel from town to town with their butai (miniature stage) on the back of a bike. The setup was reminiscent of a Punch and Judy show, but instead of puppets the narrator would slide a series of poster boards with watercolor illustrations in and out of the box. He would act out the script, which was written on cards placed on the back of a board.

Each show consisted of three stories of about 10 minutes each: an adventure for boys, a domestic drama for girls and then a simple comic story. The majority of performances ended in a cliffhanger, forcing eager audiences to return the next day.

[. . .]

“A lot of attributes seen in anime are present,” [writer Eric P.] Nash said, “such as giant robots and monsters from outer space.” He also mentions the “manga-sized eyes,” wide and oversized, meant to convey emotion found in popular characters such as Jungle Boy. Golden Bat, created in 1931, was considered to be the world’s first true comic superhero. Although visually resembling Captain America’s nemesis Red Skull, Golden Bat and Superman share more commonalities: the red cape, skill of flight, superhuman strength and a fortress of solitude, albeit in the Japanese Alps.

Kamishibai artists departed from traditional Japanese line art drawing by creating a cartoon-like style and applying “chiaroscuro,” the Western style of contrasting light and dark, providing depth and mass.