"Asia and Africa today"
- is a scientificl monthly journal (in Russian)
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Included in Russian Science Citation Index on
WoS platform, and EBSCO Publishing.
ISSN 0321-5075. Published since July 1957.

"Asia and Africa today" № 5 2020

Title

INFLUENCE OF EXTERNAL FACTORS ON JAPANESE NATIONAL TRADITIONALISM (on the example of American Comics and Japanese Manga)

DOI

10.31857/S032150750009557-4

Аuthor

Larisa A. CHERESHNEVA
Dr.Sc. (History), Professor, Lipetsk State Pedagogical P.P.Semenov-Tyan-Shansky University ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

Olga G. VLASOVA
Master's student, Lipetsk State Pedagogical P.P.Semenov-Tyan-Shansky University ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

Abstract:

   The purpose of this article is to provide a historical and cultural analysis of American comics and Japanese manga in the context of the problem of the influence of an external factor on the Japanese “island” mentality and national traditionalism.

   With the involvement of domestic and foreign, including Japanese sources and research the authors illustrate a specific feature of the Japanese worldview – the ability to borrow and syncretize outsider foreign, mainland, overseas civilizational experience to stimulate their own development. The characteristics of Western comics and Japanese manga are considered, and the influence of American comics culture on the Japanese visual tradition is analyzed.

   The article describes the historical predecessors of manga in Japan, its connection with the autochthonous culture of the peoples of the archipelago, and the aesthetics of Japanized Buddhism, as well as the contribution of outstanding sters of manga art to the development of the genre from the middle Ages to the “discovery” of the country in the XIX century and the beginning of contacts with the West. The article shows the process of penetration of Western comics culture to the Japanese Islands, shows the distinctive features of this direction of mass culture, which came into contact with the Japanese traditional way of life.

   It is concluded that Japan syncretized the comics with the existing national practices, having received a new, purely Japanese cultural product. The comics has undergone a process of adaptation and assimilation with the culturologically autochthonous heritage of the Land of the Rising Sun and has become the same as the term and format “manga”.

Keywords: Japan, national traditionalism, Ukiyo-e, manga, mangaka, comics
Pages 76-80