One editorial cartoonist during the American occupation of Japan, Kon Shimizu, noted that his own and fellow cartoonist’s work were not so much “political,” as passively “about the political world.” “With but occasional exceptions, they offered no sustained political vision, no biting critique of the misuses of power and authority, no cosmopolitan world view,” wrote historian John Dower in his account of the period, “Embracing Defeat.”
Over half a century on, has much changed? In one sense, no. Editorial cartoonists might aim to make politics more interesting or more understandable — perhaps even more fun — but rarely express strong political opinions.
Change has come, however, to Japan’s manga industry — now a major cultural force. Million-selling (sometimes tens-of-million-selling) manga artists draw on anything and everything. And as their readership ages, artists are feeding a burgeoning demand for manga on “serious” topics. A few series even focus directly on the political process; many more touch on political issues.
Ofer Feldman, a professor of political psychology at Doshisha University in Kyoto, did a study of 1,533 political cartoons from The Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun dailies in the 1980s and ‘90s. Typically, he said, a Japanese political cartoon illustrated the day’s political coverage and “reflect[ed] the political mood or the social mood in a picture.”
Cartoonists squeeze their interpretation of the day’s politicking into a single frame through a variety of visual shorthand. A politician seen washing their feet in a cartoon would be a reference to someone trying to “wash their hands of something,” or put an unpleasant past behind them. Other symbols are common to both story manga and editorial cartoons; for example, politicians are often shown with beads of sweat on their temples — an anxious “cold sweat.”
There is a danger that those symbols and the intrinsic complexity of Japanese politics can make editorial cartoons abstruse. But cartoonist Yoshito Kawanishi, whose work is featured in the Yomiuri Shimbun, has little time for cartoonists who only draw for the political cognoscenti. “I don’t particularly think that my cartoons are what the world would call ‘satirical’,” he said. “For me, it’s better to put the significance of politics in a light form where it will become enjoyable, [not just] for people who have knowledge of politics.” Each day he receives an early copy of the day’s newspaper and then draws up to three or four draft cartoons on stories that catch his fancy. The newspaper then selects one for printing. Kawanishi deliberately draws in an approachable style, so much so that he’s been told that “all the politicians end up looking like children,” in his cartoons. Asked if that might trivialize politics, he is quick to stress that “just because the faces look cute, doesn’t mean they get lenient treatment in the cartoon.”
Andrew Skinner, a Canadian political cartoonist based in Tokyo, draws on a range of subjects and Japanese public figures. But he notes that other editorial cartoons in Japan tend to feature politicians, most often the prime minister. “In North America, a political cartoon could be on just about anything,” he said. “It could be on Michael Jackson hanging a baby out of the window. But with a Japanese political cartoon they seem to be always on the prime minister.”
Ofer Feldman found that prime ministers were portrayed in 48 percent of the cartoons he studied. They were drawn as “ugly, feeble, unhealthy, made disastrous errors, and [were] always worried and defeated. [They] tried in vain to climb steep mountains, traverse a desert in blazing summer, or cross a street in a typhoon with an umbrella full of holes.” As time went on in each premiership, prime ministers were portrayed as having less power, less confidence and less morality. If ordinary Japanese people appeared in cartoons, they tended to be depicted as “disinterested in the political process.”
The parameters of editorial cartoons in Japan appear firmly fixed — what Feldman calls “a priori self-censorship.” Controversial new religion “Soka Gakkai” never gets a mention, despite the prominence of its political wing Komeito. The relationship between politicians and the Yakuza is left alone. “If they write a cartoon about rightists, the following morning there will be a bomb in the editorial office,” joked Feldman.
Some subjects just aren’t suitable for “gag” cartoons, said cartoonist Kawanishi. He never draws victims of crime and misfortune, feeling that it would be disrespectful. He once drew a cartoon of the emperor for a cartoon magazine, but was asked to alter his copy. “I don’t particularly avoid drawing the emperor,” said Kawanishi of his work for the Yomiuri. “It’s just that the emperor is outside the political world. I don’t need to draw him.”
In contrast, the huge Japanese manga world has few constraints other than the whims of a fickle readership. Since modern manga first appeared in the early post-war years, the average age of the readership has crept upwards and the medium has matured. Some multi-million-selling manga artists now boast the kind of influence that many political commentators and well-known journalists could only dream of.
Kaiji Kawaguchi is one of Japan’s best-known manga artists. His adventure stories often touch on controversial issues affecting Japanese politics and foreign policy. Fifty million installments of his submarine adventure “Chinmoku no Kantai” (Silent Service) have been sold. One of his two on-going series, “Zipang,” features a modern self-defense force ship inexplicably transported back to the middle of the Pacific war. There the crew comes face to face with the reality of Japanese military history. His other series, “Taiyo no Mokujiroku” (A Spirit of the Sun), portrays a Japan devastated by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and forced to reluctantly seek help from neighbors and allies.
Despite its sometimes contentious subject matter, Kawaguchi denies his manga is “political.” “At the end of the day it is made up,” he said. All he can do is provide a “stimulus” for readers who might go on to explore issues for themselves. “I want them to think that history is interesting,” he said. In any case, he argues that the manga business is unforgiving to artists who force their opinions on readers. “Above all, you can’t go and put anything in the manga that the readers don’t want,” he said. “They won’t buy the manga.”
Manga artist Kenshi Hirokane, however, is open about his political intent. He said that he even knows Diet members who decided to enter politics after reading one of his manga series. “Kaji Ryusuke no Gi” (Ryusuke Kaji’s Duty) follows the career of an idealistic young politician, and Hirokane set out his manifesto on the manga’s flyleaf: “In this work I want to portray not just the negative side of politicians, but also show their honest side in a fair way with exaggeration or omission.” This is perhaps no mean task considering the speckled reputation of politicians in Japan. Another manga series on Japanese politics, “Hyoden no Torakuta” (Constituency Tractor) by Kenny Nabeshima and Tsukasa Maekawa, focuses squarely on Japan’s pork-barrel politics. The satirical manga’s hero is a young political secretary with exceptional money-gathering skills.
Hirokane also still draws an extremely successful salary-man drama, begun 20 years ago as “Kacho Shima Kosaku” (Section Chief Kosaku Shima). Since then Shima has been promoted to Executive Managing Director and sent to China, which recently allowed Hirokane to deal with the highly controversial anti-Japan protests in Chinese cities. A popular authority on Japanese business culture, Hirokane also sat on a committee this summer to decide the name for the government’s energy-saving new business dress code, “Cool Biz.”
But isn’t there a risk that the ubiquity of manga in Japanese culture can lead to a kind of “dumbing down”? “Manga are a great way to soak up information,” said Frederik L. Schodt author of “Manga! Manga!” and “Dreamland Japan,” “[but] readers need to balance what they get from manga with information from more traditional media too.” He pointed out that even the most realistic and serious manga lack established journalistic standards. “Unlike film and text articles or books, manga that deal with serious subjects are still manga, i.e. they have at their core the concepts of deformation and exaggeration.”
Editorial cartoonists like Yoshito Kawanishi attempt to catch the interest of Japan’s disenchanted electorate. “I hope that more people will become interested in politics through my cartoons. If that leads to public discussion or voting in elections… I can generate some social meaning for cartoons.” But how can single frame political cartoons, or even political editorials for that matter, compete with tens-of-million-selling, thousands-of-page-long manga blockbusters?
And while there is a clear demand for manga to address serious topics, as yet very few artists openly aspire to the role of opinion-former. As Koji Tabuchi, a senior editor at manga publisher Kodansha Ltd. put it: “It’s better to think of manga as show business rather than journalism.”
About Tony McNicol
