Kusazōshi as Comic Books? Reading Early Modern Graphic Narratives from a Manga Studies Perspective

• This chapter puts conceptualizations of kuzazōshi as “comic books” to the test by subjecting two early modern graphic narratives to a mangaesque reading, that is to say, a reading that treats them as if they were contemporary story-manga. However, this reading does not foreground character types, narrative tropes, visual motifs, or parodic intertextuality, which normally are the subject of investigation by literary scholars; preference is given to embodied reading, to the perceptual rather than cognitive effects of the forms at hand. This includes intermedial considerations, in particular regarding the argument that the storytelling of modern comics is fundamentally informed by cinema. The manga-informed readings foreground two central issues: on the one hand, the perceptual movement of the gaze which connects to page-turns as movements of the hand, and the narrative’s visual flow forward; on the other hand, the representation of characters’ feelings, which in turn may move the reader and lead to empathetic engagement. In conclusion, the contingency of the notion of “manga” comes to the fore, and the conceptualization of kusazōshi as “comic books” appears as a matter of degree, depending on the considered historical periods, genres, and works of manga, and also the aesthetic aspects that are highlighted. Rendered in still, mute, and monochrome fragmented drawings, both kusazōshi and (print-based) story-manga afford an agency to their readers, that differs from both classic live-action film and recent (vertical-scroll) webtoons. To trace this agency, it is vital to consider the perceptual, sensory, and cognitive effects of the material forms at hand, and their embodied reading.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Literary Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

comics studies

graphic narrative

manga

embodied reading

material forms

visual movement

Aesthetics

estetik

Japanology

japanologi

litteraturvetenskap

Literature

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kap (subject category)