Alternative manga or underground manga is a Western term for Japanese

comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

that are published outside the more commercial

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

market, or which have different art styles, themes, and narratives to those found in the more popular manga magazines. The term was taken from the similar

alternative comics Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which ...

. The artistic center of alternative manga production was from the 1960s until the 1990s the manga magazine ''Garo'', which is why in Japan, alternative manga are often called , even if they were not published in ''Garo''.

History

Alternative manga originated in the

lending libraries A lending library is a library from which books and other media are lent out. The major classifications are endowed libraries, institutional libraries (the most diverse), public libraries, and subscription libraries. It may also refer to a library ...

of post-war Japan, which charged a small fee for borrowing books. This market was essentially its own marketplace with many manga being printed exclusively for it. The market was notorious amongst parental groups for containing more lewd content than the normal mainstream manga publishers would allow. Consequently, the market tended to appeal to a slightly older adolescent audience, rather than the child-dominated audience of the mainstream magazine anthologies of the time. In 1958 an author named

Yoshihiro Tatsumi was a Japanese manga artist whose work was first published in his teens, and continued through the rest of his life. He is widely credited with starting the gekiga style of alternative manga in Japan, having allegedly coined the term in 1957. Hi ...

decided to create comics that had a darker and more realistic tone. Rejecting the title of manga, which in Japanese means "frivolous pictures", Tatsumi instead called these comics ''

gekiga , literally "dramatic pictures", is a style of Japanese comics aimed at adult audiences and marked by a more cinematic art style and more mature themes. ''Gekiga'' was the predominant style of adult comics in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. It is ...

'', meaning "dramatic pictures". This was similar to the way in which the term "

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

" was advocated by American alternative cartoonists, over the term "comics". As ''gekiga'' gained popularity, the lending libraries gradually collapsed due to the growing economy of Japan during the 1960s. As a result, many ''gekiga'' artists left the lending libraries and began to set up their own magazine anthologies. One of these anthologies, ''

Garo Garo may refer to: People and languages * Garo people, a tribal people in India ** Garo language, the language spoken by the Garo tribe Places * Kingdom of Garo, a former kingdom in southern Ethiopia * Garo, Colorado * Garo Hills, part of the Ga ...

'', was designed to showcase the newest talents in the manga business. ''Garo'' started out as being a ''gekiga'' magazine but would eventually grow to a new style with the work of

Yoshiharu Tsuge is a Japanese cartoonist and essayist. He was active in comics between 1955 and 1987. His works range from tales of ordinary life to dream-like surrealism, and often show his interest in traveling about Japan. He has garnered the most attent ...

. Tsuge is widely credited with bringing a more personal stance to manga, allowing for manga to be an abstract reflection of his own experiences. Some critics have gone as far as to call his work the comics equivalent to an

I novel The I-novel (, , ) is a literary genre in Japanese literature used to describe a type of confessional literature where the events in the story correspond to events in the author's life. This genre was founded based on the Japanese reception of n ...

. As ''Garo'' gained popularity particularly with the youth movements of the 1960s, many other magazines followed in its footsteps. At around the same time ''gekiga'' elements began appearing in mainstream manga magazines, with

Osamu Tezuka Osamu Tezuka (, born , ''Tezuka Osamu''; – 9 February 1989) was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist, and animator. Born in Osaka Prefecture, his prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such ...

fully embracing the style and doing more work aimed at older audiences. Eventually Tezuka would start up a magazine called ''

COM Com or COM may refer to: Computing * COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers * COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS * .com, an Internet top-level d ...

'', as his answer to ''Garo''. With ''gekiga'' being integrated into mainstream manga, and manga being accepted as an art form by the masses around this time period. In the 1980s and 1990s, alternative manga influenced mainstream publishers of ''seinen'' manga. Magazines like ''Morning'' and ''Afternoon'' published artists who had styles reminiscent of the then-considered "retro" alternative manga from the 1960s and 1970s. Sharon Kinsella writes: "These artists used unusual and 'artistic' styles not previously published in high-circulation commercial magazines". Manga critic Tomofuse Kure called this phenomenon ''Garo-kei'' ("Garo-tique").

Alternative magazines

* ''

'', 1964–2002 * ''

'', 1967–1972 * ''

Comic Baku a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

'', 1984–1987 * ''

Comic Are a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

'', 1993 * '' AX'', since 1998 * ''Bentō'', since 1998 * ''

Monthly Ikki was a monthly ''seinen'' manga magazine published by Shogakukan. It tended to specialize in underground or alternative manga, but it had its share of major hits as well. The magazine started in 2000 as a spin-off of Shogakukan's ''Weekly Big ...

'', 2000–2014 * ''

Manga Erotics F was a bimonthly manga magazine by Ohta Publishing is a Japanese publishing company. With a number of controversial books that disturbed the Japanese society and its erotic manga comics, the company has established itself like a source of provoc ...

'', 2001–2014

Movements

* Manga Lending Libraries (1950s–1970s) * ''

Gekiga , literally "dramatic pictures", is a style of Japanese comics aimed at adult audiences and marked by a more cinematic art style and more mature themes. ''Gekiga'' was the predominant style of adult comics in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. It is ...

'' (late 1950s–1980s) * ''

'' (1960s–1990s) * New Wave (1970s–1980s) *

La nouvelle manga Nouvelle Manga (french: La nouvelle manga) is an artistic movement which gathers French and Japanese comic creators together. The expression was first used by Kiyoshi Kusumi, editor of the Japanese manga magazine ''Comickers'', in referring to the ...

(late 1990s–present).

History

Alternative magazines

Movements

See also

References

Further reading