Comments on: How about a Manga Canon!?

By: The Manga Critic » Blog Archive » What Belongs in the Manga Canon?

The Manga Critic » Blog Archive » What Belongs in the Manga Canon? — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:48:43 +0000

[...] in 2006, I stumbled across this entry at Otaku Champloo, reflecting on the need for a manga “canon.” The author noted that books in the Western [...]

By: Khursten

Khursten — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 06:35:22 +0000

Yes. Thinking about it is already an ardous task. There is an inescapable elitism with regards to creating a canon but at the rate of mangas coming out of magazines, it feels like there’s a need for it. And this task is definitely quite priblematic. ChunHyang-san has mentioned it greatly in her blog about the problematic of constructing a canon.

@ ChunHyang. Yes. Schodt and other contemporaries in the critical analysis of manga culture have greatly listed some fantastic comics to choose from. However most of these are placed on the historical aspect of that particular comic. Albeit important, going back to your blog, the difficult of omitting Tchaikovsky for Brahms would apply to manga as well. Will we take out Naoki Urasawa just because Kazuo Koike established a greater standard for things?

Definitely a great avenue for a dissertation. lol. Oh boy would research be so fun for this~~ <3

By: MangaBlog » Blog Archive » Of copyrights and canons

MangaBlog » Blog Archive » Of copyrights and canons — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 20:54:47 +0000

[...] On a more serious note, Otaku Champloo suggests that we come up with a manga canon, like the literary canon we all studied in undergrad school, a list of the essential manga, as it were. As learned from the discussion of Western Literature Canon, it??????s a great way to institute standards on stories. Simply put, it could save us from intellectual stagnation. Having a canon challenges writers to create a story that could change the world of manga forever. More so, it serves as a standard to perhaps, keep us away from those raunchy sex-infused shoujo stories. [...]

By: ChunHyang72

ChunHyang72 — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:51:33 +0000

What a great question! I teach at a university that organizes its undergraduate curriculum around the notion of a canon. (In this case, the term “canon” is broadened to include great works of art, literature, music, and philosophy.) My students are always shocked that our music survey doesn’t include “popular” composers like Tchaikovsky and Bernstein. And I think they have a point: sometimes we become so obsessed with the idea that a canon represents the best, most timeless products of a culture that we forget the extent to which taste plays a role in deciding what to include (and exclude). The scorn with which many music historians write about “The Nutcracker” and “Swan Lake” suggests the reason Tchaikovsky is seldom mentioned in the same breath as his contemporary Brahms (a canon A-lister).

Thinking about your question, I’d argue that readers have already begun to create a manga canon. Certain artists–Kazuo Koike, Osamu Tezuka–are accorded the same respect among manga lovers as Bach and Beethoven enjoy among music lovers. And the publication of several histories of manga helps reinforce the tendency to identify certain authors as canonic (by virtue of their inclusion in these histories) and others as merely popular or commercial.

Ooooo, I smell a dissertation in this…

By: AndySB

AndySB — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:39:24 +0000

I’d include:

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind – Hayao Miyazaki
Planetes – Makoto Yukimura
Vagabond – Takehiko Inoue
Buddha – Ozamu Tezuka
Akira – Katsuhiro ?????tomo

Nice website – keep up the good work! Cheers, Andy