The manga is not just a comic strip format, but an art in its own right, an industrial art to use the established formula, which obeys a precise editorial process (competition, pre-publication, bound volumes, etc.) and irrigates the entire Japanese pop culture (adaptations, theme songs, derivative products, etc.). No wonder, then, that manga and its behind-the-scenes are a subject that fascinates mangakas and readers. Tatsuki Fujimoto, young prodigy and author of Fire Punch and chain saw mantackles it in the multi-award-winning one-shot Look Backin bookstores Wednesday at Kazé editions, a few days before the exhibition “Heroes of Chaos” dedicated to him by the Angoulême Festival.
The power of fiction
Fujino is a gifted child, very confident in her drawing talent, until the day when she discovers in the school newspaper the pencil stroke of Kyômoto, a student with sickly shyness and recluse at home. Their rivalry mixed with admiration will turn into friendship and collaboration… all the way to the top? Yes Look Back is autofiction and that Fujimoto puts a lot of himself in Fujino and Kyômoto, in their passion and priesthood, in the series Shark Kicknod to chain saw manit is ultimately more of an introspection on the power of fiction when tragedy strikes.
Inio Asano, one of the most important mangakas of his generation, also questions his craft and creation in the barely autobiographical story Wandering at Kana, where his alter ego is plunged into doubt after the end of his last successful manga. What to draw now, a general public title as his publisher wants or a personal project that is close to his heart? A mise en abyme more existential than professional. To discover behind the scenes of the manga, the reference remains Bakuman (Kana) by Tsugumi Oba and Takeshi Obata, a screenwriter and designer duo also working on Death Note and Platinum End.
Mangakas, assistants, “tantô”… The different trades of manga
Over 20 volumes, they recount the slow rise of middle school students Moritaka Mashiro, the designer and enthusiast, and Akito Takagi, the screenwriter and opportunist, from their first winning competition to their flagship series adapted into an animated series. Yes Bakuman does not avoid clichés, especially sexist with a promise of marriage as the primary motivation and female characters relegated to the background, it is also a didactic and dynamic invitation to discover the different stages and professions of the industry in general, and to Shueisha publisher and magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump in particular: mangakas of different generations, editorial managers or tantoassistants, editors…
A similar approach is found in Hitman – Behind the scenes of the manga (Pika) but on the side of the competitor Kodansha and its Weekly Shōnen Magazine with the meeting between a publisher and a young mangaka. And a tendency towards sentimental comedy as always with Kouji Seo, author of Suzuki, Fuka and A Town where you live.
The middle of the manga, a setting for all kinds of stories
If you thought you knew everything about the profession and the environment, there will always be a manga to prove you wrong like the recent Reimp’! by Naoko Mazda at Glénat, which aims to be a realistic dive into the world of Japanese publishing, “far from the clichés of Bakuman and the closed door between author and publisher”, with also the importance of salespeople, graphic designers, booksellers, etc.
The backstage of the manga can also be “only” the setting of different stories, of the romance between a mangaka and his tanto in the shoujo Love Baka (Kurokawa) or between an editorial manager and his editor in yaoi Sekaiichi Hatsukoi (Asuka) to this father who tries to hide his job as a low-end mangaka from his daughter in kakushigoto (Vega) through this assistant who to survive financially must take another job: assassin. This is Assassin Wizard at Omake Books.
The fantastic also invites itself to the drawing board, as in RiN by Harold Sakuishi at Delcourt, or the encounter between a mangaka and a medium, without forgetting Made in Heaven (Akata) with an improbable pitch: a Buddhist monk is reincarnated as a virgin mangaka who boasts of being able to draw any sex scene but loses his means in front of his new busty assistant. You’re not sure what you’ve read, you think it’s an erotic manga, but you’re way off. Proof, once again, that with manga, anything is possible.