Modern/Present day Manga

Manga has changed over time and has become very widespread throughout Japan and even throughout the whole world. Manga is the root for many different types of modern aspects of art. Manga is the root for comic books and it is also the root of modern day Anime. The modern Manga is very popular and used by almost everyone in Japan. in America it is not used as much but there is still a huge chunk of perople who enjoy reading Manga. Also an even bigger chunk of America watched the offshoot of Manga, Anime. the Anime cyle is often reversed in America. in Japan there is usually Anime that is created from a Manga book, however in America it is often the other way around. In America there is often an Anime series beforehand and then they create a comic book based on the series.

Manga traditionally follows a specific style that is used in Japan. In Manga you read not only the text on the pages from right to left but you also read the pamphlet from right to left. Americans have tried to adopt the Manga style and alter it to the more traditional American way of reading, left to right, however many of the Manga artists have been opposed to this. Japanese Manga is very different that Americanized comics. Japanese Manga is often much smaller and is in smaller books, or Manga magazines that have many different stories within it.

One of the main things that makes Manga distinct from other comic books is the style of characters within it. Manga characters have small mouths, large eyes, and the characters usually have a very abnormal hair color. Another characteristic of Manga is an exageration of emotion from the characters. They usually have very evident emotions based on the face, and even the clothes of the character can express emotion.

There are a few main types of Manga, Boy's, Girl's, Men's, Women's, and children's. The different types can help differentiate the age groups of the kids. The type of Manga it is can often show if someone will like that Manga just based on the type it is. the Boy's Manga is mostly filled with action and humor. Girl's mostly consists of love and romance. The Men's is filled with adult themes, violence and sexually explicit content. This Manga type is also refered to as Hentai, which is a very erotic Manga and is considered pornographic by many people.

Manga has grown and changed in many ways since the very first type of Manga which were the animal scrolls. Because there are many different types of Manga, it is easy to find a Manga you would like based on your taste. the wide variety of Manga books and stories have made it so popular and has allowed it to evolve and become modern day Anime and some comic books. Manga has definitely had a big influence on art today and is adored by many people all over the world including the place it originated, Japan.
Website used:
http://comicbooks.about.com/od/manga/ss/manga101.htm

Original Manga

Manga is a type of art that was created in Japan. It is pronounced Mah-nnn-gah. In Japan they pronounce it with three syllables however in America we have started to say it faster and this creates only two syllables. Manga has different meanings, there is the old and new Manga. old Manga was created by Hokusai and was just sketches. New Manga was invented later on and consists of a storyline and is similar to a comic book. the older Manga artworks were in high demand. they were created by woodblock prints and could be made into books. since they were woodblock pints  they were affordable to the middle class in Japan.

Manga has always been used for various topics. they could have been used for humor, drama, fantasy, and even pornography in some circumstances. These topics have been used throughout time and is still used in modern Manga. Manga originally was used for erotic scenes but branched out and started to encompass the different styles and started to show animals and nature too. Manga had shown up on temple walls and they showed afterlife. The very earliest signs of Manga come from the Zen artists and the early scrolls that contained images of animals on them. One example of an animal scroll is choujuugiga.

After the animal scrolls emerged, the next style of Manga that appeared was the Manga from Hokusai. he created ink brushed paintings with captions. These pieces of Manga did not contain any storyline and did not have a plot. these were popular in Japan and were the first woodblock Manga that were created.

In the times closer to modern, such as the 20th century manga was very limited. It was starting to become more of a comic book type art and this was around the time of world war 1. This created major limitations on Manga and art in general. the government only wanted pro-war artworks to be available to the public. during this time many of the manga started to show things that supported war. Due to the censorship many different magazines went out of business in Japan. some artist who did not have manga that supported the war would go to jail. they would still produce it despite the consequences. one of the Manga from the time of censorship is New Treasure Island, created by Tezuka.

Despite the naturally joyous and happy aspects of Manga, during the war it was used for many negative purposes. In the war they often used Manga in the form of leaflets with Japanese cartoons on them to undermine the moral of the allied soldiers. this is how the Japanese used the Manga artworks. On the American side, a Japanese cartoonist by the name of Taro Yashima, who left Japan to come to America started to make Manga for the Americans and they were also used to show that there were corrupt leaders. his comic, the unlucky soldier was found on the dead bodies of Japanese soldier to get this message across. After the war, the censorship was lifted and many of the Manga artists returned to tell their story through Manga.
Website used:
http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/history.html

Hiroshige

Hiroshige was born in 1797 and died October 12, 1858. He died during an outbreak of Cholera. Similar to Hokusai, Hiroshige was also a Ukiyo-e artist. He was one of the last great wood-block artists. However as a kid he was taught to be a firefighter because his father was one and the position was hereditary. His parents both died when he was 12, leaving him orphaned and leaving him to take over his fathers position as firefighter.

 He is also said to be greatly influenced by Hokusai, his older contemporary and rival. Both Hokusai and Hiroshige lived in Edo, modern day Tokyo. He is well known for his various landscape artworks. As an artist, Hiroshige went through different stages of art styles. As a young kid he mainly created sketches of people like the elders who taught him did. he created many different figures such as actors, girls, Samurai, or warriors.

The next stage of his art was after his student years and he started becoming well known because of his landscape works of art. His landscapes are all views of Japan and they show nature, including animals, flowers, and other objects in nature. He took a trip through Japan and stayed at 53 different places along the way, drawing everything he saw on the trip. Hokusai created the pure landscape pieces and Hiroshige adopted this idea and created landscapes that had very little and small people. They would highlight certain elements and captured the very essence of what Hiroshige saw and created a great composition. Hiroshige is mainly known for these types of landscapes and they are what made him well known.

The last stage of Hiroshige's art career was a mixture of the first two stages. he created landscapes where the people were a big part of the painting and not just small insignificant parts. Hiroshige's art was quite popular in Japan but they also spread and were in high demand in the western nations such as Britain. Due to the ability to mass produce the woodblock art, it spread quickly and was in higher demand as more people saw the art. Also due to mass production, the price was not too high and it was affordable to mostly everyone in Japan, this created the idea of filling houses with art. Hiroshige's art was popular in many areas and the more people saw his work the more they wanted it.

Some people believe that due to the increased production of his works resulted in a lower quality of his work. Two years before his death from Cholera he retired from the world to become a Buddhist monk. As a Buddhist monk he continued to paint. He was buried in a Zen Buddhist temple. His art is popular all over the world now and was still popular in various places during his time.

Websites used:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266818/Hiroshige
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/1082078
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifty-three_Stations_of_the_T%C5%8Dkaid%C5%8D

Hokusai

One of the great artists from the Edo Period was Hokusai. He was born in either October or November of 1760. His birth name was Tokitarō. He changed his name many times throughout his life, adding up to 30, but his most known work is from the time that he was Hokusai. He started making artworks at the age of six. However his greatest works were created when he was over the age of 60. His father was a  His works were mostly sketches and are mostly thought to be the precedent to modern Manga. Manga is a comic book style art that is mainly story based. However Hokusai's sketches did not have a storyline and was mostly just people or animals. his greatest work is Hokusai's Manga, which is a book of nearly 4,000 sketches. One of the sketches that is well known today is Mount Fuji Seen Below a Wave at Kanagawa.
 
In this artwork you can see Mount Fuji in the background with a wave in the foreground. Hokusai was known for sketching many images of Mount Fuji. Typically the Japanese artists would put writing somewhere on their artwork describing what is happening in the picture. His depiction of Mount Fuji is rooted in his beliefs. He was a Buddhist and that is why he chose his name, his name is short for  Hokushinsai meaning "North Star Studio."

Much of the inspiration the Hokusai received and that was incorporated into his work was from the daily life, tradition and legends of the Japanese people. His works that showed Mount Fuji were based on the legend that Mount Fuji was a sign of immortality. Some of his works were wood-block prints, silkscreens, and landscapes. Hokusai was sometimes known as the master of the wood-block printing style known as "Ukyio-e." The artworks that used these styles were mostly created in the years between 1830 and 1840. His later works included large, broken strokes and contained a somber mood that was created with the color method that was used in his works. In Kintaro and the Wild Animals you can see the style of humans in art that might have influenced later Manga style of showing people.

The many art pieces that Hokusai has often use very little color, this piece mainly uses gold or yellow, black, and a little bit of green. The wave artwork shown above mainly uses blue, white, and hints of gold. This work shows a person who is grabbing onto the wild animals and this could be to show the dominance over nature. Hokusai was a great Japanese artist and his art has left its mark on our world today. Remnants of his art can be found in many modern Japanese parts of culture such as Manga and Anime. Both of these contain aspects of Hokusai's art because Hokusai was one of the first people to create that style of artworks and other types of that art were built off of Hokusai's original style.
Websites used:
http://www.katsushikahokusai.org/home-3-24-1-0.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hokusai/
http://www.hokusaiexposed.com/