Graphic Narratives From Early Modern Japan : The World of Kusazōshi

Part of a formidable publishing industry, cheap yet eye-catching graphic narratives consistently charmed early modern Japanese readers for around two hundred years. These booklets were called kusazōshi (“grass books”). Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan is the first English-language publication of its kind. It enables anyone new to kusazōshi to gain comprehensive knowledge of the field. For the specialist, our edited volume marks a turning point in scholarship, uncovering fresh research avenues. While exploring the powerful effects of the visual-verbal imagination, this collection opens up bold new vistas on the act of reading and advances provocations around comics and manga. Contributors are: Jaqueline Berndt, Joseph Bills, Michael Emmerich, Adam L. Kern, Fumiko Kobayashi, Frederick Feilden, Laura Moretti, Matsubara Noriko, Satō Satoru, Satō Yukiko, Satoko Shimazaki, Takagi Gen, Tanahashi Masahiro, Ellis Tinios, Tsuda Mayumi and, Glynne Walley. Contents Acknowledgments Illustrations Notes on Contributors Notes to the Reader Introduction to the World of Kusazōshi Part 1 Mediality in Kusazōshi Chapter 1 Kusazōshi as Material Objects Chapter 2 The Creative Process Chapter 3 Multimodality at Work in Early Kusazōshi Chapter 4 Multimodality at Work in Kibyōshi Chapter 5 Multimodality at Work in Gōkan Part 2 The Pleasures of Reading Chapter 6 Celebrating the Present: The New World of Kibyōshi Unlocked by Mr Glitter ’n’ Gold Chapter 7 Occupied by Play: Ludic Pleasures in Kusazōshi Chapter 8 Generative Interactions: The Osmotic Boundaries between Kusazōshi and Ukiyo-e Chapter 9 Metafictional Pleasures Chapter 10 Relighting The Peony Lantern: Strategies of Multi-adaptation in an Early Nineteenth-Century Gōkan Chapter 11 The Lifecycle of Stories: The Question of Sekai in Gōkan Chapter 12 Stage Sounds for the Eyes: Performance and the Visual-Textual Spaces of Gōkan Part 3 Approaching Kusazōshi in a Global Context Chapter 13 Modes of Appreciation and the End of Kusazōshi Chapter 14 Kusazōshi as Comix Chapter 15 Kusazōshi as Comic Books? Reading Early Modern Graphic Narratives from a Manga Studies Perspective Chapter 16 “Managorō Wailed”: Visualizing Kusazōshi in Translation Appendix: Kusazōshi in English Translation Index