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25 C h aP T Er T WO Descent and Alliance in the Shōjo Manga Family Tree A Postwar History Publishers cannot rid the world of evil and wrongdoing, but they can instill healthy values that help steer society in the right direction. We believe the publisher’s role is to sow seeds that bear intellectual fruit and enhance the quality of people’s lives everywhere. —Shogakukan Corporate Philosophy1 After the Pacific War ended, someone who looked at the advertisements which suddenly overflowed throughout the towns would be struck with admiration, saying “The atmosphere which we breathe consists of oxygen, nitrogen, and commercials,” but thinking about the situation today I think he would say, “The atmosphere which we breathe consists of oxygen, nitrogen, and manga,” would he not? —Maruyama Akira, Tokiwasō jitsuroku (The real story of Tokiwasō), 6 As the two quotes above imply, the publishing industry and the manga industry within it have played a significant role in the shaping of postwar Japan. Indeed, as Shogakukan’s corporate philosophy suggests, the media can shape the way that values are understood, and in Japan manga is a primary form of media. For many of the scholars, editors, and artists I spoke with, manga’s history was coterminous with postwar history, as Maruyama suggests above. By examining the ways that the development of the shōjo manga industry was in conversation with wider economic and cultural trends, this chapter provides a deeper context for the three ethnographic chapters that follow.2 Given the popularity of manga internationally in recent years, there are a variety of histories of manga available in English, and I do not wish to duplicate that work.3 In telling the history of shōjo manga this chapter is divided into two parts. In the first half of the chapter I focus on the development of mass media in postwar Japan and manga’s role therein, paying par- 26 Chapter 2 ticular attention to economic, technological, and cultural transformations. In the second part I focus in on the development of shōjo manga style and content in dialogue with shifting notions of gender in the postwar period.4 I begin with a sketch of the four publishing houses where my research was conducted in order to situate this history firmly within this industry. Oyagaisha (Parent Company) Origins In the world of publishing in Japan, Kodansha and Shogakukan are often discussed as rival “families,” located across the river from one another in neighboring regions of central Tokyo. Publishing giants in the prewar era, particularly in the children’s genre, they and their offspring have all but dominated the postwar manga industry. It is with this notion of family, and kinship in particular, that I frame this history of the shōjo manga industry. In fact, there are familial ties between three of the publishers I cover in this book—Shogakukan begat Shueisha and Shueisha begat Hakusensha. Furthermore , editors, artists, and scholars frequently used kinship terminology such as “parent” and “child” companies (oyagaisha and kogaisha) in discussions about shōjo manga production. Finally, manga magazines divided by age are referred to in the industry as sibling magazines, and by the terms “older sister” and “younger sister” magazines (oneesan and imōto zasshi). In the context of Japan this application of kinship terminology is not particularly surprising, as kinship is an important framing category overall . The ie (household or lineage) system hierarchically links generations together, from long-dead ancestors to future progeny. These extended families typically included a main house lorded over by the eldest son, and branch houses consisted of the remaining sons and their families. Based roughly on the model of nineteenth-century samurai families, the ie system tied family and business together. Japanese anthropologist Nakane Chie argues that the ie system is organized by relationships of an economic enterprise, rather than one based on intimacy of blood or sexual relations (1970). This model of social structure has been used to represent a wide range of relationships, from those of the emperor and his Japanese subjects to the workings of the business world (Hendry 1987, 22–24). Likewise, corporate terminology frequently echoes older familial tropes (Hendry 1987, 22–26), as can be seen in the manga industry terminology. Yet in the case of shōjo manga, the use of kinship terms lends a tone of familiarity to discussions of industry, production, and consumption. The intimacy of family relationships between parents and their children and [18.118.2.15...

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