- Shônen Manga
- Main Genres
- Major Characteristics
- "Dragon Ball" and "Dragon Ball Z": From Boyz to Men
- "Devilman": Fighting Fire with Fire
- "Battle Royal High School": The Evil Within
Shonen as Mainstream
- Best selling and most widely circulated comics magazines are
aimed at boys/young men
- Shûkan Shônen Jump
- Pub. by Shûeisha from 1968; circulation 5-6
million
- Young Jump, Business Jump, Super Jump, V-Jump
- Serialized "Dr. Slump," "Cats Eye," "Kinnikuman," "Dragon
Ball"
- Big Comic
- Pub. by Shôgakukan from 1968; circulation 1-2
million
- Big Comic Original, Big Comic Spirits, Big Comic Superior,
Big Comic Gold
- Serialized "Golgo 13," "Oishinbô ," " Sanctuary"
Genres
- Gag Comics
- Adventure
- Science Fiction
- Monster/fantasy
- Spies, police, yakuza and the underworld
- Sports
- Romance
- Skill/Trade
- (Pornographic)
Characteristics?
- Art for the weekly comic magazines: priority of speed over
detail
- Action over atmosphere
- Celebrations of technology
- Exaggerated sex/gender features
- Relatively "Asian" faces
- Cuteness?
Mastery and Power
- Theme of mastery continues from kids' popular culture to drive
shônen manga and anime
- Portrait of audience/readership
- Historicization of phenomenon
- Emphasis on expression of tension
- Anticipation AND resistance to growing up
- Vision of growing up as a struggle (centering on personal,
social, and technological power or the lack thereof)
- Sex and violence enter the picture
Adolescence
- "The period of life from puberty to maturity terminating
legally at the age of majority" (Webster's)
- Between a child and an adult
- Biological changes => psychological, social and moral
changes
- Overlapping and ambiguous social expectations
- Rapidly shifting personal expectations
- Gap between idealized self-image and bodily changes
From Boyz to Men: Dragon Ball
- Artist: Toriyama Akira
- Manga: 1984-95
- TV series: Dragon Ball, 1986-89; Dragon Ball Z (anime
only) to 1995
- Lots o' video games
- Gag humor to heroic epic
- Graphic style?
- Plot development?
- Moral structure?
- Depiction of masculinity?
- Death?
Fighting Fire With Fire: Devilman
- Author: Nagai Gô
- Gag comics, then Devilman, then ero-guro
- Serialized in Shônen Magazine from 1972-73
- TV animation series 1972-73
- What needs to be mastered?
- How is it mastered?
- How is masculinity depicted?
The Evil Within: Battle Royal High School
- Writer/director: Itano Ichiro, 1987
- Ordinary world contains the extraordinary and evil just below
the surface
- Graphic style?
- Plot development?
- Moral structure?
- Depiction of masculinity?
Mastering Monsters
- Monsters as metaphors
- Shônen manga continue, but in a darker vein, exploration
of growing up also seen in kids' culture
- Postwar adolescence as distinctive "in-between" state: new
powers (& desires) before one knows what to do with them