What is it? A Japanese Comic Book? Or something else?

September 14, 2007 8:34 PM

We found this comic book (or whatever it is) in the house among the previous owners' things. It was in a box of papers from the 1930's and 1940's but I can't guarantee that it is as old as that. I scanned the cover and a few pages, but cannot read Japanese. It's as thick as a copy of Wired Magazine (many pages). Any ideas?
posted by jeanmari to society & culture (8 comments total)

These look like scenes from the Chushingura (The Forty-Seven Loyal Retainers). Based on actual events, this was a popular storyline in kabuki theater during the Edo period and was promoted as an illustration of the Samurai ideal by nationalists in the run-up to the war. The illustrations here are actually quite lovely.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:14 PM on September 14, 2007

I don't think it's a comic book, rather it looks more like a educational reader for children based on the first page images and the tiny hiragana characters written to the right of some of the larger, more complex characters (kanji). Those are only used when it's expected that the audience will have limited character recognition reading abilities and thus need syllable pronunciation help, ie. children still learning all the more complex characters.

Wish I could read the Japanese, but sigh, if you don't use it, you lose it.
posted by junesix at 9:24 PM on September 14, 2007

TheWhiteSkull is right, it's Chushingura. And junesix is right that it's probably a children's reader. Also, I think the first photo that you have there is actually the back cover (it's an ad, and very dated advertisement at that! I mean, wow, it's recommending a biography of General Nogi for kids to read!); Japanese books open on the left side.

From what I can tell, the magazine is published by Kodansha and costs 35 sen, which is a currency no longer used here. If you could post the cover, I might be able to tell you more about this magazine or book.
posted by misozaki at 10:36 PM on September 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sorry, my link is broken. Japanese currency, see "History." Oh, and is this the cover? If so, it was a part of a series of childeren's books published from 1936.

Some info I found googling around based on the keywords "Kodansha" "picture book" and "47 samurai" in Japanese (rough English translation by me):

"Shijuu-shichi-shi (The 47 Samurai) (written by Chozo Koizumi, pictures by Tomoyo Jinbo) was included in the "Kodansha no Ehon (Kodansha's Picture Books)" series. Kodansha's Picture Books was a series that began being published on December 1st, 1936 by Dai Nippon Yubenkai Kodansha, and 203 books were published before the series came to an end in April 1942 because of the Second World War. The first books that were published were 1 General Nogi 2 The 47 Samurai 3 Iwami Jutaro 4 The Finest Manga Selection."

...Which makes a lot of sense because the other three titles are the titles being advertised on the back cover of your book. The author of the book from the one you probably have and the newer one in the link is different I think because the Japanese language has changed so much over the 70 years since the first publication that kids today wouldn't be able to understand the original, and it was probably re-written by today's standards.

Now I'm kind of jealous, I'd love to be able to see the actual copy!
posted by misozaki at 11:22 PM on September 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Whoops, that's probably "203 titles" in my info above. If anybody's interested, here's where I pulled that paragraph from (in Japanese). The author of the piece is apparently a university professor specializing in Japanese children's literature, so I suppose he knows what he's talking about.
posted by misozaki at 11:28 PM on September 14, 2007

I was curious of the strange use of katakana instead of the modern use of hiragana for the okurigana in the text of the book. And I came across this paragragh "Pre-World War II official documents mix katakana and kanji in the same way that hiragana and kanji are mixed in modern Japanese texts, that is, katakana were used for okurigana and particles such as wa or o." So this must be a Pre-World War II book.

Also of note on the back cover of the book is an English inscription, MADE IN NIPPON (JAPAN): "Japan marked their wares "Made in Nippon" until 1921 when the law was changed again to require that names be in English."
posted by plokent at 12:12 AM on September 15, 2007

The illustrations are really nice. I for one would certainly love to see more scans of the book.
posted by litlnemo at 6:10 AM on September 15, 2007

I'll try to get more scans up of the book in Flickr after this weekend. Or I'll put them up on my personal website (see profile).

I think the front cover might be missing now that I have examined the binding more closely. But it seems to be the only piece of the book that is missing.

Ask Mefi continues to amaze me. Thanks everyone. Now I have to figure out what to do with this book and the info. Argh.
posted by jeanmari at 6:32 PM on September 18, 2007