# Story Manga (Postwar Japanese Comics)

> The black-and-white narrative comic of postwar Japan, from Tezuka Osamu's Shin Takarajima (1947) to the weekly boys' magazines of 1959 and 1968 and the paperbacks that collect them. Pages read right to left; panels change size and slant, bleed off the page and are broken by figures, cutting like film. Grey comes from dot screentone; motion and feeling from speed lines, focus lines and a codified set of symbols. Dialogue runs vertically in tall balloons, sound effects are drawn into the picture, and big-eyed, simplified characters act against detailed backgrounds.

- Period: 1947–present
- Where: East Asia, Global / networked
- Origin: Japan, from Osaka to Tokyo. Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island), a cheap red-cover akahon book drawn by the Osaka-born Tezuka Osamu from a story by Sakai Shichima, published by Ikuei Shuppan on 30 January 1947, is credited with establishing story manga and set off the akahon boom. The term story manga spread in the industry in the mid-1950s. Tezuka himself later denied inventing story manga or its cinematic technique: multi-page story comics existed before the war, and Nakano Haruyuki credits the film-like staging to Sakai, a former animator, a claim Noguchi Fumio disputes. Scholars split on its roots, between continuity with Japanese picture traditions and the US comics, films and Disney cartoons of the Allied occupation. The form was industrialised by the weekly boys' magazines: Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine and Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday (both 17 March 1959), then Shueisha's Shōnen Jump (11 July 1968). Gekiga (named by Tatsumi Yoshihiro in 1957) and story-led shōjo manga grew from it
- Branch: Pictorial & machine age
- Also known as: Manga, Sutōrī manga (ストーリー漫画), Tezuka school, Japanese comics
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/story-manga/

## Use it with care

Manga characters and series, from Astro Boy to Dragon Ball and One Piece, are in copyright and belong to their creators and publishers, and manga is the living work of professional artists and assistants: draw original characters in the shared idiom, never ask an image model for a named series, character or artist's hand, and label generated pages as AI-made rather than presenting them as a manga artist's work. Some of Tezuka's own books drew foreigners, including Black Africans and Asians, in exaggerated caricature; after protests from September 1990 by the Osaka-based Association to Stop Racism Against Blacks, Tezuka Productions put a disclaimer slip into his books. Give every character the same drawing care, and never use skin, lips or dress as ethnic shorthand.

## How it works

- Lay out each page to read right to left and top to bottom, in panels that vary in size, shape and slant: cut between long shots, close-ups and silent beats as a film would, spread one action across several panels, run the biggest panel off the trimmed edge and let a figure or a blow break through its border.
- Draw in black ink alone, with pen and brush: simplified characters with large, highlighted eyes and a few lines for the rest of the face, acting against backgrounds, buildings and machines drawn in far more detail and in perspective; keep full colour for covers and opening pages, with some magazine pages in two colours, black plus red.
- Make grey with dot screentone, not wash: cut the adhesive sheet to shape, burnish it down, scrape it for highlights and layer it for darker greys, gradations and textures beside solid blacks (or reproduce the same dots digitally).
- Show motion and feeling with marks rather than words: ruled speed lines across the background, focus lines converging on a face, and the shorthand of manga symbols (manpu): sweat drops, cross-shaped throbbing veins, blush lines, star-shaped highlights in the eyes; in shōjo manga, set the mood with flowers and sparkling light from patterned screentone; shrink a character to super-deformed proportions for a comic beat.
- Set dialogue vertically in tall balloons: gothic kanji mixed with bold antique kana (anchi-goshi), standard in children's manga by about 1960 and now across commercial manga, or a fine Mincho for an adult or gekiga voice; draw the sound effects by hand in kana, large, slanted and part of the picture, and let a character's monologue float free of balloons.
- Draw for serial publication in one ink on tinted recycled magazine paper: a chapter for each weekly or monthly magazine issue, ending on a hook, later collected in paperback tankōbon volumes, so the art must stay readable at paperback size in black ink alone.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (defining)
- [Broken grid](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/broken-grid/) (defining)
- [Diagonal axis](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/diagonal-axis/) (characteristic)
- [Full bleed](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-bleed/) (characteristic)
- [Dynamic asymmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dynamic-asymmetry/) (characteristic)
- [Radial & concentric](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/radial-and-concentric/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Sequential narrative](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/sequential-narrative/) (defining)
- [Extreme scale contrast](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/extreme-scale-contrast/) (characteristic)
- [Illusion of depth](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/illusion-of-depth/) (characteristic)
- [Visual tension](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/visual-tension/) (characteristic)
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (occasional)
- [Generous white space](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/generous-white-space/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Rotated & vertical setting](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rotated-and-vertical-setting/) (defining)
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (characteristic)
- [Type as image](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/type-as-image/) (characteristic)
- [Eclectic mixing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/eclectic-mixing/) (characteristic)
- [Grotesque & neo-grotesque](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grotesque-and-neo-grotesque/) (occasional)
- [Experimental & distorted](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/experimental-and-distorted/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (defining)
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (characteristic)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (occasional)
- [Gradients](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/gradients/) (occasional)
- [Full polychrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/) (occasional)
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (defining)
- [Distortion & exaggeration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/distortion-and-exaggeration/) (characteristic)
- [Naturalistic depiction](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/naturalistic-depiction/) (characteristic)
- [Pictogram](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/pictogram/) (characteristic)

### Surface & texture
- [Halftone & Ben-Day dots](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/halftone-and-ben-day-dots/) (defining)

### Ornament
- [Cosmic & celestial](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/cosmic-and-celestial/) (occasional)
- [Floral & vegetal](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/floral-and-vegetal/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Comic & cartoon](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/comic-and-cartoon/) (defining)
- [Line illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/) (defining)
- [Painterly illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-illustration/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Pen, brush & ink](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/pen-brush-and-ink/) (defining)
- [Offset printing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/offset-printing/) (characteristic)

### Tone & intent
- [Playful & witty](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/playful-and-witty/) (characteristic)
- [Communal & popular](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/communal-and-popular/) (characteristic)
- [Technological & futurist](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/technological-and-futurist/) (occasional)
- [Romantic & sensual](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/romantic-and-sensual/) (occasional)
- [Warm & approachable](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/warm-and-approachable/) (occasional)

Avoids: Misregistration & overprint, Fluorescent & neon, Primary triad, Typography only, Non-representational, Straight photography, Modular grid

Palette: #f6f3ea, #141414, #cfcfcf, #8c8c8c, #4d4d4d, #d32f2f

Typefaces: Anchi-goshi balloon setting (gothic kanji with bold antique kana, アンチゴチ: the antique kana is a bold face of the 1890s from the kagomoji of Edo temple plaques, not a Mincho; the default for children’s manga by about 1960 and across commercial manga with desktop publishing), Fine Mincho balloon setting (dialogue in adult manga and gekiga, setting them apart from children’s titles), Hand-drawn kana sound effects (katakana and hiragana drawn into the artwork at large size; removed or redrawn when pages are translated), Free-floating monologue text (set outside the balloons and spread across the page, from 1970s shōjo manga)

Known for: Tezuka Osamu (art) and Sakai Shichima (story), Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island), akahon, Ikuei Shuppan, 30 January 1947; reportedly over 400,000 copies (estimates range from 40,000 to 800,000), it inspired Fujiko Fujio, Ishinomori Shōtarō, Chiba Tetsuya, Umezu Kazuo and Nakazawa Keiji to become manga artists; Tezuka Osamu, Tetsuwan Atomu (Mighty Atom, Astro Boy), serialised in Kōbunsha's monthly Shōnen, April 1952 to March 1968; Tezuka Osamu, Ribon no Kishi (Princess Knight), 1953–1956, credited with bringing multi-chapter story manga and Tezuka's dynamic style to girls' magazines; Tokiwa-sō, an apartment house in Toshima, Tokyo (1952–1982), where Tezuka (1953–54), Terada Hiroo (1953–57), Fujiko Fujio (1954–61), Ishinomori Shōtarō and Akatsuka Fujio (both 1956–61) drew; rebuilt as a museum, opened 7 July 2020; Weekly Shōnen Magazine (Kodansha) and Weekly Shōnen Sunday (Shogakukan), both first published 17 March 1959; Shōnen Jump (Shueisha), launched 11 July 1968 as a biweekly, weekly from 1969, peaking at 6.53 million copies with its New Year issue of 1995 (on sale 20 December 1994); Takamori Asao (story) and Chiba Tetsuya (art), Ashita no Joe, Weekly Shōnen Magazine, 1 January 1968 to 13 May 1973; Ōtomo Katsuhiro, Akira, Kodansha's Young Magazine, 20 December 1982 to 25 June 1990: dense architectural detail at a cinematic pace; for Epic Comics' English edition (1988) the pages were flipped, fully coloured and the drawn Japanese sound effects removed from the art; Toriyama Akira, Dragon Ball, Weekly Shōnen Jump, 20 November 1984 to 23 May 1995, 519 chapters in 42 tankōbon: lines simplified for a sense of speed, one action to a panel, and little screentone

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Influenced by: [American Four-Colour Comic Book (Golden to Bronze Age)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/american-comic-book.md) (1934–1993)
- Influenced by: [Taishō Roman & Lyrical Illustration](https://stylogeny.com/styles/taisho-roman.md) (1910–1940)
- Led to: [Shōjo Manga (Japanese Girls' Comics)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/shojo-manga.md) (1958–present)
- Alike in its design choices: [Arab Independent Comics (Samandal, TokTok, Lab619, Skefkef)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/arab-independent-comics.md) (2007–present), 64% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Turkish Weekly Humour Magazines (Gırgır to Uykusuz)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/turkish-humour-magazines.md) (1972–2025), 55% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Métal hurlant Science-Fiction Comics (Mœbius, Druillet & Les Humanoïdes Associés)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/metal-hurlant.md) (1974–1987), 52% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Ethiopian Revolutionary Poster (Derg Era)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/ethiopian-revolutionary-poster.md) (1974–1991), 51% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book & Periodical Design](https://stylogeny.com/styles/cairo-beirut-book-design.md) (1952–1990), 51% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints](https://stylogeny.com/styles/ukiyo-e.md) (1670–1900), 51% alike

## Sources

- Wikipedia: 'Shin Takarajima (manga)' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Takarajima_(manga): one-shot published by Ikuei Shuppan on 30 January 1947, written by Shichima Sakai and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka; 'reportedly sold over 400,000 copies', a figure Eike Exner thinks may be exaggerated; Motoo Abiko on 'the cinematic nature of the first two pages'; readers inspired to become manga artists, including Fujiko Fujio, Shotaro Ishinomori, Tetsuya Chiba, Kazuo Umezu and Keiji Nakazawa) and Japanese Wikipedia, '新宝島' (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/新宝島: an akahon; sales estimates of 40,000, 400,000 and 800,000; story told through action, panel layout and composition; Nakano Haruyuki's argument that the cinematic expression was Sakai's achievement, and Noguchi Fumio's rebuttal)
- Japanese Wikipedia, 'ストーリー漫画' (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ストーリー漫画: story manga established by Shin Takarajima, 1947; the term spread in the industry in the mid-1950s; multi-page story manga existed before the war; Tezuka denied being the originator of story manga or of cinematic technique; gekiga grew from Tezuka's story manga in the rental-book market)
- Wikipedia: 'Osamu Tezuka' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka: born 3 November 1928 in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, died 9 February 1989; layouts influenced by Milt Gross's He Done Her Wrong; pans, close-ups and zooms; 'invented the distinctive "large eyes" style', drawing on Takarazuka Revue performers, Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse and Bambi; Tokiwa-sō handed to Fujiko Fujio in 1954)
- Wikipedia: 'Manga' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga: the continuity view of Schodt, Ito and Kern against the view stressing US comics, film and Disney cartoons brought during the occupation of 1945-1952; Tezuka's cinematic panel sequencing 'widely adopted by later manga artists'; 'Manga is typically printed in black-and-white' partly to keep costs low; 'Traditionally, manga stories flow from top to bottom and from right to left'; gekiga and Sampei Shirato)
- Wikipedia: 'Astro Boy' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Boy: serialised in Kobunsha's Shōnen from 1952 to 1968, original run 3 April 1952 to 12 March 1968) and Tezuka Productions, 'Mighty Atom' (https://tezukaosamu.net/en/manga/291.html: 'Serialized in Shonen (Kobunsha) (1952/04-1968/03)')
- Wikipedia: 'Tokiwa-sō' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokiwa-s%C5%8D: completed December 1952, demolished 1982; residents Tezuka 1953-54, Hiroo Terada 1953-57, Fujiko Fujio 1954-61, Shotaro Ishinomori 1956-61, Fujio Akatsuka 1956-61; replica museum opened 7 July 2020)
- Wikipedia: 'Weekly Shōnen Magazine' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Sh%C5%8Dnen_Magazine: launched 17 March 1959, 'the first weekly manga magazine'), 'Weekly Shōnen Sunday' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Sh%C5%8Dnen_Sunday: 'first published on March 17, 1959') and 'Weekly Shōnen Jump' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Sh%C5%8Dnen_Jump: launched by Shueisha on 11 July 1968 as a biweekly; peak of 6.53 million copies with the New Year's issue of 1995, footnoted as 'Released as combined issue 3/4 on December 20, 1994')
- Wikipedia: 'Ashita no Joe' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashita_no_Joe: Weekly Shōnen Magazine, 1 January 1968 to 13 May 1973, by Asao Takamori and Tetsuya Chiba), 'Akira (manga)' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(manga): Young Magazine, 20 December 1982 to 25 June 1990; Epic Comics edition of 1988 flipped, fully coloured by Steve Oliff at Olyoptics, with backgrounds redone to remove Japanese sound effects), 'Dragon Ball (manga)' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball_(manga): Weekly Shōnen Jump, 20 November 1984 to 23 May 1995, 519 chapters in 42 volumes; Toriyama simplifying the lines and, for 'the sense of speed', not drawing elaborately; few characters with screentone; critic David Brothers (ComicsAlliance) on Dragon Ball having 'a panel dedicated to one action') and 'One Piece' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece: Weekly Shōnen Jump since 22 July 1997; over 600 million copies by March 2026)
- Wikipedia: 'Gekiga' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gekiga: coined by Yoshihiro Tatsumi in 1957; 'sharp angles, hatching, and gritty lines') and 'Shōjo manga' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Djo_manga: Princess Knight, 1953-1956, bringing story manga to shōjo magazines; Kayoko Kuramochi and Masuko Honda defining shōjo manga graphically by 'the imaginative use of flowers, ribbons, fluttering dresses, girls with large sparkling eyes'; a large central star replacing the pupil dot in shōjo manga by Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori in the mid-1950s; Macoto Takahashi adopting Jun'ichi Nakahara's 'large, doll-like eyes with highlights and long lashes' and adding 'dots, stars, and multiple colors to represent the iris'; overlapping and borderless panels and monologue spread outside the balloons in 1970s shōjo layouts (Natsume Fusanosuke's naiho and kaiho))
- Japanese Wikipedia, 'スクリーントーン' (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/スクリーントーン: adhesive printed film cut with a knife and burnished onto monochrome manga originals; first Japanese dot tone by Seki Saburo in 1952; used by manga artists from about 1954; scraping, layering and gradation tones; developed distinctively in Japan because no all-colour comic tradition took hold; pattern tones (柄トーン) printed with flowers and sparkling light, and J-Tone, used mainly in shōjo manga, whose large floral tone no. 244 is widely seen; digital replacements) and '集中線' (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/集中線: effect lines; focus lines drawn toward one point to show motion or shock; speed lines)
- Japanese Wikipedia, '日本の漫画雑誌' (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日本の漫画雑誌: many pages printed in two colours, black plus red, between the four-colour opening pages and the black pages and at the back, declining from about 2001; many magazines printed on recycled paper, tinted because the old ink is hard to remove)
- Wikipedia: 'Manga iconography' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_iconography: sweat drops, cruciform veins, speed lines, converging lines for focus, super-deformed styling, large eyes) and Neil Cohn, Visual Language Lab, 'Japanese Visual Language' (https://www.visuallanguagelab.com/jvl: giant sweat drop for anxiety; chibi super-deformation)
- Wikipedia: 'Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts: 'Most text in manga is written vertically, which dictates the vertical shapes of the speech bubbles'; pages ordered right to left) and Japanese Wikipedia, 'アンチック体' (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/アンチック体: antique kana of the 1890s from kagomoji, not a Mincho; anchi-goshi mixed setting the default for children's manga by about 1960, while adult manga and gekiga kept fine Mincho; spread across commercial manga with DTP)
- Wikipedia: 'Manhwa' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhwa: 'Webtoons are the digital form of manhwa that first came into popularity in the early 2000s'; 'the influx of manga into the Korean comics market had a strong effect on the art and content of many artists' manhwa')
- Neil Cohn, 'A different kind of cultural frame: An analysis of panels in American comics and Japanese manga', Image & Narrative 12:1 (2011), 120-134 (http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/128)
- Francesca Benatti, 'Manga, The British Museum', Open University English blog (https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/english/manga-the-british-museum/: on the British Museum exhibition Manga, 23 May-26 August 2019; manga as frames (koma), black-and-white line drawings, speech balloons, onomatopoeia and symbols (manpu); catalogue edited by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere and Matsuba Ryoko)
- Brian Covert, 'The Tezuka Controversy', Mangajin no. 19 (August 1992), 8-11 (https://www.inochi-life.net/archives_tezuka_controversy.html: the Association to Stop Racism Against Blacks, founded in Osaka in 1988, protesting from September 1990; Tezuka Productions' disclaimer slip about illustrations of foreigners, including Black Africans)
- Frederik L. Schodt, Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha International, 1983), with an introduction by Osamu Tezuka

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Story Manga (Postwar Japanese Comics)”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/story-manga/