Early Origins of Japanese Comic
The tradition of narrative art or telling stories with a series of sequential images has been a part of Japanese culture long before Superman ever put on a cape. The earliest examples of pre-manga artwork that influenced the development of modern Japanese comics are commonly attributed to Toba Sojo, an 11th-century painter-priest with a whimsical sense of humor. Toba’s animal scroll paintings or choju giga satirized life in the Buddhist priesthood by drawing priests as mischievous rabbits, monkeys engaging in silly activities including farting contests, and even depicted the Buddha himself as a toad. While there are no word balloons or sound effects in Toba’s paintings, they do show a progression of events, happening one after another as the scroll is unrolled from right to left. This tradition of reading images from right to left continues today in modern manga. In later years, Toba’s influence on manga was acknowledged with the introduction of Toba-e or “Toba pictures,” an 18th-c...
