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In conjunction with the launch of Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage, a Zoom discussion was held connecting three parts of the world—Tokyo, Massachusetts, and Akita. The participants are Nicole Coolidge Roumaniere, chief curator of The Citi Exhibition: Manga at the British Museum in 2019; Taku Oishi, director of the Masuda Museum of Manga in Yokote City, which launched the Manga Original Art Archive Center; and Masashi Okamoto, supervisor of Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage. From each of their perspectives, they spoke about manga, art, and the implications for archival approaches.
Click here for a video of the discussion (Japanese only)
Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (middle) is the research director at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. She is also a professor of Japanese Arts at the University of East Anglia. She was the former Handa IFAC curator of Japanese arts, Department of Asia, British Museum. She was also the lead curator for The Citi Exhibition: Manga at the British Museum in 2019.
Taku Oishi (right) is the director of Yokote Masuda Manga Museum. He is the head of the Manga Original Art Archive Center. Since 2007, he has been involved in the operation of the Masuda Manga Museum as a city hall employee of Yokote City, Akita Prefecture. He retired early in March 2020 and is now a member of the Yokote Masuda Manga Art Foundation.
Yokote Masuda Manga Museum Official Website
https://manga-museum.com/
Masashi Okamoto (left) is the head of Shueisha's Digital Content Division. Okamoto joined Shueisha after graduating from the Department of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts. He became involved in the digitization of manga through the compilation of women's magazines on a portal site. He planned and created the Manga Digital Archives, a database in which major Shueisha manga are archived and managed. He is also involved in the digitization of the production environment of manga magazines like Shonen Jump. He is the project leader for Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage.
• Passing Down Manga Originals to Future Generations
Okamoto: I'd like to begin the discussion with the topic of the archive.
I visited the Yokote Masuda Manga Museum and Mr. Oishi showed us around the Archive Center. Having taken note of what I saw there, we at Shueisha are now starting to think about the format for how we should store the original artwork from One Piece.
(One Piece original artwork)
Okamoto: As we create a digital archive, we also want to make sure that the original manga artwork is properly preserved so that we can pass the baton on to the next generation. First, I think we need to implement a system, and we are discussing how to approach this with members of the Manga Original Art Archive Center.
However, there is a big difference between this kind of archival work and the work we do on a day-to-day basis. Original manga artwork is illustrated at a very fast pace, then taken to the press for typesetting and printing. We always as a rule take good care of the original artwork, of course, but there is a difference in the speed at which we do so and the way they are carefully stored one by one at the Yokote Masuda Manga Museum. Without a smart division of labor, it will be impossible for us to do it all on our own. I'd like to think of something that would enable us to connect those two systems.
But I've heard curators in Japan are sometimes called "miscellaneous employees" and they do a variety of jobs, don't they? I heard that Mr. Oishi even shoveled the snow off the roof of the museum. (Laughs)
Oishi: That's true. (Laughs)
(Slope Gallery, Yokote Masuda Manga Museum)
Okamoto: I assume that there is a proper division of labor at the British Museum. Is that true?
Nicole: There is, but we end up doing a lot of things anyway. (Laughs)
The British Museum is a huge place with many objects and displays inside. There are about a thousand people employed there. I think the tasks are basically the same for the Yokote Masuda Manga Museum. For example, when visitors come to the museum, we show them around and answer any questions they may have, and we have many other duties.
Among all of our duties, our most important task is to take care of the artwork. Our second most important duty is to provide service to the visitors to the museum. I believe some of our duties could be described as "miscellaneous" work. (Laughs) But I believe it's important. By doing a variety of work, I'm able to understand the significance of the artwork I'm currently looking after and how it should be presented. That's why I think the Yokote Masuda Manga Museum is so amazing.
Oishi: Thank you. (Laughs)
Okamoto: Recently, manga exhibitions have been held very frequently in Japan at venues like the National Art Center, Tokyo and Mori Art Museum. Among these venues, the Masuda Manga Museum is a very unique institution when it comes to storing and preserving archives. I feel that the time has come for us to turn our attention to preserving the original artwork.
(Original illustrations displayed using the "drawer system," Yokote Masuda Manga Museum)
• Keeping a record of the techniques used to produce manga in addition to the artwork itself
Okamoto: The other day, I spoke to Ms. Tomoko Yamada of the Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library at Meiji University about how many works were already lost before people realized that they had value and should be preserved. Around 10 years ago, when I was working on phototypesetting for manga, I used to check and redo a lot of blueprints for corrections every day, and then discard them. I had been throwing them away, so even if I search for them now, they cannot be found. We can look back in history and talk about what blueprints were like, but we no longer have the actual artifacts to examine.
One of the missions of the British Museum is to keep such things in its collection, isn't it?
Nicole: The history of the British Museum dates back to 1753, and it has been collecting various archaeological and other materials since the middle of the 19th century. They have been collecting and purchasing Japanese objects since the 1860s, and now have about 35,000 Japanese items in their collections. About half of these objects are two-dimensional artifacts, while the other half are three-dimensional. Many manga-related works are kept in the British Library, and the British Museum will continue to purchase more works, modern or old, depending on the interests of the various curators, the departments and the museum. In my case, for example, I specialize in ceramics, but I'm quite interested in hand grenades.
Okamoto: Hand grenades?! Are they ceramic?
Nicole: The ones made in Japan at the end of World War II are indeed ceramic. Their productions techniques are completely different depending on where they were made in Japan. In Arita, they were mold-made with porcelain, and in Kyoto, they were handmade with stoneware. However, there aren't many ceramic grenades left because they've been destroyed. We must preserve these now because they're important records. In this way, I think the grenades are similar to the blueprints you mentioned. They can be viewed in many different ways, but items that are important to the culture and to the times must be collected properly.
Okamoto: It's wonderful that the curators have the authority and budget to do so.
Nicole: It's not like the British Museum has a great deal of money either. (Laughs) For example, when it comes to grenades, the ceramic ones were donated to the museum. That reminds me, I once put a ceramic grenade made in Arita in my carry-on luggage on an airplane and took it back to Britain. (Laughs) I didn't think much about it. It wasn't something that could explode, but an object of that shape is certainly not allowed on a plane! When it comes to money, patronage is important. You have to go around asking many people for these type of artifacts.
Okamoto: I see. The things you talk about are fascinating because they cover a lot of territory. Manga is similar to ceramics in that, unlike so-called fine art, it's closely tied to industry and commerce, so I think it would be interesting to preserve not only the original art, but also the production process. I think it's a good idea for us to collaborate with public museums and academic institutions, since it's the publishers who are involved in the production process, like the typesetting, lithographic film, and printing machines.
But I spoke to someone working at the press the other day, and he said, "When you're busy and overwhelmed with work, you don't have time to leave records." (Laughs) In the past, when Weekly Shonen Jump was the magazine with the largest print-run, we printed more than six million copies, and the printing presses were constantly in operation. Under those circumstances, there is no time to step back and keep records in an objective way. In manga production nowadays, there are still some analog processes for typography and plate making, and I'd like to preserve them as well.
(Printing Weekly Shonen Jump on a rotary press, Kyodo Printing Group)
• Storyboards and sketches are also of great value
Nicole: May I ask something? The original illustrations are obviously important, but when they're created, artists make sketches and designs too, right? For example, they might be sketches marked with circles and triangles and X's. Don't artists and editors usually just throw these away?
Okamoto: You're referring to storyboards and sketches.
Nicole: In the British Museum, we also keep sketches and drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. They aren't finalized works of art. We call them "drawings," but they're really important. I don't think these kinds of sketches are generally kept or collected in Japan. Is that correct?
Okamoto: I was actually just talking about this with people from the editorial department. Unfortunately, there's still a lack of awareness about the importance of these sketches in the field of manga, and probably in the field of anime as well. I once read that when John Lasseter of Pixar went to Ghibli, he picked a storyboard that the staff had thrown away out of a trash can and brought it back with him. (Laughs)
Nicole: Hokusai painted lions every day. A Hokusai expert at the British Museum named Tim Clark told me that he brushed these paintings every day and then threw them away. But apparently, there were people who came to collect these paintings, and many of them have been preserved. Artists often throw away their sketches, so our role is to preserve them.
Okamoto: I agree. There seems to be a big divide between artists who take great care of their original illustrations and those who say they have no interest in them after they've drawn them. The value of archiving such illustrations doesn't become apparent until a long time has passed, so deciding what to do with them is a big issue. I think the people at the Manga Original Art Archive Center are more familiar with this topic. What are your thoughts?
Oishi: I have had the opportunity to hear the opinions of various artists. There are artists who view manga as part of a culture of reading and discarding, and there are also artists who clearly state that public funds should not be spent on preserving their manuscripts. Each of us has our own values and ways of perceiving culture, but we want to take on the role of passing down such materials to future generations. We want to approach these artists with the hope of helping them while respecting their views.
Also, archivists who specialize in preserving the materials used as references when creating works use more advanced methods in Europe and the United States. We focus our efforts on protecting the finished manuscript, but for Takao Yaguchi's work, we also keep all the materials he used during the creation process. Someone who is conducting research on this topic actually reached out to me. We can't do everything on our own, so we've asked that person to come to the storehouse and help us with cataloging and organizing the works.
(At the Manga Cellar Exhibition Room of Yokote Masuda Manga Museum, visitors can observe how the original illustrations are preserved through the glass.)
Okamoto: Original manga artwork and published books both deteriorate and fade very easily.
For example, in the case of color originals, works drawn with dye-based inks change color over a short period of time, but the solution is not as simple as switching to a different type of ink. Some methods of expression actually came into existence because of the widespread use of such dye-based inks.
On the other hand, it is also difficult to attest that the published books are permanent. The color pictures in manga are generally printed in CMYK plus fluorescent pink, which is a special printing method for general publications. The distinctive skin tone unique to manga can't be achieved without fluorescent pink. But the fluorescent pink fades very quickly.
Because the original pictures and the published works both deteriorate quite quickly, we must think about how to preserve them in a good state for future generations. This is what led to the digital archives and the manga art project we've started. We believe it's important that we get this right.
("Marie Antoinette and the Yellow Rose" from The Rose of Versailles, Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage)
