Rumiko Takahashi Becomes the Second Female Author to Win the Grand Prix at the International Comics Festival
Translation by: Harley Acres
She is the first Japanese person to receive the award since Katsuhiro Otomo
He was recognized for his non-traditional style
Do you know about the "Angoulême International Comics Festival"?
This is an annual event where comics fans from all over the world flock to Angoulême, a small town with a population of about 40,000 people, about three hours from Paris, France by way of the high-speed train service TGV. This year's festival, which is one of the largest in the world and has a history of over 40 years, attracted a total of 200,000 fans over four days from January 24th to 27th. I am one of them.
For four days during the exhibition, Angoulême will be filled with comics, and various buildings in the city, including the Municipal Museum, will serve as event venues. Several temporary buildings were erected and dozens of publishers set up booths. Autograph sessions were held there every day, and fans enjoyed interacting with the artists.
One of the highlights are the various manga awards announced every year. This year, Rumiko Takahashi, a Japanese manga artist known for works such as Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha, won the grand prize and became a hot topic. She is the second Japanese person to win the Grand Prix, following Katsuhiro Otomo in 2015. [1]
Compared to seven years ago, when I first went to Angoulême, the way Japanese manga is treated has definitely grown. Perhaps as a result of this, the number of groups of middle school and high school girls and families with children seems to be increasing when compared to my previous visit. Traditional French comics, known as bande dessinée (BD), were seen as a form of art rather than casual entertainment like in Japan, and many of its fans were adults, especially men.
In the 2000s, there was a boom in Japanese manga in Europe and the United States, and there was even a time in France where one-third of all comics published were translated versions of Japanese manga. It is said that this new type of manga readership is far removed from the traditional BD readership.
In order to increase the number of participants, the Angoulême Festival has begun to feature Japanese manga more heavily in recent years, but traditional BD remains the main attraction. Even Katsuhiro Otomo, who won the Grand Prix in the past, has openly said that he was greatly influenced by the legendary BD author Moebius. [2] In that sense, it can be said that he was an artist who could be accepted as an extension of conventional BD. However, Rumiko Takahashi's style and demand in Europe and America are completely different. She is, rather, an author who symbolizes the global Japanese manga boom since the 2000s.
However, if one listens to traditional BD fans and the French media, the award appears to be an attempt to avoid a critical disconnect between old and new manga fans by focusing on the aspect of Takahashi being a female artist.
In fact, in the history of the festival, there have only been two female Grand Prize winners, which includes Takahashi. [3] This shows how much of a boy's club the Western comics world has been. On the other hand, there is no other country where there are as many women's manga by women, for women, as there is in Japan.
In recent years, the Angoulême Festival has set out a political policy of drawing attention to women's issues through comics, and one example of this is the "Comfort Women Manga Exhibition" planned in 2014, which sparked an international debate. Takahashi's award was probably in line with that policy. [4]
In addition to traditional BDs and Japanese manga, the festival featured various types of comics, including historical developments in the genre. There are several such manga "festivals" in Japan, but most of the larger ones are dojinshi sales events like Comic Market (Comiket) or business events organized by the government to promote tourism. [5]
I left France dreaming that someday a festival like the Angoulême Festival would appear in Japan. = Published in Asahi Shimbun March 29, 2019
Footnotes
- [1] Katsuhiro Otomo (大友克洋) is not only a mangaka but also a film director as well, as he directed the adaptation of his own work, Akira which has gone on to become one of the most iconic manga and anime of all time. As mentioned here, in the 1980s his style was one of the most immitated (Rumiko Takahashi was asked about this in an interview and if she ever thought about emulating his style as well).
- [2] Moebius (real name Jean Giraud) was the creator of the cowboy series Blueberry, and as his international fame grew he began to contribute designs for Hollywood films including Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Tron and Alien. He was one of the founders of the monthly anthology magazine Métal Hurlant/Heavy Metal. His story with writer Dan O'Bannon, The Long Tomorrow was an important predecessor to the look of cyberpunk.
- [3] Rumiko Takahashi won the Grand Prix in 2019. The first woman to win the award was Florence Cestac who won in 2000. Cestac's works include L’Écho des Savanes, Pilote and Charlie Mensuel. A transcript of an interview Takahashi gave upon the annoucement that she won the Grand Prix award can be read here.
- [4] For clarity the "Comfort Women Manga Exhibition" took place at the 2014 Angoulême International Comics Festival while Takahashi received the Grand Prix at the 2019 event. The South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family sponsored the creation of comics addressing the World War II era issues of "comfort women" which the Japanese government asserts involved paid prostitution provided by Korean women to Japanese soliders, or forced sexual slavery in the eyes of Koreans. The issue of responsibility and acknowledgement has been debated since the 1980s. The exhibition caused friction between the South Korean and Japanese government which is detailed here. Similar issues have arisen within Japan itself and depictions in manga of the events of World War II, a good account of one such controversy can be read about in the article "Jumping to the Right" which details calls for censoring the manga My Country is Burning! (国が燃える/Kuni ga moeru!) by Hiroshi Motomiya (本宮ひろ志).
- [5] Yoshihiro Yonezawa (米澤 嘉博), the founded of Comiket. Yonezawa founded Comiket after the avant garde manga magazine COM closed its doors in 1972. Yonezawa was posthumously awarded the Seiun Award and in 2007 and the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize in 2010 for his contributions to manga culture.
Yuu Ito (伊藤遊), Researcher, International Manga Research Center, Kyoto Seika University. Born in 1974. His specialty is folklore and manga research. In recent years, he has been conducting research on manga-related cultural facilities and manga exhibitions both domestically and internationally.
