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Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905–1989
A comprehensive English-language history of a beloved medium, Manga’s First Century tells the story of the artists and fans who built a cultural juggernaut.
Manga is the world’s most popular style of comics. How did manga and anime—“moving manga”—become ubiquitous? Manga’s First Century delves into the history and finds surprising answers.
In fact, manga has always been a global phenomenon. Countering essentialist myths of manga’s emergence from the deepest wells of Japanese art, author Andrea Horbinski shows it was born in the early 1900s, a hybrid form that crossed single-panel satirical cartoons popular in Europe and America with the Edo period’s artistic legacy. As a medium, manga initially focused on political commentary, expanding to include social satire, children’s comics, and proletarian art in the 1920s and 1930s. Manga’s evolution into a medium embracing complex, long-form storytelling was likewise driven by creators and fans pushing publishers to accept new, radical expansions in manga’s artistic and narrative practices. In the 1970s, innovative creators and fans empowered a new breed of fan-generated comics (dōjinshi) and established robust audiences of adult, female, and queer manga readers, while nurturing generations of amateur and professional creators who continue to enrich and renew manga today.
Manga is the world’s most popular style of comics. How did manga and anime—“moving manga”—become ubiquitous? Manga’s First Century delves into the history and finds surprising answers.
In fact, manga has always been a global phenomenon. Countering essentialist myths of manga’s emergence from the deepest wells of Japanese art, author Andrea Horbinski shows it was born in the early 1900s, a hybrid form that crossed single-panel satirical cartoons popular in Europe and America with the Edo period’s artistic legacy. As a medium, manga initially focused on political commentary, expanding to include social satire, children’s comics, and proletarian art in the 1920s and 1930s. Manga’s evolution into a medium embracing complex, long-form storytelling was likewise driven by creators and fans pushing publishers to accept new, radical expansions in manga’s artistic and narrative practices. In the 1970s, innovative creators and fans empowered a new breed of fan-generated comics (dōjinshi) and established robust audiences of adult, female, and queer manga readers, while nurturing generations of amateur and professional creators who continue to enrich and renew manga today.
- GenresNonfictionMangaHistory
448 pages, Paperback
Published October 28, 2025
About the author
Andrea Horbinski
1 bookAndrea Horbinski began studying Japanese in college after she started watching anime in high school, and went on to research hypernationalist manga in Kyoto on a Fulbright Fellowship. While pursuing her PhD in history and new media at the University of California, Berkeley, she harnessed her love of manga and pop culture, writing a general history of manga in its historical and global contexts for her dissertation. Along the way, she uncovered the role that fans of manga have played in the medium's development since its earliest decades, mirroring her own experience in sci-fi and online fandoms since childhood.
Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989, is the result of ten years spent researching, reading, and thinking about manga on three continents, including research stints in Belgium and Japan.
Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989, is the result of ten years spent researching, reading, and thinking about manga on three continents, including research stints in Belgium and Japan.
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April 1, 2026Just a few years ago you would have been lucky to find much more than a single shelf of a UK bookshop dedicated to Japanese manga. Anime was available primarily in the form of films by Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. All that has now changed. An enormous variety of manga in translation has become available while streaming services are showing ever more anime adaptations. The storylines and visual languages of these two closely related art forms have become a major cultural thread in the lives of young westerners.
All the more reason to welcome Andrea Horbinski’s scholarly yet accessible introduction to manga’s turbulent 20th century. Many existing histories of manga, including Frederik L. Schodt’s Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (1983), place modern manga within a tradition of Japanese visual art stretching back 1,000 years. Horbinski contends that the origins of manga are better understood as lying in the early 1900s: a moment when a rapidly modernising Japan, keen to make a break with the past, encountered global art forms including the political cartoon.
Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...
Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh.
All the more reason to welcome Andrea Horbinski’s scholarly yet accessible introduction to manga’s turbulent 20th century. Many existing histories of manga, including Frederik L. Schodt’s Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (1983), place modern manga within a tradition of Japanese visual art stretching back 1,000 years. Horbinski contends that the origins of manga are better understood as lying in the early 1900s: a moment when a rapidly modernising Japan, keen to make a break with the past, encountered global art forms including the political cartoon.
Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...
Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh.
Displaying 1 of 1 review