One of the perks of my new job at the Jewish Museum in London is that the staff get invited to exclusive events within the museum community, often this includes free entry and after hours viewing of museum exhibitions. As any sane person would, I try to take advantage of these perks as much as I can (to the point where I probably annoy my co-workers asking what other things we get for free). One of the most recent invitations was to an after hours community evening at the British Museum to view their Manga exhibit. This luckily coincided with my manga-mad sister Lauren visiting me for a few days, so we hurried along to the British Museum for my sister to see some of her favourite manga comics displayed, and for me to learn more about this art form.

Firstly, I need to admit that I knew next to nothing about manga comics so I was pleasantly surprised about how accessible the exhibition was to me, a non-fan of the art form. As soon as you enter the exhibition you are informed about where manga is said to have originated and how to read manga (for a beginner). There is no specific origin of the Manga art form as one could argue, the style of drawing has always been present in Japanese art. The comics are read from the top right to bottom left hand side of the pages and the museum had fun, engaging images displaying this.

You then, have interviews by prominent figures in the manga community explaining how manga became such an important part of Japanese culture and why it has, in recent years, a wider appeal to western society with Studio Ghibli films and cartoons such as Pokemon having had a big impact on adult and children’s entertainment in the last twenty years. One thing that was notable is the spotlight that was shone on female manga artists who have made strides in a male-dominated field to make girl-comics more mainstream and open the genre to include young women.

One artist, Hagio Moto, was featured as the leading author of shōjo (girls) manga. She published her first manga, Rulu and Mimi, in 1969, aged 20. She is a key member of the Year 24 Group who are said to have revolutionised shōjo manga in the 1970s. Hagio also writes in other genres such as Boys Love which is a popular homoerotic genre. Such pioneers show that the Museum is succeeding in showcasing multiple aspects of the manga universe and not just the male-dominated mangas that are well-known to the West.

There were the well known favourites such as Astro Boy which is manga-master Tezuka Osamu’s most popular manga and anime series. Astro Boy is one of the most well-known characters in the manga world and has had many spin offs as well as being adapted into Hollywood films. Other favourites, such as Deathnote and Attack on Titan were also featured in the exhibit, Attack on Titan being represented by the unnerving giant head of a Titan.

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Lauren really appreciated that there was a manga library in the middle of the exhibit where visitors could sit down and peruse the different manga genres and different popular titles. This was also a massive positive for me, getting to actually read the comics after finding out more about the process behind it and finding out about the authors made me appreciate and take an interest in manga. There was even a comic about the British Museum where Professor Munakata (one of Japan’s most popular manga characters) investigates the disappearance of the Stonehenge megaliths. His investigation leads him to the British Museum where there is a plot that puts the Rosetta Stone in grave danger!

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I would definitely recommend a visit to this informative exhibition. As someone who had no idea about manga comics I thoroughly enjoyed learning about this genre of art and it was great to be able to experience this exhibition with a fan of manga, my sister.