"For many of our students, manga was a motivation to study Japanese"

Nele Noppe, a researcher at the Department of Japanese Studies – which houses a manga research centre and library – is translating a series of classics of world literature in the form of graphic novels.

“Manga is nothing more than the Japanese term for a comic strip. Thanks to the enormous popularity of these comic strips in Japan, as well as active international export, the term became famous across the world. The Japanese comic strip scene is incredibly diverse, however, and has a variety of genres and numerous illustrators with their own styles. Many of the comics do not make it to Belgium and the ones that do initially – and wrongly – gave manga the damaging reputation of being a pornographic and violent genre.”

“That is why the people at Epo Publishers were surprised to discover a Japanese series of about forty classics in graphic novel form. They decided to publish the books and contacted me for the Dutch translations. I do not base my translations on the original works; I use the comic strip translations, which attempt to make the original works more accessible. For example, the first part of Marx’s Das Kapital was translated into a simple story, while the second part tries to clarify a whole list of technical economic terms. I am certainly going to consult my colleague who studies Japanese economics for the translation of these terms.”

“Recently, the popularity of digital comic strips has increased in Japan. People even use their mobile phones to send manga to one another. This is no problem whatsoever with modern technology – which is more advanced in Japan. And now you see people on the train or the underground reading their favourite comics on an iPad.”

“At our ‘Let’s Manga’ research centre, we have developed a workshop about the use of manga and anime (the film version of manga, ed.) in classrooms. And it works! To our great surprise, no less than three quarters of our Japanology students recently said that manga was one of their motivations to study Japanese. What’s more, Flanders and the Netherlands are not the leaders when it comes to interest in this genre; by the time part ten of a series is published in Dutch, French and English publishers are often already at part thirty or forty.”

“Our library contains a fine and steadily growing collection of original Japanese manga books. We currently have approximately 1800 publications. Students or friends regularly come to donate their old mangas to the library. We do not have any selection criteria at the moment, not even with respect to quality. Value judgements get you nowhere and it is striking that researchers and readers apply very different norms. I would be willing to label manga as ‘popular culture’, just so long as people do not start using terms such as ‘high’ or ‘low’ culture. To a certain extent, you might even refer to it as consumerism: the substantial but surprisingly affordable magazines that publish the various series are often printed on poor-quality paper. The complete stories are published later, in proper books. Real fans buy both editions!”

http://japanesestudies.arts.kuleuven.be/popularculture/

Jos Stroobants