Week Three: Gekiga

By: Dr. David Steiling on January 23, 2020

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Elegiy in Red” by Seiichi Hayashi.

This week we are considering Gegika and I am asking you to read Cigarette Girl, a very interesting slice of life manga you will find on the Course Resource Page, some of Lone Wolf and Cub and some Golgo 13 which you can read Chapter 1 and other chapters here.  It is still an ongoing feature, but the early chapters by Takao Saito capture the Gekiga style very well.  If you are bold you can try Abandon the Old in Tokyo which is a collection of manga short stories from 1970 and is on mangareader.  

There is currently a movie which showcases several stories by Tatsumi in gekiga style animation called, Tatsumi, on amazon prime, free to members. The movie intertwines the stories with vignettes from Tatsumi's life.  If you have access to Amazon Prime I highly recommend this movie to you.

Presentation Topics: This week we will try to assign all presentation topics.  We will review these in class and assign them to a date.  If you have not created your blog and emailed me the URL please do so right away so I can see your topic ideas.

Here is Lauren's an Lyanne's list of links for the Featured readings for the semester.  There is currently no link for the alternative manga anthology AX.  Go to the Course Resource Page for a pdf of this week's featured reading. 

More Tezuka: Here are links to additional works on scanlation sites by Tezuka:

Buddha a series of 8 volumes as a sort of biography of the ideas of Buddhism. Highly recommended reading but one volume, Vol. 4, missing from this site and somewhat difficult to get.

Lost World (1948) one of Tezuka's first successes in long form story manga.


Next World (1951) early science fiction story manga by Tezuka, part of the foundation of science fiction manga.

Tonkaradani Monogatari (1955) Tales in a natural setting.  You might call this emblematic of the roots of shoujo. 

Angels Hill (1960) Early shoujo, merpeople on Angel's Island.

Dororo (1967) very popular shonen classic by Tezuka sets the formula for much of the shonen genre. Three volumes here.

Clockwork Apple (1970) Short stories with Tezuka flexing his new, more mature storytelling style.

Ode to Kirihito (1970) Gekiga influenced medical drama, very hard edged and interesting, an adventure manga focusing on the corruption at the heart of the medical establishment. Not a kid's manga.


Black Jack (1973) based loosely on some of Tezuka's experiences in medicine. A medical themed adventure series in seven volumes.

Hidamari no Ki (1981) historical slice of life samurai medical drama.  There are anime series and live action tv series based on this manga.

Manga Seibutsugaku educational manga from Tezuka combining his manga skill with his interests in biology, especially insects. Two volumes.

Astro Cat (1986) In case you didn't get enough of Astro Boy, here are the adventures of his cat.

Here is a small illustration that demonstrates in rough terms the stylistic difference between manga representation and gekiga representation.

In short the figure on the right illustrates the concept of gekiga or "dramatic pictures," a style of  comics representation aimed at adult audiences with a cinematic style and more mature themes than the children's comics which initially inspired post-war manga.