The Ise-e Tradition and Ise Manga

Joshua S Mostow

doi:10.5195/jll.2021.154

Abstract

The Ise monogatari (The Ise Stories, aka Tales of Ise, tenth cen.) is the oldest continuously illustrated secular narrative in Japanese history. The present article explores to what extent, and how, contemporary manga artists engage with or use this rich visual tradition, examining three examples, in the seinen (young male-oriented), shōjo (young female-oriented), and gyagu (gag) genres, yet all arguably categorizable as gakushū, or educational, manga. Perhaps surprisingly, only the gag manga artist, Kurogane Hiroshi, takes advantage of the Ise’s long visual history, and the author of the article concludes by drawing parallels with the early modern artistic practice of mitate-e, or visual parody.

Highlights

The Ise monogatari 伊勢物語 (The Ise stories, aka Tales of Ise, tenth century)—read historically as the adventures of the poet and lover Ariwara no Narihira 在原業平 (825−880)—is the oldest continuously illustrated secular narrative in Japanese history
In the manga’s concluding section we find an older Narihira in poor health, with a wife who calls him anata and is happy to hear about his love affairs and travels from the past
The NHK version is distinctive in that it appears to be aimed at female readers and uses some of the same techniques found in the premodern onna-e, or “women-pictures” genre

Summary

Introduction

The Ise monogatari 伊勢物語 (The Ise stories, aka Tales of Ise, tenth century)—read historically as the adventures of the poet and lover Ariwara no Narihira 在原業平 (825−880)—is the oldest continuously illustrated secular narrative in Japanese history. An illustrated version makes an appearance in the “Picture Contest” (E-awase 絵合) chapter of the Genji monogatari 源氏物語 (The tale of Genji, early eleventh century). There are any number of educational manga—so-called gakushū manga 学習マンガ—series devoted to classical Japanese literature, for example, Komikku sutōrī watashi-tachi no koten (Comic story, our classics, コミックストーリーわたしたちの古典). I would like to review three of the five manga versions that have been produced of Ise monogatari to date, demonstrating how, perhaps surprisingly, only one genre—“gag” (gyagu ギャグ), or comic, manga— can fully respond to the rich visual tradition of Ise illustration.[3] This is all the more puzzling since a connection between premodern illustrated scrolls (emaki 絵巻) and modern manga and anime has been asserted by some scholars since the 1920s.2 I would like to review three of the five manga versions that have been produced of Ise monogatari to date, demonstrating how, perhaps surprisingly, only one genre—“gag” (gyagu ギャグ), or comic, manga— can fully respond to the rich visual tradition of Ise illustration.[3]

Objectives

Conclusion