Emonogatari

Emonogatari is a type of novel with a very high proportion of illustrations. Alternatively, it can be said that when the Kamishibai picture-story show is ported to a book, the amount of text in a picture book is increased, or the picture and text of a manga are separated. The boundaries between these genres are extremely vague, and it is not uncommon for the same work to change from a picture story to a manga, or vice versa, during serialization.

Emonogatari was especially popular before and after World War II. In most cases, the same writer is in charge of the painting and the text, and some of the illustrations have balloons, so it is sometimes regarded as a type of manga.

The origin is said to be that the editor of the magazine "Shonen Club" proposed a reading material in the form of "picture-story show" to Soji Yamakawa, a picture-story show writer, and Yamakawa wrote a rough form as a picture-story show to read alone. The first work that can be clearly confirmed is from the 1930s ("Shonen Club" July 1945 issue, picture-story show "Shounen no Yuushi").

Emonogatari writers are often Kamishibai picture-story show writers, illustrators, animators, and cartoonists. Representative writers include Soji Yamakawa and Shigeru Komatsuzaki. Osamu Tezuka, who created the basis for Japanese manga expression, and Hayao Miyazaki, an anime film director, have also left behind works in the form of Emonogatari.

The golden age of Emonogatari was a short period lasting from late 1945 to 1955, but it is said that it has influenced the many "graphic novels" that appeared from 1955 onwards 1.

by Snapper2001 April 26, 2021

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