The current obsession kids these days have with Japan's wonderful storytelling is hardly new. I didn't realize quite how far it went back, though, or the closeness of the forms. Anime my children watch - there's even a streaming service for anime - parallels with the fairy tale books published over a century ago. I stumbled across a lovely article on the Japanese Fairy Tale series, twenty books published spanning the late nineteenth century into the twentieth. Looking at that from the twenty-first century, I am very appreciative of the works which are as much art as literature.
The illustrations are lovely, and the stories are simple, as these were intended for children, and some, as the article explains, were chosen by English sensibilities for moral values rather than any sort of popularity. Still, I enjoy seeing them, and the discussion of the paper was interesting. When I was looking for more, the article having piqued my interest, I was delighted to discover that a relatively local library has a copy. I may have to go see it.
The Boy Who Drew Cats, I love the cat illustrations the little boy drew!
The fairy tales led me to another scanned online book, but this one seems to be intended for plant identification. Perhaps. At any rate, it is full of gorgeous botanical illustrations I intend to study for my own art.
The paper was so thin and poor the illustrations from back have bled to front of pages.
Really, the art is just... I could spend hours leafing through these tales and making little sketches to attempt my poor imitations of it.
It's easy to see where manga, and graphic novels came from. The roots go back a very long way, and I'm delighted to have found this out, so I can explore the wellspring of creative history they represent.