- James M. Curtis
Exploring Childhood Trauma in Manga
While many contemporary readers of children’s and adolescent literature might only be familiar with the genre of manga in the context of modern comic books and graphic novels, the fact is that this specific narrative artform has a long and rich history in Japanese culture dating at least as far back as the 18th century. However, rather than delve into the complexities of the history of manga, this analysis will focus on a particular narrative pattern in manga that emerged during and after the American occupation of Japan immediately following World War II—specifically, the depiction and treatment of childhood trauma in shonen (or children’s and adolescent) manga.
Considering the nation-wide trauma experienced by the Japanese at the conclusion of World War II with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is hardly surprising that the proliferation of narratives that explicitly depict widespread death and destruction (and their protagonist’s triumph over those very realities) occurred immediately following this specific historical moment. The Allied occupation of Japan, lasting roughly from 1945-52, initially left many manga writers with few outlets for creative energy; furthermore, as Helen McCarthy notes in her A Brief History of Manga, the Allied occupation also meant that Japanese culture itself was “rigidly censored” by the Americans. However, McCarthy goes on to point out that “children’s comics and magazines escaped some of these consequences because they were considered ephemeral [...despite being] hugely important to their young readers. Cheaper than cinema tickets, and an easily available way of escaping harsh reality.” With this historical piece in mind, it is easy to read the trend of childhood trauma even in contemporary popular manga as a recurrence of this narrative of triumph over post-war fallout; however, such a reading glosses over the potential causes of the persistence of this popular narrative style far beyond the mid-twentieth century and, in fact, well into the twenty-first. In fact, the persistent popularity of this type of narrative is evidenced by the vast international appeal of Shonen Jump, Japan’s most prolific publisher of shonen manga, whose sales number in the millions on a weekly basis.
For example, one of the key moments in the twenty-one year history of One Piece—the flagship series of Shonen Jump and the number one best-selling manga of all time—comes when protagonist Monkey D. Luffy witnesses the murder of his adoptive brother Ace. In fact, Luffy can do nothing but watch in horror as one of the brothers’ common enemies quite literally punches a hole through Ace’s chest, mere inches away from Luffy’s face. Ace’s self-sacrifice and the trauma it inflicts on Luffy are not ignored by series creator Eiichiro Oda; in fact, Oda dedicates several subsequent chapters to exploring the psychological damage that Luffy endures following his brother’s death. In the end, however, Luffy is able to come to grips with the loss that he has suffered and chooses to move forward for the sake of fulfilling the promises he has made to his remaining friends and comrades.
Situations like these are hardly uncommon in the world of Shonen Jump. In fact, in addition to One Piece, many of the other top ten best-selling manga series of all time—Dragon Ball, Naruto/Naruto Shippuden, and Bleach, for example—strongly feature not only the traumatic experience of witnessing the death of a loved one but also magnify that experience by having the child protagonist witness the death of his or her mother, father, or both. While this commonality may initially lend itself to a fatalistic or even downright cynical reading of the depiction of childhood and adolescence in shonen manga, readers of these phenomenally popular Japanese texts for children and adolescents would be quick to remind us that another shared trait amongst the most popular Shonen Jump narratives is found in the child protagonist’s overcoming these life-altering traumatic events and his or her endurance through strength of will and the bonds of friendship. This feature should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the world of Shonen Jump and the triumph over adversity that is the milieu of its most prominent and enduring manga series. After all, the company reproduces its motto—“Friendship! Effort! Victory!”—within the pages of nearly every weekly issue. However, if readers are aware that the hero will eventually triumph, one possible conclusion to draw from an analysis of these texts is that the traumatic events that occur are nothing but formulaic plot points created for no other purpose than emphasizing the hero’s success or, at worst, for simple shock value. While this sort of reading is certainly plausible, I would argue that the perpetuation of the hero’s triumph over trauma in popular Japanese manga narratives has much less to do now with any post-war narrative created during the Allied occupation of Japan and much more to do with the pervasiveness of technology and social media, especially insofar as those socio-cultural realities expose young readers to the inherent trauma experienced by those of a similar age group worldwide on a daily basis.
In other words, Japan—one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world according to the U.N.—has a correspondingly massive group of children and adolescents who, because of the sheer pervasiveness of technology in their culture, are inevitably exposed to visceral depictions of real-world trauma through various iterations of news outlets and social media. It is no wonder, then, that writers of narratives which have historically been geared towards children (i.e., shonen manga) have spent the past few decades confronting the traumatic narrative of international identity and—instead of shying away from or, at worst, “sheltering” children from these topics—have perpetuated narratives that directly confront the impact of trauma. In other words, in any technology suffused society in which social media and a myriad of other information outlets expose children to the harsher realities of human existence, it has become not only necessary but crucial to create texts in which the sort of trauma inherent in those real-world stories is given form and shape and—through the physical or psychological triumph of the child or adolescent protagonist—is subverted, offering young readers a strong counter-narrative which has the ability to bring balance to the often-sensationalized real-world horrors found everywhere in the information age.
Works Cited
McCarthy, Helen. A Brief History of Manga. Ilex, 2014.
James M. Curtis is Assistant Professor of English at the College of St. Joseph in Rutland, VT. His main research areas include children’s literature and culture, psychoanalysis, and gender studies. Some of his recent work can be found in Children’s Literature in Education, the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, and Gender Forum.