manga

One thousand years ago this year, a Japanese court lady put the finishing touches on what would become the world’s oldest novel. Spanning 75 years, more than 350 characters and brimming with romantic poems, “The Tale of Genji” tells the story of an emperor’s son, his quest for love and the many women he meets […]

One mark of a great novel, it’s been said, is its ability to stand the “test of time,” to remain captivating to readers from generation to generation. Washington University will honor such a novel Friday, April 18, with two campus events celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of “The Tale of Genji”, a central pillar of the Japanese literary canon.

One mark of a great novel, it’s been said, is its ability to stand the “test of time” — to remain captivating to readers from generation to generation. Washington University will honor such a novel on April 18 with two campus events celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of the Tale of Genji, a central pillar of the Japanese literary canon often hailed as the world’s first novel.

America’s conflicted cultural obsession with the gay cowboy movie “Brokeback Mountain” might seem old-fashioned in Japan where stories of love and romance between beautiful young men have been entertaining women for more than a decade, suggests Rebecca Copeland, Ph.D., a Japanese studies professor at Washington University in St. Louis. In addition to movies, male-male romance is a popular theme in a variety of other Japanese pop culture media, including book-length graphic novels and comics, known as manga, and an array of animated cartoons and television action series, known as anime. All of which have developed cult followings on the Internet and among fans of late-night cable television programming, including large numbers of American teens. More…