Kyoto International Manga Museum

08.12.2008 by Patrick W. Galbraith

Opened in 2006, Kyoto International Manga Museum (京都国際マンガミュージアム) is the first of its kind in Japan. Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan and seat of much of its high culture, is also home to Seika University, traditionally one of the country’s strongest centers for manga studies. The museum is associated with Seika, as students visit for trips and professors such as Matthew Thorn and Takemiya Keiko give lectures in the space. Many events are also run out of, associated with or at least advertised here, making it the ideal first stop for manga fanatics visiting Western Japan.

The Manga Museum is located inside a converted grade school, so the atmosphere is nice: concrete walls, squeaky wood floors and little-people facilities. There are still youngsters to be found here, though they are not studying. Rather, they come to lounge and read the troves of manga in what might better described as a library. People are reading manga all over - sprawled out in the grassy courtyard, standing in halls or sitting in comfortable chairs. The moment one steps in the door, the walls are covered in bookcases full of manga, free for the reading.

The first floor is mostly for-kids material, but the upstairs is a more subdued exhibition space. There are long halls of manga to read, and small alcoves for displaying research on manga and international works (most cannot be read). At any given time, everything from prewar Japan to China to Turkey might be on exhibition.

A must see is the kamishibai performance. Kamishibai is a form of Japanese street entertainment where a candy vendor narrates stories using illustrated panels. Some say this is one source of manga and anime style, though it is debatable. Judge after you see it for yourself, and in this space surrounded by manga is better than most to experience the art before it is lost. Conveniently, there is a room next door with advanced technological applications for manga such as digital manga with programmed transitions. These perhaps represent the future of manga, which has been suffering from a decline since 1996, when portable communication and gaming technology became the entertainment of choice.

Those interested in the history of manga should not miss the basement, which is a massive archive of old manga magazines. The walls feature display cases - even one with a replica of the “Chojugiga,” the scrolls said to be the basis of manga in Japan - and explanations of the development of manga in Japan, and it is much more thorough than online sources. Stop off for some tea in the adjacent cafe, which has original art and signatures from some of the greatest living mangaka in Japan.

Is the manga museum a must? No. Frankly, it is a repository for scholars and a library for locals more than anything else. If you are a card-carrying member, then it is an ideal space to flip through the pages of Japanese manga history. But most tourists who visit do not have the time to thumb though tens of thousands of musty tomes, making the trip a touch unsatisfactory. Pictures are not allowed, either, which is kind of a drag. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, check it out for a mere 500 yen. However, it's like visiting the public library or a research center that you can't get involved in, and not likely to rank among the top otaku spots in Japan.

Kyoto International Manga Museum