Fukushima Devil Fish: Katsumata Susumu's Antinuclear Manga

November 29, 4:30pm - 6:15pm
Mānoa Campus, Hamilton Library room 301 Add to Calendar

This is a public talk by Dr. Ryan Holmberg. Dr. Holmberg is a Visiting Associate Professor at University of Tokyo, and an Academic Associate of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Culture.

Description of the talk -

Critiques of nuclear energy in Japanese manga did not begin with the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns in 2011. One of the regulars of the legendary alternative manga monthly Garo in the magazine’s heyday of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Susumu Katsumata (1943-2007) has the curious distinction of having risen within the world of political cartooning and literary comics while studying toward a graduate degree in nuclear physics in Tokyo. In the late 70s, he began drawing frequent humor strips about the dangers of nuclear power and stories about the “nuclear gypsies” who maintained Japan’s nuclear plants under oppressive work conditions. This talk will survey Katsumata’s work on the subject of nuclear power, which is the largest, most diverse, and most trenchant such oeuvre in Japanese visual art. It serves as a preview of two upcoming publications: a collection of Katsumata’s manga titled Fukushima Devil Fish (SISJAC and Breakdown Press) and No Nukes for Dinner: How One Japanese Cartoonist and His Country Learned to Distrust the Atom (publisher TBD). This talk is part of the Honolulu Museum of Art’s manga exhibition, “The Disasters of Peace: Social Discontent in the Manga of Tsuge Tadao and Katsumata Susumu” Nov. 30 to April 15.


Event Sponsor
Center for Japanese Studies, Mānoa Campus

More Information
(808) 956-2665, cjs@hawaii.edu

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