Struggles for Social Status of Manga: The Analysis of Joint Works By the Manga-Artist Group in "Asahi Graph" in the 1930s.

This research shows some manga artists attempted to change the existing social-cultural order by drawing and creating.

Previous researches examine modern manga originated in the Meiji period in Japan, but the social status of manga was subordinate, compared with ART. In the 1920s’, some manga artists formed a group, Tokyo-Manga-Kai, and published “Manga” as their bulletin to change this cultural hierarchy. They originate the cultural movement against low social evaluation to manga, by asserting themselves.

In the 1930s, "Amateur" which is young and does not have social recognition as a manga artist, started to participate in this movement. Some groups were formed such as Shin-Mangaha-Syudan, Sanko-Manga-Studio and Shinnei-Manga-Group. It is the collaboration by one group that the characteristic of the groups in the 1930s is. They created one work (a joint work) as not authors but one group.

In this presentation, I clarify some kinds and features of the collaboration from the analysis of “Asahi Graph”. Furthermore, I point out that there is appearance of "Drawing Readers" in the background of such situation.