©Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan; ©PAPIER/Jirō Taniguchi, Masayuki Qusumi, FUSOSHA; “Hinemosu notari nikki”; ©Tetsuya Chiba/Big Comic (Shogakukan); ©Mari Yamazaki, Tori Miki/Shinchosha; ©Fujio Akatsuka; ©Hirohiko Araki & LUCKY LAND COMMUNICATIONS/Shueisha; ©Kazumi Yamashita/KODANSHA LTD.; ©Gengoroh Tagame/Futabasha Publishers Ltd.; ©Fumi Yoshinaga/HAKUSENSHA, Inc.; ©Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha
A line can suggest movement, a gesture convey emotion, and a sequence of images can carry us into another world. At the Brooklyn Museum, Art of Manga brings these possibilities into focus through more than 600 drawings, offering a rare opportunity to encounter the original artwork behind some of Japan’s most widely read comics and graphic novels.
Making its East Coast debut, the exhibition includes works from Inuyasha, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, and ONE PIECE. For readers familiar with their printed pages, the drawings offer another way to look at them. For newcomers, they provide an introduction to the artistry of a medium whose characters and stories have travelled far beyond Japan.
The accompanying presentation, Manga Before Manga: Japanese Art from the Collection, supplies a fascinating historical counterpoint. Twenty-one works explore more than 900 years of Japanese visual storytelling, from hand-painted scrolls to woodblock-printed books and glazed porcelain. Among them is a fifteenth-century handscroll that depicts dialogue in ways resembling modern speech bubbles, alongside an illustrated book by Katsushika Hokusai.
Together, the presentations highlight how artists make pictures speak: through expressive figures, unfolding narratives, and the suggestion of sound and motion. Modern manga also draws on Western comics and satire, adding another layer to this history of exchange. The exhibition rewards a closer look at individual drawings while opening a window onto Japan’s long history of storytelling through images.
Art of Manga and Manga Before Manga: Japanese Art from the Collection are on view at the Brooklyn Museum through January 31, 2027.
