Yonkoma

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Layout of a Yonkoma manga

Yonkoma ( Japanese 四 コ マ 漫画 , yonkoma manga , German "four-picture comic") or 4-koma is a Japanese comic strip format that presents a self-contained, often funny story in four panels . In addition to the form closed in four pictures, there is the more general comic strip form of the coma manga. Yonkoma are much less known internationally than the long narrative form of story manga and have been pushed back in Japan since its emergence in the 1940s, but are still similarly widespread and popular there.

Yonkoma manga appear in manga magazines , newspapers, and magazines. There are publications in special magazines only for Yonkoma as in those that also contain other manga forms. They also appear as a bonus (Omake) at the end of anthologies ( Tankōbon ) of story manga.

Form and content

The content of the four pictures of a Yonkoma follows the classic Japanese narrative structure Ki-shō-ten-ketsu : introduction, development, surprising turn and conclusion. The panels are usually arranged one below the other and all have the same format. Most of the series are humorous and light entertainment, but there are also biographical or journalistic works, especially in newspapers.

historical development

Due to the influence of American comics , the first modern caricatures and comic strips appeared in Japan towards the end of the 19th century. The draftsman Rakuten Kitazawa created Tagosaku to Mokubē no Tōkyō Kembutsu in 1902, the first comic strip with constant characters. This appeared in his magazine Jiji Manga , with which Kitazawa also coined the modern term manga . Under the influence of American comics, the form continued to develop, particularly in the 1920s: Japanese draftsmen traveled to the United States and translations of American strips such as Bringing Up Father , Polly and Her Pals and Mutt and Jeff appeared in Japanese daily newspapers. This promoted the production of domestic series, which, like Nonki na Tōsan , which tells of life after the 1923 earthquake , have now also been reprinted in anthologies. There were also the first series for children, while until then all series were aimed at adult newspaper readers. Shō-chan no Bōken from 1924 and Fuku-chan from 1936 became the first classics for children.

From 1946 Machiko Hasegawa became known with her Yonkoma series Sazae-san , which only ended in 1972. Since 1969 it has been implemented as a popular anime series that is still produced today and is broadcast weekly. Since the post-war period, Yonkoma have been competing with the story-manga narrative form established by Osamu Tezuka with a long, continuous plot. They were mainly used for reading by older newspaper readers, while the new manga form was primarily aimed at children and young people. In the 1970s, however, Yonkoma came up with a sequel, which tells a longer story over many weeks after the end of the individual stips. Hisaichi Ishii pioneered this form with the baseball manga Gambare !! Tabuchi-kun !! , which reached a younger audience again. A development in the 1990s were series that deal with the everyday life of beautiful young girls in a humorous way, so-called Moe -Yonkoma. These manga, for example Kiyohiko Azuma Azumanga Daioh , are again explicitly aimed at a young, especially male audience.

Important representatives

Magazines

The following magazines only publish Yonkoma:

Bunkasha :

Futabasha :

Hōbunsha :

Kadokawa :

Shufu to Seikatsu-sha :

  • Comic pash!

Take Shobo :

Series

The following is an overview of important representatives of the Yonkoma.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Miriam Brunner: Manga . Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-7705-4832-3 , p. 116, 117 .
  2. ↑ a b c Miriam Brunner: Manga . S. 22nd f .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Jason Thompson: Manga. The Complete Guide . Del Rey, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-345-48590-8 , pp. 111 f .
  4. ↑ Frederik L. Schodt: Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics . Kodansha America, 1983, ISBN 978-0-87011-752-7 , pp. 42-49 .
  5. ↑ Ronald Steward: Manga as Schism . In: Manga's Cultural Crossroads . Routledge, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-50450-8 , pp. 43 .