Following your visit to Japan House London’s This is MANGA exhibition, learn about one of the artform’s early pioneers with a special film screening of ‘The Manga Master’.

Premiered at the 2018 Tokyo International Film Festival, the biopic delves into manga history to shine a light on the often-overlooked story of KITAZAWA Rakuten, Japan’s first professional manga artist, played by famed actor and comedian OGATA Issey.

Rakuten won great acclaim for his editorial cartoons and comic strips from the late Meiji period through the early Shōwa period, printed in publications such as ‘Jiji Shimpō’, a daily newspaper founded by FUKUZAWA Yukichi, and in ‘Tokyo Puck’, Japan’s first full-colour satirical magazine which Rakuten himself created. Considered by many historians to be the founding father of modern manga, his work has been a great inspiration to subsequent generations of manga artists and animators.

Directed by OKI Moe, 2018, 118min, Japanese with English subtitles

Booking Essential; Admission Free
*Please note that there are only limited places, so booking will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

The exhibition ‘This is MANGA: the Art of URASAWA NAOKI’ is on display in the Japan House Gallery from 5 June until 28 July 2019.