ABSTRACT
Manga are a major source of entertainment in Japan, read by people of every age group and class. A 1987 survey found that 69 percent of Japanese high school students read manga,l and in 1974 it was reported that Japanese white-collar workers spent 15 percent, and blue-collar workers 28 percent, of their free time reading comics.2 Manga artists are prominent figures in Japan, many becoming household names. Machiko Hasegawa, the author of Sazae-san, a manga and animation series that has run continuously since the war, has a museum in Tokyo devoted to her work. When Japan's "god of comics," Osamu Tezuka, died in 1989, young people wept openly and the television and print media ran numerous specials on his life.3
