Hokusai Manga exhibition concludes in one week at Ethnographic Museum

The "Manga – Hokusai – Manga" exhibition, an international traveling showcase supported by The Japan Foundation, is currently on display at the Ethnographic Museum and will remain open until August 16.

The exhibition explores the evolution of the term "manga" and its visual language over the last two centuries. Rather than claiming Katsushika Hokusai as the inventor of modern manga, the collection examines how his 19th-century visual encyclopedia influenced and continues to connect with contemporary Japanese comics.

Visitors can view a mix of reproductions and original artifacts, including woodblock prints from Utagawa Hiroshige's "The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō" series, 20th-century Japanese comics, and original drawings from seven modern mangaka. The exhibit features a non-linear narrative, juxtaposing historical works with 20th and 21st-century manga to illustrate manga as a continuously evolving visual practice.