Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan (Pantheon Graphic Library)

wow, I thought I will never see this Batman manga again. This re-publication of the Japanese Batman manga is really a dream comes true. I can remember in my childhood days, this is a very popular manga, and re-reading this English copy brings back all the good memories. The manga artist Mr. Kuwata is famous for his sci-fi series: 8-man, Ultraseven, The Yellow Glove, Super-dog, etc., His clean-cut drawing style and great story-presentation skills capture generation of fans in Japan. We're all grateful to Mr. Kidd for bringing this project to live to the English speaking world. My only compliant is volume two is not out yet (there are missing episodes in volume one). If the book can be printed in the Japanese manga paper, that will be perfect.

This is great book. I was suprise by the size went it came in the mail. I recommend this to any batman or comic book fan. Jiro Kuwata did a great job writing and drawing this book. Some of the stories are complete. Other stories start in the middle or have know ending. I really enjoyed how the japanese saw batman and robin. The stories are really creative and fun to read for any ages. This also inspired writer Grant Morrison to make a batman of japan, in his Batman Inc book. This is a must by enjoyable manga with cool extras.

I take off one star from the book only due to its frustratingly-incomplete (if somewhat understandably so) stories, and for the fact that Jiro Kuwata's name is not credited on the cover. Well, it has been some time since this book has come out, and while it was welcome to see these stories that it seems would never have been reprinted (particularly in English), Chip Kidd indicated that he had collected a number of other Japanese Batman manga stories that would be enough to fill a second volume. Sadly, that hasn't happened as of this writing, and it may soon be a moot point.On October 30, 2013, Japanese publisher Shogakukan released a complete 3-volume boxed set of all 53 weekly chapters of Jiro Kuwata's 1966-1967 Batman manga from SHONEN KING, entitled "The BatManga: Jiro Kuwata Edition" (this is the first time the stories have been released in Japan in book form). It also has Kuwata's essay on his Batman memories and commentary by manga critic Kōsei Ono. Shogakukan has posted an online preview of the collection at ( tameshiyo.me/9784778032555 ). Compare the crisp reproduction of Jiro Kuwata's art shown there with the same story included only in the hardcover edition of Bat-Manga! - The Secret History of Batman in Japan. As of this writing, there have been no plans announced for an English language edition of Shogakukan's collection, but given that Shogakukan owns Viz Media, an American company which publishes manga in English translation, and that Viz has partnered with Fantagraphics Books since 2010 for a line of manga books, and that Warner Entertainment has in the last year or so instituted a big merchandising push for all things related to the 1966 Batman TV series, including partnering with IDW to publish Batman: The Silver Age Newspaper Comics Volume 1 (1966-1967), all of these factors would tend to make it seem likely that an English language translation of the complete BatManga series is at least a good possibility, either published by DC Comics, Viz Media, Fantagraphics Books, IDW, or some co-publishing arrangement between DC and any of them. Should that happen, it would mean that Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear's book would quickly become obsolete. Mr. Kidd's book is photographed by Geoff Spear from the original printed comics (then manipulated in the computer to create the English translated word balloons), preserving all of the original magazines' poor printing quality and 40 years of pulp paper deterioration. This may have a certain charm, but it also seems to take the original artist's work at its face value somewhat less seriously than comparable work from American comics artists of the same period. Kidd and Spear can be forgiven that this was strictly a project generated by a couple of fans and collectors who didn't have the resources available to them of a DC Comics or a Shogakukan. The most important thing is that Kidd and Spear have cast a small spotlight on this formerly obscure (at least in the Western world) corner of the global Batmania phenomenon of 1966-67. Since Kidd & Spear's book has probably led directly to Shogakukan publishing this manga in a beautifully-printed (including the original color pages) edition that showcases Mr. Kuwata's artwork to its best advantage, we can only be grateful to them for getting the ball rolling.In my opinion, Jiro Kuwata is highly underrated as one of the seminal geniuses of the manga artform during one of its most formative periods. When I first saw his work on the "8 Man" manga (the basis for the American-dubbed anime known as "8th Man"), I was stunned to realize that his style seemed to be influenced about equally by both Osamu Tezuka (understandably) and the early 1960s work of American comic book master Jack Kirby (with whom he shares the same initials). It was not too difficult to imagine a young Mr. Kuwata as a fan of American culture, even as the youthful generation of Americans today are influenced by Japanese pop culture. In any event, the fact that Kuwata seemed to have been the 'go-to' guy for manga adaptations of American culture (he later did manga based on 1960s TV series "The Time Tunnel" and "The Invaders") would seem to bear out this theory. Even before doing 8 Man and Batman, Kuwata was responsible for the manga "Moonlight Mask", a character who was the very first of a long line of tokusatsu (TV superheroes in Japan), and like Batman, Moonlight Mask was a masked but non-powered costumed hero. I would definitely like to see more of Mr. Kuwata's work translated and reprinted in English, the way much of Osamu Tezuka's has been recently. Another interesting point I notice is that Kuwata's Batman seems to take all of its inspiration from the 1960s American comics, and virtually none from the 1966 Adam West TV series (which was certainly dubbed into Japanese at the time), with the exception of the George Barris-designed TV Batmobile. Since the TV series was well known in Japan, one would have expected just the opposite, that a manga would be based strictly on the TV series, without consideration of the original American comics.A few notes on the original American sources of some of Mr. Kuwata's Batman stories should be added (and I'm very surprised this isn't mentioned in the editorial text of the book):THE TERRIBLE CLAYFACE ENCOUNTER is based on "The Challenge of Clayface" from DETECTIVE COMICS #298 (Dec. 1961). Written by Bill Finger, penciled by Sheldon Moldoff, inked by Charles Paris.THE REVENGE OF CLAYFACE is based on "The Secret of Clayface's Power" from DETECTIVE COMICS #312 (Feb. 1963). Written by Bill Finger, penciled by Sheldon Moldoff, inked by Charles Paris.LORD DEATH-MAN is based on "Death Knocks Three Times!" from BATMAN #180 (May 1966). Written by Robert Kanigher, penciled by Sheldon Moldoff, inked by Joe Giella.Jiro Kuwata's version of the character Lord Death-Man was adapted to animation in 2011 (closely modeled on Kuwata's cartooning style) as a segment of the BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD Season 2 episode "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!"GO-GO THE MAGICIAN is based on "The Weather Wizard's Triple-Treasure Thefts!" from DETECTIVE COMICS #353 (July 1966). Written by Gardner Fox, penciled by Carmine Infantino, inked by Joe Giella.DR. FACELESS is based on "The Fantastic Dr. No-Face" from DETECTIVE COMICS #319 (Sept. 1963). Written by Dave Wood, penciled by Sheldon Moldoff, inked by Charles Paris.PROFESSOR GORILLA'S REVENGE is based (very loosely, I might add) on "Batman Battles the Living Beast-Bomb!" from DETECTIVE COMICS #339 (May, 1965). Written by Gardner Fox, penciled by Carmine Infantino, inked by Joe Giella.Some of the above-listed stories are available in various reprint collections of Batman stories from the 1960s issued by DC Comics. I leave it to the reader of this review to seek them out for him or herself, but a good place to start would be Showcase Presents: Batman, Vol. 2THE MAN WHO QUIT BEING HUMAN!, and the final short untitled story fragment (included only in the hardcover edition of this book) featuring the 3 robots, both appear to be wholly original stories by Jiro Kuwata (or at least I could not discover any American stories that they seem to resemble). This is not to say that Mr. Kuwata merely copied the original American comics stories and redrew them in his own unique style. These are loose adaptations, and a side by side comparison of the stories makes for an interesting study for scholars of Batman history, as well as for those interested in comparing the techniques and styles of manga art compared to that of American comic art.In summary, I can only echo the sentiments of the anonymous Japanese Batman fan who was quoted in the margin of a 1966 Shonen King manga:"I love Kuwata's manga. All the frames are so cool, and the faces of the kids are especially good. Go, Mr. Kuwata!"Finally, in a short Q&A conducted especially for this book, Chip Kidd posed the following question to the then 73-year-old Jiro Kuwata: "Would you consider drawing a new Batman story, now?" To which Kuwata-san replied, "Yes, I most certainly would." The mind boggles. DC and Shogakukan should definitely make this happen in conjunction with an American edition of the complete Shogakukan BatManga collection.

I wouldn't say these stories are any good - they really aren't - but they are rambunctious and joyous and campy in all the ways you want Batman manga from the 60s and 70s to be. Some props are certainly to be given to Mr. Jiro Kuwata, who took a distinctly American icon and recast him as a Japanese superhero. Not always successfully, mind you, but with creativity and aplomb that any creator would love to have. If Tezuka was the Japanese version of Jack Kirby, then maybe Kuwata was Chris Claremont or David Byrne.The real story, of course, isn't the manga itself, but rather the work Chip Kidd put into this. His collection of material was clearly painstaking; this is comics research at its finest, and it's clearly the proverbial "labor of love". The result is a marginally complete (some chapters are missing, leaving gaps in the story or, in one very notable case, leaving it completely unclear how Batman escapes death by asphyxiation in a giant block of ice) tour of some really strange stuff. And the giant oversized hardcover format certainly makes this a candidate for the single-most attractive book published this year in any genre. Any fan of Batman, manga, or the history of pop culture would be extremely well-served by this book.

This book is awesome! I love how it reads in reverse. Incredible artwork and a must have for any fan of Batman. This was a gift for a friend, so I could only enjoy it for a short while before I gave it away, but what I saw, I loved.

Really cool book, but cover came off within the first day of just browsing through it. Returned it and received a new copy within 2 days. It has been a couple months and it is still holding up. Not sure how well it will do in the long run since it is a thick book with a soft cover. If u are rough with your books I recommend spending a little more and getting the hardcover. Very enjoyable to read and look through.

Batman and Robin tangle with several new villains and a few old ones in this collection. While I wish it was longer, its still a great read and a wonderful coffee table book. The art is, naturally, very Japaneseish, as are some of the Origin Stories of characters like Clayface.

I love this book. It is a little pricier than the soft cover edition, but you get an autograph and beautiful full color illustrations. For completists, it is a must have since it contains all of the stories in one book. I highly recommend it for the serious Batman collector.

Excelente producto me encanta

バットマンガというタイトルで日本で発売してしまいましたが、それ以前にこれでしか桑田礼次のバットマンは読めませんでした。他、考察などあって面白いのですが、何せ英語です。がんばりましょう。

漫画以外の当時の日本のバットマングッズ画像もなかなか良く、別冊子でほしいくらい。

Ein wunderschönes Buch. Leider fällt die Softcover-Version beim Lesen auseinander. Das Cover löst sich vom Rest des Buches. Musste das Buch also wieder umtauschen. Bei interesse also lieber die Hardcover-Version kaufen.

This book is definitely worth a try, the storyline is great, very enjoyable, the characters are likable and funny when needed, the art is fantastic, it’s good to look at. I recommend this book to anyone who loves comics or just interested in getting to know the genre.