The Charm of the Kyoto International Manga Museum

The Kyoto International Manga Museum (abbreviated “MM”) located near Karasuma Oike is one such place. Housed in the former Tatsuike Primary School building built in the early Showa period, it opened in 2006 as a new cultural facility specializing in manga and related materials that combines the functions of a museum and library.

Even more surprising is the fact that nearly all of these items can be physically accessed, and visitors can freely read the books in the closed stacks as long as they remain within the facility. Walking through the building, you will encounter visitors in all sorts of positions—standing, lying down, and sitting—deeply engrossed in reading.

Ito: “You’re right, it’s surprising (laughs). This facility was founded around the year 2000, when the movement to study manga academically gained traction in Japan. It was initially envisioned as a manga archive building for research purposes. However, many people raised the opinion that it should be not only for academic research by specialists, but also a place that gives back to the public at large. Thus, it became the open museum like the one you see today.”

Even so, isn’t it too “open minded” for a museum to give anyone the freedom to handle the collection materials (manga), as well as to leave divisions between exhibition rooms and the rest of the space ambiguous? However, according to Ito, there were reasons for this approach as well.

Ito: “In fact, when the museum opened, three out of the five research staff were researchers with sociological interests.

In other words, there were a lot of people who studied manga expression but who were also simultaneously interested in changes in the social environment surrounding manga and how manga is received.”

In the “Manga Museum Studies” group of which Ito is a part, members conduct research focused on the “manner” in which people read manga in the museum.

Ito: “As a result, we were able to roughly categorize people into the 60 percent who used the space like a library and the 40 percent who came to see the exhibits or the building.

However, there was also a certain percentage of people of a type that didn’t fall into either category—locals who would come to reminisce about their childhood days when they attended Tatsuike Primary School or people who would take a short nap on the lawn and then leave.

Toba-e (comic pictures) that caricaturize the ridiculous figures of people in the Edo period, humorous ukiyo-e that depict the current affairs of the era as though they were monsters or evil spirits,

and fūshi-ga magazines from the Meiji period that express Japan’s rush into modernity through satirical comedy—such forms of expression can also be seen in current manga expression.

The exhibition “Original Artworks SHIMA KOSAKU – Four Seasons –,” which commemorates the donation to the museum of original artworks by Kenshi Hirokane, who is known for the Kachō Shima Kōsaku [Section Chief Kosaku Shima] series, was also on display (until July 31, 2020). The playful displays utilized elements of fun not often seen in typical museums, such as photo stand-ins and shutter blinds.

The display of “Manga Artists’ Hands,” containing over 100 plaster casts of the hands of manga artists and animators who have visited the museum,

as well as the illustrations drawn directly on the walls of Maeda Coffee, the adjoining museum café by the first floor entrance, will make you feel unexpectedly closer to popular manga artists.

MM is such a part of the local community that it often serves as a practice site for amateur baseball and naginata (a form of martial art) classes after closing time. The description of the place as a “museum” or “art museum” tends to give off a solemn or imposing impression, but here you’ll find that there’s an atmosphere of openness and relaxation.

As is widely known, Japan’s manga culture has had a significant impact on global pop culture. In the same manner, it may not be long before the manga-based, experimental community space of MM creates a stir in the global idea of the museum.