From Punch Pictures to Manga

　Ippyō Imaizumi was the first person to start using the word "manga" to refer to the caricatures of western countries, but western-style caricatures themselves were introduced to Japan starting in the late Edo period. Starting with the release of "Seiyō Giga Ponchi no Zu" [Western Satirical Punch Picture Figures], western-style caricatures were referred to using the word punch or punch pictures. This was actually a reference to "PUNCH", the title of a major UK satirical magazine, and the word "punch" (pronounced “ponchi” in Japanese) was interpreted as referring to caricatures in general.

　During the early Meiji period, many newspapers and magazines were started as new media, taking after their counterparts in western countries. These included many punch pictures. These pictures inherited the style of satirical ukiyo-e from the late Edo period as well as the Edo "kusazōshi" style, and the spaces between the artists’ drawings were filled with words written by popular authors. One could even say that "punch pictures" were the result of applying a conventional style to caricatures that were published in new media such as newspapers and magazines.

　The word play in the text often extended to the drawings themselves. For example, the Japanese word for the National Diet (kokkai) was written as the word for a black shell (kuroi kai = kokukai), and the name of Prime Minister Kiyotaka Kuroda was expressed as "Kurodako" (black octopus). The only way to figure out what was actually being expressed was to convert the things that were drawn into spoken language, which was a somewhat riddle-like gimmick. 

　The "punch pictures" published in newspapers and magazines also started changing in the second half of the Meiji period. Although their name remained the same, the amount of text and proportion of word play in them decreased. This was apparently a result of newspapers and magazines finding it increasingly necessary to report fast, which led to a greater emphasis on the efficiency of information communication and a need for content for which the hidden meaning could be visually perceived at a glance as opposed to word play that had to be read aloud and riddle-like drawings to be leisurely enjoyed.

　It’s especially interesting that, as the proportion of words used with "punch pictures" decreased, newspapers and magazines started publishing "punch pictures" that incorporated multiple frames to express things in humorous ways. Therefore, once Ippyō started using the word "manga" to refer to the name of a genre, the term already included both one-frame and multiple-frame works.

　Once the word "manga" was used in Japan, the term already encompassed caricatures, cartoons, and comics. In addition, as shown by the popularity of the "manga" prose created by Ippei Okamoto—which incorporated both pictures and words—manga was a sort of “impure” format from which words could not be completely excluded. It was this very impurity that would result in "manga" growing to become a genre of such formidable expressive power.