Manga in Every Sense
Journée d’étude internationale
Vendredi 7 mars 2025
Université Paris Cité, 5 rue Thomas Mann, 75013 Paris, salle 406A, bâtiment A
Un lien Zoom communiqué sur demande permettra de suivre la journée à distance (marianne.simon-oikawa@u-paris.fr)
Organisation : Marianne Simon-Oikawa – Dépliant et programme à télécharger sur ce lien.
Soutien : Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris et Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orientale
Program
Morning session
Chair: Clara-Akiko Wartelle-Sakamoto (Paris Cité University)
09:30-09:45. Opening remarks. Marianne Simon-Oikawa (Paris Cité University)
09:45-10:30. Blanche Delaborde (Fukuoka University). Two Senses to Recreate Them All: Onomatopoeia in Manga
Onomatopoeia in manga goes far beyond the rendering of simple sounds, and may be used to express all types of sensations: sight, hearing, smell, and touch, but also sensations related to movement, pain, temperature or even supernatural phenomena, as well as a wide range of emotions. Highly inventive, onomatopoeia in manga appeals to the senses of sight and hearing to develop and combine different senses, in order to create an immersive experience for the reader.
10:30-11:15. Irène Leroy Ladurie (Lausanne University). From Guido Crepax to Kazuo Kamimura, from Fumetti to Gekiga. Five Senses on Display in Everyday Life Narratives
Kazuo Kamimura found in Guido Crepax and some of his works published and translated in Japan, notably Valentina in the early 1970s, a source of inspiration for his own work. Indeed, the two authors share a similarity in the representation and narration of intimate sensationS and sensuality in everyday life. Based on the study of cultural and aesthetic transfers, I explore the way in which the work of these two authors during the 1970s graphically trancribes the internal sensations of the characters that could remain unseen, thereby reinventing the experience of drawn narratives.
11:15-12:00. Jaqueline Berndt (Stockholm University). Manga Smells: Visual Medium and Olfactory Sensations
Manga studies has increasingly addressed not only sight but also sound (Delaborde, Exner) and, closely related to the medium’s materialities, touch (Hosoma, Yamamori, Kálovics). But the ‘lower senses’ (i.e., the gustatory and olfactory) do not necessarily come to the fore. This contribution focuses on smell, how it is performed non-verbally, and how its historical significance changes. I will discuss the shift in representation from 1970s corporeality (ex., Kamimura Kazuo, Torii Kazuyoshi) to the ‘primacy of the visual’ that began to prevail in the mid-1980s (ex., Sugiura Hinako), consider the ‘odorlessness’ of shōjo manga, and ponder how smell, a highly contingent sense that escapes control, fits in manga’s aesthetic standardization, which forms a prerequisite for participation.
Afternoon session
Chair: Blanche Delaborde (Fukuoka University)
14:00-14:45. Thomas Lamarre (The University of Chicago). Weighty Matters: A Reading of Proprioception in Manga
This paper explores the phenomenon of weightlessness in manga. Because comics combine image and text, a good deal of analysis has focused on the wealth of visual, verbal, and acoustic forms, ranging from the arts of line and perspective to modes of speech and sound effects. Less attention has been paid to proprioception and kinesthesia — to the sense of position, movement, force, effort, and heaviness. Yet unlike the photographic arts, which more readily capture a feeling for mass and weight and thus position, force, and effect, comics adopt various conventions to convey these sensations. Proception and kinesthesia are arguably of particular importance in manga due to the tendency (prominent in commercial manga publications) introduce multiple lines of movement across page layouts, which amplifies the overall sensation of a weightless floating and drifting, sometimes even the midst of intense action. This weightlessness affects the experience of duration as well, for it breaks with measurable movement, calculable time and action-reaction sequences. To arrive at a better understanding of proprioception and kinesthesia, this paper proposes not only an overview of the phenomenon in manga but also a careful examination of the works of Matsumoto Taiyō, with an emphasis on Ping Pong (Pin Pon 1996-97) where weightlessness intervenes in the linear sequencing of ping-pong tournaments to offer a meditation on the nature of temporality.
14:45-15:30. Xavier Guilbert (chief editor of collectif du9). Silent yet Vibrant – The Ephemeral Urban Poetry of Adachi Mitsuru
This contribution intends to explore the sensory landscapes crafted by Adachi Mitsuru (born in 1951) in the chapters’ introductory pages of his manga. Through the deliberate absence of text (and sometimes even characters), these short sequences often constitute suspended moments in the narrative. While sports manga usually revolves around over-the-top action, these little quiet bubbles provide the reader with an almost contemplative, and at times poetic, experience.
15:30-16:15. Julien Bouvard (Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University). The Tactile Dimension of Reading Manga – From Print to Screen
Reading manga is not limited to a visual or narrative experience; it also involves the sense of touch, an aspect often overlooked in academic studies of this medium. This presentation explores how the materiality of manga – their format, paper, weight, and even their handling – contributes to the reader’s sensory experience. It also offers an observation on the differences between reading experiences on paper and digital platforms.
