Japanese city in manga

Abstract

Today’s Japanese city features an interest in renewal and technological modernity which have led to a continuous regeneration, poised between nostalgia for the past and the rush towards the future. These concepts are observable in manga settings, Japanese comic productions that sometimes reflect the difficult co-existence between traditional bases and contemporary transformations, as in Jiro Taniguchi’s stories, while at other times prophesying the metropolis of an apocalyptic future, like in Katsuhiro Otomo’s mangas, or imagine a parallel, multidimensional reality, as in the cyberpunk stories by Tsutomu Nihei. Through the imagery of these three authors, among the most representative of Japanese manga, this text attempts to discover the Japanese city, reflecting on its roots, its modernity and its future projections.