Manga Shrine

Nestled in the hills of Kamakura can be found a Shinto shrine known as Egara Tenjinja. It was established in the year 1104 to venerate a 10th century politician long revered as a patron saint of scholarship. (It's been there in some form for over nine hundred years. It's at times like this that it hits me just how short, really, my own nation's history is.)

More recently, Egara Tenjinja has become a shrine for Showa-era manga artist and longtime Kamakura resident Kon Shimizu (1912 - 1974) as well. He rose to fame in the '50s with comics featuring the exploits of the yokai creatures called kappa, and particularly for his pioneering portrayals of sexy, voluptuous she-kappa (as seen in the homage above.) You can get a sense of his style from this charmingly old-school animated TV ad for Kizakura brand sake. (On that note, Kizakura has posted an entire gallery of the commercials organized by year on their official website.)

Inside the shrine's keep is a stone carving of one of Shimizu's kappa, captioned by no less than Nobel Prize winning author Yasunari ("Snow Country") Kawabata, and a stone pillar modeled on an artist's brush. The brush is covered with ceramic reliefs of characters donated by famed comic artists, including Osamu Tezuka.

Hiroko and I happened to be visiting Kamakura yesterday, and we stumbled across the shrine. Lo and behold, they were having their annual outdoor exhibition of art by manga-ka both renowned (including Takashi Yanase, creator of "Anpanman") and not-so-renowned, all of it on the theme of "passing school entrance exams." Most featured kappa, in homage to Shimizu. That manga are everywhere in Japan is an observation so well-documented that it borders on trite, but it's still fascinating to see comic art displayed at such a crossroads of Japanese tradition, history, and culture as a Shinto shrine. After the exhibition, the art is burned in a traditional kuyo, or memorial rite, as a sign of respect. (You can see photos of last year's ceremony here.)

Here's a gallery of some of the best illustrations we saw. Click to see more detailed descriptions.