Macoto Takahashi’s Snow White

Paris~Tokyo (1959) by Makoto Takahashi

Macoto Takahashi PNGs

ポット型スプーンもすっぽりおさまります♪

Influences of shoujo

I like learning about the roots of shoujo manga and shoujo manga style, and I have just discovered something new in that realm. I was reading Macoto Takahashi's Paris-Tokyo (パリー東京, 1959; originally published in Shoujo magazine), and came across this double spread:

It says "Spring Gaiety by Margaret Tarrant - Copy by Makoto Takahashi" on bottom right. And here's the original illustration referenced:

Seeing an artist openly re-interpreting another artist in a shoujo manga at that, is really cool. I always read about how such and such artists influenced shoujo mangaka, but seeing such a concrete example is worth reading 84 names in an article.

You can take a look at some of Tarrant's works here.

Angels by Macoto Takahashi

Deluxe Margaret (デラックスマーガレット) / Shūeisha (集英社) / Spring 1972 issue

Gothic & Lolita Bible Vol. 23, Macoto Takahashi cover.

According to Fujimoto, Takahashi Makoto was the first to incorporate the style picture into the narrative, overlapping the image of the main character onto the other frames, in his serialized manga story Arashi o koete (Beyond the Storm, 1958). Immediately afterward, other artists, including Umezu Kazuo, Watanabe Masako, and Maki Miyako, imitated this use of the style picture. Yonezawa Yoshihiro also credits Takahashi Makoto with innovating this incorporation of the style picture into the narrative. Why was this innovation of the full-body portrait so important for the development of visual narrative in shōjo manga? The use of style pictures and full-body portraits is one point on which critics have disparaged shōjo manga, claiming that they are nothing more than an empty display of fashion. However, as Takahashi Mizuki points out, the use of the full-body portrait was part of the way artists could encourage reader identification with the main character and vary narrative flow. More important, it was a short step from layering the style picture over the frames to creating more complex layered images that depict the characters’ emotions and private thoughts. Fujimoto argues that because Takahashi developed his narrative style based on illustration, he was accustomed to a format in which the plot is explicated by the narration, freeing the pictures to be non-narrative; since the story is explained in the text, there is no need to show all the action in the pictures, which can instead be more decorative and emotive. The reliance on non-narrative, lyrical elements reflects the influence of jojōga illustration from prewar magazines. With this decorative style a new dimension opened in shōjo manga that allowed for the psychological complexity that came later, in the 1970s, as artists experimented with the arrangement of text and pictures to depict emotions that could not be expressed in words.

Deborah Shamoon, Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girl's Culture in Japan

Artist: Makoto Takahashi

Macoto Takahashi’s The Little Mermaid

Macoto/Makoto Takahashi

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