Award winning team of Sean Michael Wilson and Akiko Shimojima have ventured into new territory in this, their ninth book together, on the explorer Mamiya Rinzō 間宮 林蔵 who mapped Sakhalin Island in the early years of the 19th century.
Mamiya’s Maps is about exploration, culture clash, the making of maps and how they are related to politics. It’s also anthropological in its look at the Ainu and Nivkh people of Sakhalin island. The animals and the landscape of the island and its surrounding waters are beautifully illustrated, making this a visually appealing manga that explores a little known aspect of Japanese history and culture. The issues the book covers are still relevant now, since the ownership of the island has been in dispute since the end of World War 2, but also the treatment of the Ainu and other indigenous peoples of the area has been called into question.
Mamiya's Maps, out December 2022, in a 112 page book from new European publisher, Eostre Publications.
The book is created and published in the Japanese reading order.
Here are some pages from various different parts of the book:
Mamiya’s Maps is about exploration, culture clash, the making of maps and how they are related to politics. It’s also anthropological in its look at the Ainu and Nivkh people of Sakhalin island. The animals and the landscape of the island and its surrounding waters are beautifully illustrated, making this a visually appealing manga that explores a little known aspect of Japanese history and culture. The issues the book covers are still relevant now, since the ownership of the island has been in dispute since the end of World War 2, but also the treatment of the Ainu and other indigenous peoples of the area has been called into question.
Mamiya's Maps, out December 2022, in a 112 page book from new European publisher, Eostre Publications.
The book is created and published in the Japanese reading order.
Here are some pages from various different parts of the book:
Rough art stage
An Ainu fisherman, part of the visual research we do for such books
American historian, Jim Mockford, holding up the page of the book that he appears in.
