Paper short abstract

This presentation centers on Ehon Kotori Tsugai (1805) by the Osaka artist Nichōsai. Examining his satirical use of “pairing” (tsugai), I argue Nichōsai elevated earlier Toba-e, creating an intricate proto-manga format that challenges Edo-centric narratives of Japanese comic art.

Paper long abstract

Global popularity of manga has spurred interest in its early modern roots, yet the historical narrative still remains Edo-centric, thereby overlooking distinct comic traditions of Osaka. This paper focuses on the work of Nichōsai (c. 1750–1803), a marginalized figure who helped bridge the gap between earlier Toba-e caricature art and modern manga. Using the posthumous Ehon Kotori Tsugai (A Picture-Book of the Old Bird’s Paired Sketches, 1805), I examine how Nichōsai used distinct “pairings” (tsugai) to elevate caricature from physical distortion to structural social satire.

The book’s title plays with the artist’s pen name (“Old Bird”) and the act of pairing. As he writes in his preface, Nichōsai works as a “prudent matchmaker,” forcing disparate elements of early modern society into comic symmetry. Visual and textual binaries such as “Auspicious” (shūgi) versus “Inauspicious” (bushūgi), or “The Bold” versus “The Timid” demonstrate how Nichōsai deconstructs social performativity. In his hands, a solemn wedding devolves into a critique of gluttony, while elsewhere three samurai cowering before a garden snail exposes the hollowness of the warrior class.

Unlike the physical exaggeration of earlier Toba-e, Nichōsai’s pairings present early modern sensibilities through a modern visual medium of illustrated narratives, including sequential stories accompanied with speech captions. Situating Ehon Kotori Tsugai within the intellectual networks of Osaka’s danna (merchant-patron) culture and aesthetics, I argue that Nichōsai’s work is a distinctive part of the “Osaka Giga” lineage, as shaped by the artist’s wit and humanism. I ultimately hope to demonstrate that the long roots of manga were as firmly intertwined in the merchant culture of Osaka as they were in the floating world of Edo.