－207－SUMMARY

The Portrayal of Children in the Manga Language World─ depicting children’s inherent sadness of existence─

INOUE Yasushi

While the masses of characters have been depicted, thus far in the manga world, there have

been few attempts to portray pre-adolescent children unexpectedly. It seems especially diffi cult

to depict the inherent sadness of existence that pre-adolescent children sometimes display. Pre-

adolescent children have yet to reach ego-consciousness and establish an independent self.

Because adults lose forever this fl uid identity by coming of age, it becomes diffi cult for them to

express the inherent sadness of existence that children feel. So long as adults rely on language to

express ideas, an author must be conscious of children’s inherent sadness of existence in the

manga world.

In this paper, I will discuss the ways in which the manga language world has been able to

portray children’s inherent sadness of existence by focusing on Yu Takita’s Terashima Chou

Kitan and Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba &!, two works that have succeeded in this task. The world

depicted in Terashima Chou Kitan has a small-town liveliness and richness and clearly

delineates adulthood and childhood, as well as adolescence. In order to portray children in this

work, it was necessary for Takita to suppress the rationalist conceptions of the manga language

world and to take advantage of the great freedom and fl exibility of the drawing line instead of

relying on words. Terashima Chou Kitan was able to achieve this by effectively using many call-

out text balloons.

Unlike Terashima Chou Kitan, Yotsuba &!, which had its first installment published in

2003, is set in the modern world. In this world, the boundary separating adulthood and childhood

are blurred and adolescence as a distinct life stage is in danger of extinction. Skipping

adolescence, children are expected to enter the adult world from an early age and forced into

becoming adults who are not really adults. Yotsuba &! has demonstrated one way in which

children can be depicted in this modern age. “Yotsuba &!” has portrayed realistically in the

manga world an image of children as they do not currently exist in the present. This is again

made possible by the ability to take advantage of the drawing line that is unique to the manga

language world.