Manga at the British Museum: One week since opening

Just over a week ago on 23 May, the Citi exhibition Manga opened at the British Museum, and will be running until 26 August 2019.

At a private viewing before the exhibition speeches were given including by His Excellency Mr Koji Tsuruoka, Ambassador of Japan to the UK, who described his own personal love for manga and let the audience know that Emperor Naruhito is aware of the exhibition taking place.

The photo below shows Ambassador Tsuruoka (second from right), with Professor Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (right) and much acclaimed manga artist Hagio Moto (second from left), who went on to do a series of events later in the week at the Japanese Embassy, Japan House and the Sainsbury Institute. Details and a transcript of the Sainsbury Institute event is available here, in Japanese only.

One aspect the exhibition highlights is the origins and influences of less recent Japanese art, and these feature on in a couple of articles on the British Museum website: Hokusai: the father of manga? and Manga: a brief history in 12 works.

Reception

In the first four days of opening, the exhibition had around 16,000 visitors.
The exhibition has taken the number 1 spot on the Art Fund list of must-see exhibitions in June and The Evening Standard’s “Capital Gains: What to do in London”.
In association with the British Museum, Den of Geek have written an article on how anime and manga have had an impact on film, more specifically Hollywood cinema.
Press coverage of the exhibition has been widespread, with articles and reviews featured in a number of national UK newspapers, including a double-page spread in the Times, pictured below. It has also made ripples further afield, such as Singapore’s The Straits Times.

Watch and Listen

Curator Professor Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere has been interviewed by a number of different sources about the exhibition.

Watch the report by TV Asahi (in Japanese only)

Listen to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, on Monday 20th May (segment begins at 2:54 minutes in), as well as a 15 minute segment on BBC World News, the most watched television channel in the world.
The Art Newspaper took an in-depth look at the exhibition (alongside the Valerie Steel discussing Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion”) in their podcast, below.