by Frederik L. Schodt
In his travel book The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), Paul The- roux recalls his encounter with a comic book left behind by a young woman seated next to him on a train in northern Japan: "The comic strips showed decapitations, cannibalism, people bris- tling with mws like Saint Sebastian .. . and, in general, may- hem. ...I dropped the comic. The girl returned to her seat and, so help me God, serenely returned to this distressing [magazine]."
Japanese manga, or c...