Tokyo Puck

In 1905 Kitazawa Rakuten founded Tokyo Puck, the landmark color satirical magazine that stands as a turning point in the birth of manga. Where earlier ponchi-e had circulated in modest black-and-white sheets, Tokyo Puck was ambitious, colorful, and commercial — the first genuinely successful color satire magazine of its kind in Japan, reaching a wide readership across the country and beyond.

Its success did more than entertain. It helped fix manga in its modern meaning as the name for this popular cartoon art, and it proved that a mass cartoon readership existed and could be served. With recurring characters, sharp political and social commentary, and vivid color printing, Tokyo Puck built the audience and the industry model on which twentieth-century Japanese comics would grow.