'Hokusai's Lost Manga' book released in Japan

The Japanese version of the book "Hokusai's Lost Manga," which is a compilation of manga drawings by the Edo period artist Katsushika Hokusai that were recently discovered at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has been released in Japan.

Published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha Co., the book contains 178 manga drawings bound in three sketch books found at the museum's archive room.

Hokusai Manga is widely regarded as the start of manga culture in Japan, and its wood-cut depictions of people, animals, plants and ghosts are seen as shining artistic examples. Although Hokusai is more renowned for his ukiyo-e paintings, he was also a capable manga artist.

The first volume of the Hokusai Manga series was released in 1814, and 15 volumes were published in total.

Hokusai is believed to have created the lost manga works for another volume in the series, but these works were never published.

In those days, wood-cut printing consisted of specialist engravers creating lines on top of original drawings. During the production process, original drawings would usually get shredded and would not be kept. However, as Hokusai's lost manga were never published, they were stored in their original format, while still bearing Hokusai's name.

In this recently released book, the lost manga are displayed in full size, having been reproduced using five-color printing. In 2016, the book was published in the U.S. after a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Sarah E. Thompson, added a bibliography and comments to the images.

The Japanese version of "Hokusai's Lost Manga" costs 3,900 yen (excluding tax).