page_title: Japan Punch
section_title: Cartoons
hierarchical_section_title: Japan Punch / Features / Cartoons
caption_attribution_description: English: Satirical drawing of the Satsuma rebellion
context_page_description: The Japan Punch was a satirical comic magazine and journal that was authored, illustrated and published by English painter and cartoonist Charles Wirgman from 1862 to 1887. The publication reflected the social context of Bakumatsu Yokohama and often depicted the frustrations that emerged from conflicts between Japanese domestic politics and early foreign settlement life in Japan. It utilised cartoons to comment and critique the media and political landscape of the social and political issues of the Meiji era.
context_section_description: The cartoons illustrated in the Japan Punch are characterised as political cartoons and are generally regarded as a prototype for political cartoons. The cartoons are also considered as caricatures, a prototype or early form of manga and punch pictures.  A key feature or cartoon of the publication is the figure of Mr. Punch who appears in every issue and is always represented through frivolous or silly costuming and his arched eyebrows. Otsuka Eiji attributes and outlines the Japan Punch's cartoons as an early form of manga which were independent and consisted of single-framed illustrations that satirised religious leaders, aristocrats and politicians as well as social manners and customs. Furthermore, the Japan Punch's illustrations maintains its unlikeness and uniqueness through its localisation of 'punch pictures' by adapting and assimilating it to Japanese elements which distinguishes it from subtle similarities between Edmund Lear's illustrations and other punch artists, which some critics have noted.
caption: Japan Punch April 1877 Issue
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