3758_The Don Bosco Manga Comics at Expo Milan 2015

By ANS

ExpoMilan, Italy Oct 2, 2015 - Last Friday, the Salesian Pavilion named "Casa Don Bosco" was filled with youngsters coming from Schools run by the Salesian Family. In the morning, there were 400 boys and girls from Mazzarello Institute run by FMA based in Cumiana. And a big group of students from the Salesian school in Novara also came in the afternoon.

One of the activities that happened in the morning, was the presentation of the Manga Comics to two groups of students from the FMA School of Cumiana. Mr Hironori Yamoto, a Salesian past pupil from Japan was the speaker. Since he was coming into Italy for the Meeting of Past Pupils in Rome, he first made a stop-over in Milan for this event in the Expo. He first gave a short presentation of the Salesian educational presences in Japan. Then he explained a bit about the Manga Comics on Don Bosco, entittled "Coraggio." This Japanese Comics book was done by Mr. Guri SUZUKI, a Japanese cartoonist, who, in order to have a direct contact with the environment of Don Bosco, had previously joined one of the groups that made a pilgrimage to the different Salesian places in Turin and other parts of Northern Italy. Another Salesian, Fr. Shinjiro Urata, SDB helped in the editing of this book.

To enjoy the Manga comics, one should follow a different reading direction (from right to left) and feel the action and emotions through the varying sub-divisions of the drawings and the sudden close-up view of the characters. Sample pages in Italian and English were put up at the side of the video screen, which immediately attracted those young visitors. They also had a chance to browse through the original comic books in the Japanese script. Indeed, the young of today have the dexterity to quickly adapt to new and different forms of graphic media.

This comic book was published in May 2015, by Don Bosco Sha (Publishers) of the Japanese province, as part of its bicentenial project (see AustraLasia newslink #3616). There are ongoing plans to print them in other languages soon.

After the talk of Mr Hironori Yamoto, the audience received a souvenir pin of Don Bosco, the educator-Japan, while the staff and translators of "Casa Don Bosco" had a taste of Japanese Green Tea chocolate wafers. A good way to end the session because ExpoMilan is about food.