‘Comfort Women’ Comics, Multifaceted - Revisiting the 2014 Manhwa Exhibit in Angoulême from the Perspective of Manga Studies

Aug 23, 2026

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The essay examines the 2014 Manhwa exhibit on “comfort women” at the International Comics Festival in Angoulême, reading the controversy through manga studies. It traces how Korean state-sponsored commissioned manhwa sparked political contention amid East Asian tensions, including Japan’s revisionist ROMPA project, the subsequent revocation of permission, and diplomatic reactions. It analyzes narrative strategies, genre and representation, and the tension between “engaged” exhibition framing and claims of “pure art,” highlighting divergent Japanese and French institutional attitudes toward politics and comics.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages28

Reading Time1 h 11 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

International tensions and festival politics

The ROMPA counter-narrative and its cancellation

Exhibition reception and diplomacy during the festival

Politics, art, and institutional stances

Manga/Manhwa representation and genre implications

Jaqueline Berndt ‘Comfort Women’ Comics, Multifaceted Revisiting the 2014 Manhwa Exhibit in Angoulême from the Perspective of Manga Studies Keywords: manga, manhwa, representation, genre, affect Introduction The International Comics Festival in Angoulême, held annually around the end of January, is the biggest of its kind in Europe, and it plays an important role also for Asian actors. While Japanese artists have been receiving festival awards since the late 1990s and Japanese publishers have been attending the festival as well, the Korean government began official participation in 2003.1 In view of the recent international tensions in East Asia, it is not surprising that such festivals, too, may become the site of political contention. Precisely this happened in early 2014. At the time, the 41st festival commemorated the centennial of World War I, and in relation to the subtheme of war-induced violence against women, the French organizers had accepted the proposal of a state-sponsored Korean exhibition featuring specially commissioned comics2 (Kor. manhwa) on 1 Followed by Hong Kong in 2011 and Taiwan in 2012. 2 I refrain from using the word comic book/s due to its connotation of a specific, American publication format. In line with recent comics studies custom, the word comics signifies both the singular and the plural. ‘comfort women,’ that is,“women forced into sexual slavery between 1932–45 to provide sex for Japanese soldiers” (Kingston 2014, 43) (fig. 1) .3 When this leaked out in August 2013, a Japanese revisionist named Fujii Mitsuhiko took action; specifically, he launched the ROMPA project and booked a booth within the Little Asia hall of the festival where he intended to disseminate his counter-narrative, a self-produced 83-page comics (Jp. manga) titled The J facts (fig. 2) . The protagonist is the author himself. He teaches some high school girls what they do not get to learn at school allegedly, for example, that the word ‘comfort women’ (Jp. jūgun ianfu) was coined long after the war, and that there were not as many women forced into military prostitution as often claimed. Compared to the most famous revisionist manga artist, Kobayashi Yoshinori, who made similar claims in vol. 3 of his New Arrogantist Manifesto (Shingōmanizumu sengen, 1997), The J facts assume a more ‘educational’(gakushū) mode of manga, not necessarily because of the abundant amount of words, but the clearly gendered set-up of the male protagonist teaching girls, the redundant way in which words and images interact, and the rather gawky character design. One day before the festival’s opening, the organizers revoked their permission for the ROMPA booth on the grounds that it was not meant to promote comics but political propaganda as indicated, among other things, by the appearance of swastika symbols. Concurrently, although not in direct connection, Japan’s ambassador to France, Suzuki Yōichi, gave a press conference, where he voiced his concern about a private comics festival turning into a site of international politics. During the festival itself, Japanese embassy staff distributed a flyer (A4 size, duplex print) that provided an explanation about the history of Japanese reparations paid to the Republic of Korea since the Normalization Treaty of 1965 and endeavors related to the ‘comfort women’ issue made since the early 1990s. The content of the Korean exhibition provoked such action, in particular, many works’ subject matter and use of words ranging from titles such as Japan Playing Innocent (Lee Hyun-se) and Make an Earnest Apology (Cha Sung-jin) to written paragraphs that set the ideo-logical message of a longer narrative straight, as for example at the very end of the 13-page short story 70 Years of Nightmare by Choi Shin-oh (fig. 3) . 3 Editors’ note: Please refer to the appendix on pages 161–169. The festival organizers justified the exhibition in the name of‘engaged,’ but still ‘pure art,’ revealing a kind

FAQs

Why did the 2014 Angoulême comics festival become politically contentious?

The Korean state-sponsored exhibit on “comfort women” became a focal point for political contention in a context of renewed international tensions in East Asia.

What was the ROMPA project, and what happened to it at the festival?

A Japanese revisionist launched the ROMPA project with a booth to distribute a counter-narrative in the form of self-produced comics; the organizers revoked permission before the festival opened.

How does the essay frame the relationship between politics and art in the exhibition?

It contrasts the organizers’ “engaged” justification with “pure art” claims and argues that Japanese institutional reluctance toward political commentary in comics influenced official participation decisions.

Aug 23, 2026

Upload by Eliana