‘Art of Manga’ opens at the Brooklyn Museum on 3 October with more than 600 drawings

The Brooklyn Museum will open 'Art of Manga' on October 3, 2026 in the Great Hall on the first floor, where it runs until January 31, 2027. The museum presents it as the first major exhibition in the Americas to explore manga, Japanese comics and graphic novels, as an art form, and as the show's East Coast debut, with more than 600 drawings. Timed tickets are required, and museum members enter free and untimed.

The exhibition is built around the mangaka who design, draw and often write the stories. Among the artists the museum names are Araki Hirohiko (born 1960), Oda Eiichiro (born 1975), Takahashi Rumiko (born 1957), Tagame Gengoroh (born 1964), Taniguchi Jiro (1947-2017), Yamazaki Mari (born 1967), Yamashita Kazumi (born 1959) and Yoshinaga Fumi (born 1971), with works from series including 'Inuyasha', 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure', 'Ooku: The Inner Chambers' and 'ONE PIECE'. The museum says the works address themes ranging from coming of age to environmentalism, gender roles, LGBTQ+ rights and socioeconomic inequality.

An opening section introduces the medium through the story-driven manga of Chiba Tetsuya (born 1939) and the gag manga of Akatsuka Fujio (1935-2008), and includes drawings by Ito Junji, by Agi Tadashi and Okimoto Shu ('Drops of God'), and by Tori Miki with Yamazaki Mari ('PLINIVS'). A closing section presents Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage, with art prints after Oda Eiichiro's 'ONE PIECE', Ikeda Riyoko's 'Rose of Versailles' and Kubo Tite's 'BLEACH', alongside a selection from Tanaami Keiichi's collaboration with Akatsuka Fujio.

'Art of Manga' is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and curated at both venues by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, University of East Anglia; the museum's newsletter instead gives her title as Deputy Director General of the MOA Museum of Art, Mokichi Okada Art and Cultural Foundation. The Brooklyn presentation is organized by Joan Cummins, Curatorial Chair and Selz Senior Curator, Asian Art, and Pauline Vermare, Phillip and Edith Leonian Curator of Photography, with Yara Doumani, Curatorial Assistant, Arts of Africa, Asia, and the Islamic World.

The museum is also selling a $75 Manga Fan Pass, which gives one adult and a guest unlimited entry to the exhibition throughout its run, subject to availability, together with general admission to the collection galleries, invitations to member previews and selected member evenings, presale access to related public programmes, a 10 percent discount at the cafe and shop excluding gashapon machines, and a collectible badge that earns a new pin on each return visit. The pass is nonrefundable and nontransferable and guests must be accompanied by the holder. The museum says the first 100 pass holders also receive free tickets to its Fall Fete.

Related events start before the opening, with a virtual member coffee chat on September 16, member previews on October 1 and 2 and member mornings on October 3. A companion display drawn from the museum's own holdings, 'Manga Before Manga: Japanese Art from the Collection', opens on the same day.

Support credits differ between the museum's channels: the exhibition page credits tour support to Dai Nippon Printing with additional support from two anonymous donors, while the newsletter names Kinokuniya Bookstore and VIZ Media as major supporters and Dan and Krystyna Houser for significant support. Both cite the Brooklyn Museum Exhibition Fund, whose listed donors are Marie Douglas, Nancy P. Magoon, The Mailman Foundation, John H. and Regina K. Scully, David E. Weisman and Jacqueline E. Michel, and Deedee and Barrie Wigmore. The museum is at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn.