MANGA: Junrei Japan: Fushimi Inari-Taisha, by Matt Loux

A visit to Kyoto's Fushimi-Inari Shrine, in comics form!

Jul 06, 2023

∙ Paid

Hey everyone! We’re proud to present another great comic this week, the travelogue Junrei: Fushimi Inari-Taisha, by Matthew Loux! Tying in to this week’s episode of Mangasplaining (#96!) where we interview Matthew and Abby Denson, the short story features the two of them exploring the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, Japan. We also include a bonus explainer manga never-before published online for paid subscribers.

Matthew Loux is an American comics creator who has travelled to Japan many times with his wife, the travelogue and comics creator Abby Denson. Loux’s work is influenced by a wide swath of Japanese popular culture, including manga, anime, video games, movies, and much more. This piece, Junrei, was something of a watercolor-proof-of-concept for his full-length watercolor children’s graphic novel Prunella and the Cursed Skull Ring, which was released in fall 2022 from First Second Books. We talk extensively about it on this week’s episode of Mangasplaining! While we were typing this up actually, Prunella was selected as a finalist for PupCulture Classroom’s Excellent in Graphic Novels award!

For more on Matt and his incredible comics, check out his portfolio site at http://www.mattloux.com/. Thanks again to Matt for allowing us to run his comic here! We recommend reading this on a large screen, btw.