Manga is no stranger to political expression, having cemented itself in the cultural zeitgeist of Japan after World War II. The influence of American comics is evident in early popular manga, an obvious example being Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy. Like most manga, Astro Boy was adapted into an anime, achieving massive national success. Underlying the flashy, bug-eyed characters of the era was a country’s attempts to cope with the military defeat and atomic destruction it suffered, wounds that were still fresh in the minds of artists and their audience. As Japan grew into a confident postwar society, manga became a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, fragmenting into vastly different genres, from romance to horror, read by all ages and all genders, in what became a multi-billion-dollar industry with global reach and significance.

In the early 2000s, anime and manga began to trickle into the media of other countries, one of them being Israel, where Nippon Animation aired adaptations of beloved and classic Western stories, such as Peter Pan, on Israeli cable television. Although an odd departure from its source material, these productions still effectively captured the hearts of many a young Israeli viewer, one of them being Guy Lenman. Although he later pivoted to a grungier, less stylized iteration of Japanese cartooning (citing inspiration from the style of Fullmetal Alchemist), Lenman says that the adaptations were the first to make him realize that he “really enjoyed the anime style.”

Lenman started posting his personal manga-influenced art online, sometimes depicting fantastical creatures and other times one-page comics illustrating small moments in his life. He gravitated toward sci-fi fantasy stories, eventually founding Freelines Studio with his colleague and longtime friend Nimrod Fridman. The two got their big break at the 13th Japan International Manga Award, where they won first prize for their manga Piece of Mind. The comic deals with questions of humanity, one’s true self, and empathy, themes that Lenman says he imbued into his latest work—a manga for an anthology featuring the work of 12 graphic novelists titled In the Heart of October 7th.

Through his anthology, Lenman aims to share the stories of everyday people on Oct. 7. He chose to focus on the lives of his parents-in-law, Marcel and Dror Kaplun, who were murdered by Hamas on their kibbutz the morning of Oct. 7. At first, Lenman and his wife believed that the two were taken as hostages, since Hamas released videos of Marcel and Dror being attacked, but neither of their bodies were found. However, as investigations continued, Marcel’s body was recovered, and soon after, a salvaged piece of a hipbone was identified as belonging to Dror.

Lenman says that going into the project, it was particularly important to him to portray the whole truth—he said to himself, “The truth is so horrible and so horrifying and so terrible, you will not show anything (unless) you know for a fact it happened.” Lenman investigated the videos released by Hamas in excruciating detail, taking note of each and every one of the terrorists’ actions and directly translating the Arabic spoken. I asked Lenman why it was so important for him to be this meticulous about telling Marcel and Dror’s story, even if it meant reliving the terror of that day again and again. He answered with the following:

A lot of artists, because of the heinous acts of Hamas, drew them as demons; there’s so much anger. I thought, that’s not right for me. I wanted to show them as people who did terrible things, because we are all people and we are capable of that. I think lots of people want to avert their gaze when they see really horrible stuff because either it’s too hard to take in, or it makes the world more gray, and we want to think about the world as black and white—there are good people and bad people. Lots of people are desperately trying to find out “who are the bad guys and who are the good guys” and they’re so divided. Of course, there are horrible acts committed by people, but it’s not that simple. If you want to form an educated opinion, you have to face the reality and really study it. Then, at least form your opinion about the affair. It’s a complicated issue. Human nature is complicated.

The Japanese medium allowed Lenman to tell a story that was not only essentially Israeli but also fundamentally human. And yet, a cultural exchange involves not one but two parties. So what do the Japanese mangaka make of the events of Oct. 7?

When Netflix’s Unorthodox debuted on the platform, it enthralled an already established Japanese mangaka: Makoto Tanaka. While her career started with comics depicting life after attending a music university, it eventually morphed into one exploring, and sometimes even romanticizing, Jewish and Israeli culture. “I have been publishing information about Jewish culture and Israel since 2022,” said Tanaka, as stated on her personal website. Tanaka’s works began to include manga featuring trips to Israel, El Al airlines, and chibi style (a style of manga caricature with big-head, small-body proportions) Hasidic rabbis, sidelocks and all.

After Oct. 7, Tanaka’s artistic agenda shifted to the events concerning the Israel-Hamas war. Anime girls with shocking, tekhelet-blue hair swathed in bright yellow ribbon, manga panels commemorating fallen IDF soldiers, and characters draped in the Israeli flag soon flooded Tanaka’s Instagram. Her patriotism eventually caught the attention of the Israeli Embassy, which commissioned her to produce a manga about the life of now-released hostage Noa Argamani.