The history of manga is said to originate from scrolls dating back to the 12th century; however, whether these scrolls are actually manga is still disputed, though it's believed they represent the basis for the right-to-left reading style. Other authors report origins closer to the 18th century. Manga is a Japanese term that can be translated as "comic"; Historians and writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga. Their views differ in the relative importance they attribute to the role of cultural and historical events following World War II versus the role of pre-war, Meiji, and pre-Meiji Japanese culture and art.
Writers such as Takashi Murakami have stressed events after WWII, but Murakami sees Japan's defeat and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as having created long-lasting scars on the Japanese artistic psyche, which, in this view, lost its previously virile confidence in itself and sought solace in harmless and cute (kawaii) images. However, Takayumi Tatsumi sees a special role for a transpacific economic and cultural transnationalism that created a postmodern and shared international youth culture of cartooning, film, television, music, and related popular arts, which was, for Tatsumi the crucible in which modern manga have developed
