Photo/Illutration The Shiroi Koibito Park’s Collection House in Sapporo’s Nishi Ward, which is hosting the Sapporo Manga Park exhibition, is seen on Oct. 11. (Chieko Hara)

SAPPORO--With its rich pop culture heritage, the city is hosting an experience-based exhibition at the Shiroi Koibito Park’s Collection House in Nishi Ward.

The Sapporo Manga Park event features more than 350 manga artists who have ties with the northernmost main island, either through birth or some other way.

On display are popular comic books in which locations of Sapporo are depicted. They include “Golden Kamuy,” “Principal,” “Silver Spoon” and “Ushio and Tora.” Visitors can also read the comics.

A timeline of manga history shows cartoons associated with Hokkaido, starting from the 1920s.

There is also a collection of manga works that range widely in genre and time of their release that are aimed at offering visitors an opportunity to make new discoveries.

They include “Slum Dunk,” “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon,” and even the manga version of “The Unwomanly Face of War” by 2015 Nobel Literature Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich.

Concurrently held at the venue is an immersive exhibition dedicated to the popular “Blue Period” manga series.

Two great “shojo manga” (girls’ comics) artists, Waki Yamato and Ryoko Yamagishi, approached the municipality with the idea of establishing a manga museum in Hokkaido.

For about two years, officials had been seeking ways to make use of manga and other pop culture resources for community development.

The exhibition at the Sapporo Manga Park runs until Dec. 8 and admission is free. It is being held on an experimental basis.

The venue is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday through Thursday and on Sundays and holidays, and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

The “Blue Period” exhibition is open on Fridays, weekends and holidays. Admission is 2,000 yen ($13) for adults.

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