Martial arts and Brazilian dictatorship: are histories crossing itself? Incursions by the pages of The Judoka

Abstract

The Judoka was a monthly comic book published since April 1969, by Brasil-America Ltda. (EBAL). In its seventh number The Judoka starts to be written and drawn in Brazil. At this point a change happens in the stories argument, the hero’s clothes starts to contain the colors and the form of the national flag and the hero stops being represented by a soldier to become a young student. But, what is the point of drawing a hero with the colors of the Brazilian flag and at the same time to glorify the practice of the martial arts in this period? A possible way to answer this question comes from the suspicion that the EBAL was very close to the military government. In that sense, it is questioned: would be the binomial the militarism/eastern martial arts a possible explanation for the development of the martial arts in Brazil?