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2nd English edition of InuYasha Vol. 1 manga comic book.
2nd English edition of InuYasha Vol. 1 manga comic book.
Portal:Anime and manga
Anime and manga Portal
For other uses, see Manga (disambiguation).
Manga (漫画, Manga?) listen (help·info) is the Japanese word for comics
and print cartoons. Outside of Japan, it usually refers specifically
to Japanese comics. As of 2006, manga represents a multi-billion
dollar global market.[1] Manga developed from a mixture of ukiyo-e and
foreign styles of drawing, and took its current form shortly after
World War II. It comes mainly in black and white, except for the
covers and sometimes the first few pages; in some Animanga all the
pages are colored. Popular manga are often adapted into anime
(Japanese for animation) once a market interest has been established.
(Manga is sometimes mistakenly called "anime" by those not familiar
with the term.) Adapted stories are often modified to appeal to a more
mainstream market. Although not as common, original anime is sometimes
adapted into manga (such as the Gundam franchise, Neon Genesis
Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop and Tenchi Muyo).
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Origins
* 2 Osamu Tezuka
* 3 Gekiga
* 4 Cultural importance
* 5 Manga format
o 5.1 Dōjinshi
* 6 Manga as a style
* 7 Types of manga
o 7.1 By target audience
o 7.2 Genres
* 8 International influence
o 8.1 North America
+ 8.1.1 Popularity
+ 8.1.2 Influence
o 8.2 Europe
* 9 Language notes
* 10 See also
* 11 References
* 12 External links
Origins
Main article: History of manga
Manga, literally translated, means "random (or whimsical) pictures".
The word first came into common usage in the late 18th century with
the publication of such works as Suzuki Kankei's "Mankaku zuihitsu"
(1771) and Santo Kyoden's picturebook "Shiji no yukikai" (1798), and
in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa's "Manga
hyakujo" (1814) and the celebrated Hokusai manga containing assorted
drawings from the sketchbook of the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai.[2]
However, giga (literally "funny pictures"), especially chōjū jinbutsu
giga (鳥獣人物戯画,, chōjū jinbutsu giga? literally "funny pictures of
animals and humans"), drawn in the 12th century by various artists,
contain many manga-like qualities such as emphasis on story and
simple, artistic lines.
Modern manga developed from a mixture of woodblock printed books (such
as the kibyôshi) and pictures (ukiyo-e) with foreign art movements.
When the United States began trading with Japan, Japan entered a
period of rapid modernization and globalization. Thus, they imported
foreign artists to teach their students things such as line, form and
color, which were never concentrated on in ukiyo-e as the idea behind
the picture was normally considered more important[citation needed].
Manga in this period was known as Ponchi-e (Punch-picture) and, like
its British counterpart Punch magazine, mainly depicted humor and
political satire in a short, 1- or 4-picture format.
Between the late the Meiji period to before WW II, notable mangaka
include Rakuten Kitazawa and Ippei Okamoto. Rakuten Kitazawa trained
under Frank A. Nankivell, an Australian artist, and collaborated with
Jiji Shimpo after being introduced to him by Yukichi Fukuzawa. After
that, Rakuten published such famous comic strips as Tagosaku to Mokubē
no Tōkyō-Kenbutsu (田吾作と杢兵衛の東京見物,, Tagosaku to Mokubē no
Tōkyō-Kenbutsu? "Tagosaku and Mokube's Sightseeing in Tokyo") (1902)
and Haikara Kidorō no Sippai (灰殻木戸郎の失敗,, Haikara Kidorō no Sippai?
"The Failures of Kidoro Haikara") (1902). Ippei Okamoto is the founder
of Nippon Mangakai, the first cartoonist's association in Japan. His
manga manbun works, such as Hito no Isshō (人の一生,, Hito no Isshō? "A
life of a man") (1921), were a major influence on contemporary mangaka
and became prototypes of later fiction-based manga.[3]
Osamu Tezuka
Manga as people know it in the 20th and 21st centuries only really
came into being after Dr. Osamu Tezuka, widely acknowledged to be the
father of story-based manga[citation needed], became popular. In 1945,
Tezuka who was studying medicine, saw a war propaganda animation film
called Momotarou Uminokaihei whose style was largely influenced by
Disney's Fantasia. As a children's film, the main theme of Fantasia
was peace and hope in a time of darkness. Tezuka was greatly inspired
by the film and later decided to become a comic artist, which at the
time (and even now) was an unthinkable choice for a qualified medical
doctor. He later commented that a part of reason he went to medical
school was to avoid conscription and that he actually did not like
seeing blood.[citation needed]
Tezuka introduced film-like storytelling and character in comic format
in which each short film-like episode is part of larger story arc. The
only text in Tezuka's comics was the characters' dialogue and this
lent the comics a cinematic quality. Tezuka also adopted Disney-like
facial features where a character's eyes, mouth, eyebrows and nose are
drawn in a very exaggerated manner to add more distinct
characterization with fewer lines, which made his work popular. This
somewhat revived the old ukiyo-e like tradition where the picture is a
projection of an idea rather than actual physical reality.[citation
needed]
Initially, his comic was published in a children's magazine. Soon, it
became a specialized weekly or monthly comic magazine of its own,
which is now the foundation of the Japanese comic industry.[citation
needed] Tezuka adapted his comic to almost all film genres of the
time; his manga series range from action adventure (e.g. Kimba the
White Lion, also known as Jungle Emperor Leo) to serious drama (e.g.
Black Jack) to science fiction (e.g. Astro Boy), horror (e.g. Dororo,
The Three-eyed One.) Though he is known in the West as a creator of
the children's animation Astro Boy, many of his comics had some very
mature and sometimes dark undertones. Most of his comics' central
characters had a tragic background. For instance, Atom (Astro Boy) was
created by a grieving scientist who wanted to create an imitation of
his dead son and later abandoned the boy; Kimba's father was killed by
human hunters and the conflict between man and nature was a recurring
theme for the comic; Hyakkimaru in Dororo was born severely crippled
because his father offered 48 parts of Dororo's infant body to 48
demons.
Some criticize Tezuka's extensive use of tragic dramatization in his
stories.[citation needed] As the manga generation of children grew up,
the market for comics expanded accordingly and manga soon become a
major cultural force of Japan. Tezuka also contributed to the social
acceptance of manga. His qualification as a medical doctor as well as
the holder of Ph.D in medical science as well as his serious
storylines were used to deflect criticism that manga was vulgar and
undesirable for children. He also mentored a number of important comic
artists, such as Fujiko Fujio (creator of Doraemon), Fujio Akatsuka
and Shotaro Ishinomori.
Gekiga
A page from the Marmalade Boy manga, volume 1 (Japanese version)
A page from the Marmalade Boy manga, volume 1 (Japanese version)
Another important trend in manga was gekiga ("Dramatic Pictures").
Between the 1960s and the 1970s, there were two forms of comic
serialization. One, the manga format, was based on the sales of
anthology magazines which contained dozen of titles. The other,
gekiga, was based on a rental format of an individual manga "book" of
single title. Manga was based on weekly or biweekly magazine
publications, so production was prompt, and the deadline was
paramount. Consequently, most manga artists adopted Tezuka's style of
drawing, where characters are drawn in a simpler but exaggerated
manner, typified by the large round eyes regarded abroad as a defining
feature of Japanese comics. In contrast, gekiga typically had more
complex and mature story lines, with higher production value per page.
For this reason, gekiga was considered to be artistically much
superior. However, gekiga's rental business model eventually died out
in the 1970s, while manga artists significantly improved their graphic
quality. Eventually, gekiga was absorbed into manga and now is used to
describe a manga style which does not use cartoon-like drawing. The
gekiga-style manga most famous abroad is probably Akira.
However, gekiga did not only influence the art style of manga: after
the 70s, more mature-themed pictures and plot lines were used in
manga. Many had significant depictions of violence and sexual
activity, and were marketed at teenagers: unlike in Tezuka's time,
children in the 70s had more disposable income, so they could directly
purchase manga without asking their parents to buy it for them. Thus,
manga publishers did not need to justify their products to the
parents. Moreover, the dominance of the serialized manga format on a
weekly basis meant that manga was increasingly becoming "pulp
fiction", with large amounts of violent content and some nudity
(especially, although not exclusively, in manga aimed at boys).
Representative titles of this genre were Harenchi Gakuen by Go Nagai
and Makoto-chan by Kazuo Umezu, both of which had copious amounts of
gore, nudity, and vulgar (often scatological) jokes. Much like in the
United States during the Comic book scare in the 40's and 50's,
teachers and parents had objections to the content of manga, but
unlike the U.S. no attempt was made to create an oversight board like
the Comics Code Authority. Interestingly, manga magazines "for
children" in the 70s arguably had more vulgar themes (due to the fact
that it was the only major publishing format available), but by the
80s and 90s, new magazines catering to teenagers and young adults had
come into play.
Cultural importance
Though roughly equivalent to the American comic book, manga holds more
importance in Japanese culture than comics do in American culture. In
economic terms, weekly sales of comics in Japan exceed the entire
annual output of the American comic industry.[citation needed] Several
major manga magazines which contain about a dozen episodes from
different authors sell several million copies each per week. Manga is
well respected both as an art form and as a form of popular
literature, though it has not reached the acceptance level of
historically higher art genres such as film or music. However,
approval of Hayao Miyazaki's anime and other works of manga are
gradually changing the perception of anime and manga, placing them
closer to the status of "higher" arts (Top of box office charts of
all-time in Japan is Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki, 30.4 billion
yen). Like its American counterpart, some manga has been criticized
for being violent or sexual. For example, a number of film adaptations
of manga such as Ichi the Killer or Old Boy were rated Restricted or
Mature in the States. However, there have been no official inquiries
or laws trying to limit what can be drawn in manga, except for vague
decency laws applying to all published materials, stating that "overly
indecent materials should not be sold." This freedom has allowed
artists to draw manga for every age group and for about every topic.
Manga format
Strip of the yonkoma manga series OL Shinkaron. Common to Japan but
rarely localized for other countries, yonkoma closely resemble Western
comic strips.
Strip of the yonkoma manga series OL Shinkaron. Common to Japan but
rarely localized for other countries, yonkoma closely resemble Western
comic strips.
Manga magazines usually have many series running concurrently with
approximately 20–40 pages allocated to each series per issue. These
manga magazines, or "anthology magazines", as they are also known
(colloquially "phone books"), are usually printed on low-quality
newsprint and can be anywhere from 200 to more than 850 pages long.
Manga magazines also contain one-shot comics and various four-panel
yonkoma (equivalent to comic strips). Manga series can run for many
years if they are successful. Manga artists sometimes start out with a
few "one-shot" manga projects just to try to get their name out. If
these are successful and receive good reviews, they are continued.
When a series has been running for a while, the stories are usually
collected together and printed in dedicated book-sized volumes, called
tankōbon. These are the equivalent of American comic's trade
paperbacks. These volumes use higher-quality paper, and are useful to
those who want to "catch up" with a series so they can follow it in
the magazines or if they find the cost of the weeklies or monthlies to
be prohibitive. Recently, "deluxe" versions have also been printed as
readers have gotten older and the need for something special grew. Old
manga have also been reprinted using somewhat lesser quality paper and
sold for 100 yen (approximately one US Dollar) each to compete with
the used book market.
Manga are primarily classified by the age and gender of the target
audience. In particular, books and magazines sold to boys (shōnen) and
girls (shōjo) have distinctive cover art and are placed on different
shelves in most bookstores.
Japan also has manga cafés, or manga kissaten. At a manga kissaten,
people drink coffee and read manga.
Traditionally, manga are written from right to left. Some publishers
of translated manga keep that format, but some switch the direction to
left to right, so as not to confuse foreign readers. This practice is
known as "flipping" and is often criticized by the readers and even
the artists themselves, citing that it goes against their original
intentions (for example, if a person wears a shirt that reads "MAY" on
it, and gets flipped, then the word is altered to "YAM".
Dōjinshi
Some manga artists will produce extra, sometimes unrelated material,
which are known as omake (lit. "bonus" or "extra"). They might also
publish their unfinished drawings or sketches, known as oekaki (lit.
"sketches").
Dōjinshi is produced by small amateur publishers outside of the
mainstream commercial market in a similar fashion to small-press
independently published comic books in the United States. Comiket, the
largest comic book convention in the world with over 400,000 gathering
in 3 days, is devoted to dōjinshi.
Unofficial fan-made comics are also called dōjinshi. Some dōjinshi
continue with a series' story or write an entirely new one using its
characters, much like fan fiction.
Manga as a style
Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket, is an example of the stereotypical moé
style of manga characterized by such features as large, expressive
eyes and a small, simple nose.
Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket, is an example of the stereotypical moé
style of manga characterized by such features as large, expressive
eyes and a small, simple nose.
While 'manga' is defined as "a Japanese comic book or graphic
novel",[4] some people contend that manga defines a style rather than
a country of origin. This viewpoint can most predominately be seen by
the manga publisher Tokyopop, which markets original English-language
manga.
"Manga is like hip-hop. It's a lifestyle. To say that you can't
draw it because you don't have the DNA is just silly."
—Stu Levy, Tokyopop CEO[1]
However, like any artistic medium, there is no true set style for
manga. Manga can range from the realistic to super deformed.
Therefore, when manga is referenced as a style, it generally is
specifically referring to the moé style of manga common to the fantasy
genre and the most familiar style of manga to foreign readers.
Types of manga
Not all manga is drawn in the large-eyed moé style. Shown here is
Akira Hojo from the realistically drawn seinen manga Sanctuary.
Not all manga is drawn in the large-eyed moé style. Shown here is
Akira Hojo from the realistically drawn seinen manga Sanctuary.
With an immense market in Japan, manga encompasses a very diverse
range of subjects and themes, satisfying many readers of different
interests. Popular manga aimed at mainstream readers frequently
involves sci-fi, action, fantasy and comedy. Notable manga series are
based on corporate businessman (the Shima Kousaku series), Chinese
cuisine (Iron Wok Jan), criminal thriller (Monster) and military
politics (The Silent Service). As a result, many genres apply equally
well to anime (which very often includes adaptations of manga) and
Japanese computer games (some of which are also adaptations of manga).
By target audience
* Josei (or redikomi) women
* Kodomo children
* Seinen men
* Shōjo young and teenage girls
* Shōnen young and teenage boys
Genres
* Alternative (See also: Garo)
o Gekiga (dramatic pictures)
o La nouvelle manga (Franco-Belgian/Japanese artistic movement)
o Semi-alternative (popular publication individualistic style)
* Battling companion (not an official name)
* Dōjinshi Fan-art or self-published manga
* Magical girl (mahō shōjo)
* Robot/Mecha (giant robots)
* Moé (also mahō kanojo or magical girlfriend)
* Shōjo-ai or Yuri, lesbian romance
* Shōnen-ai or Yaoi, gay romance
* Hentai, pornography
International influence
Main article: Manga outside Japan
Demo by Brian Wood (story) and Becky Cloonan (art) is an example of an
American comic that is influenced by manga
Demo by Brian Wood (story) and Becky Cloonan (art) is an example of an
American comic that is influenced by manga
Manga has long had an influence on international comics and animation
the world over.
North America
Popularity
Manga has proved to be a quickly growing industry in America, tripling
three times in the past three years to be a $180 million market in
2005.[1] Also as evidence of their pervasiveness, at least 40
syndicated newspaper have added manga strips to their funny pages.[1]
Manga has also been noted for making female readers interested in
comics. In a nation where the normal comic book readership is largely
dominated by males, females make up an unheard of 60% of all manga
readership.[1]
Influence
American artist and writer Frank Miller has been heavily influenced by
manga and in particular by Kazuo Koike's 28 volume samurai epic Lone
Wolf and Cub. Miller was one of the first American comic artists to
make use of decompression, a style prevalent in manga.
Other American artists such as Becky Cloonan (Demo, East Coast
Rising), Ben Dunn (Ninja High School), Corey Lewis (Sharknife, PENG),
Joe Madureira (Battle Chasers) and Canadian Bryan Lee O'Malley (Lost
At Sea, Scott Pilgrim) are heavily influenced by the mainstream manga
style and have received acclaim for their work outside of anime/manga
fan circles. These artists have their roots in the anime/manga
subculture of their particular regions (as well as the Internet and
webcomics), but incorporate many other influences that make their work
more palatable to non-manga readers.
American artist Paul Pope worked in Japan for Kodansha on the manga
anthology Afternoon. Before he was fired (due to an editorial change
at Kodansha) he was developing many ideas for the anthology that he
would later publish in the U.S. as Heavy Liquid. As a result his work
features a strong influence from manga without influences from
international otaku culture.
In addition, there are many amateur artists who are influenced
exclusively by the manga style.[citation needed] Many of these have
their own small publishing houses, and some webcomics in this style
have become very popular (see Megatokyo). For the most part, these
artists are not yet recognized outside of the anime and manga fan
community.
Europe
In France there is a "Nouvelle Manga" movement started by Frédéric
Boilet which seeks to combine mature sophisticated daily life manga
with the artistic style of traditional Franco-Belgian comics. While
the movement also involves Japanese artists, a handful of French
cartoonists other than Boilet have decided to embrace its ideal.
France is the biggest country after Japan where Manga are most sold,
with 10 millions books in 2005.
The manga style has influenced not only writers and artists but
musicians as well. Turkish rock band maNga [sic] has not only its name
derived from the style; their videos and album cover feature
manga-style animation and the members of the band have their own manga
characters, drawn by award-winning artist Kaan Demirçelik.
Language notes
* Because nouns in Japanese do not have a plural form, manga is
the form for both plural and singular. It is also commonly called
コミック(komikku, from comic) in Japanese.
* Mangaka (漫画家) Literally "Manga professional" is a Japanese term
for a manga author/artist.
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