Table of Contents
Introduction
Types
of Manga
Popularity of
Manga in Japan
Popular Manga Series
Manga
and Anime
Introduction
Getting into Manga is just like getting into any
other book series. The only thing is that if you
have never read a manga before, the number of
choices can be quite overwhelming and if you do
not know how to distinguish between the
different types, you may end up choosing manga
that you will not enjoy. Manga is divided into a
number of different categories and even along
the lines of what is considered to be “boy” and
“girl” manga.
In Japan, people of all ages
read manga. The genre includes a broad range of
subjects: action-adventure, romance, sports and
games, historical drama, comedy, science fiction
and fantasy, mystery, horror, sexuality, and
business and commerce, among others. Since the
1950s, manga have steadily become a major part
of the Japanese publishing industry,
representing a 406 billion yen market in Japan
in 2007 (approximately $3.6 billion). Manga have
also become increasingly popular worldwide. In
2008, the U.S. and Canadian manga market was
$175 million. Manga are typically printed in
black-and-white, although some full-color manga
exist (e.g. Colorful). In Japan, manga are
usually serialized in telephone book-size manga
magazines, often containing many stories, each
presented in a single episode to be continued in
the next issue. If the series is successful,
collected chapters may be republished in
paperback books called tankōbon. A manga artist
(mangaka in Japanese) typically works with a few
assistants in a small studio and is associated
with a creative editor from a commercial
publishing company. If a manga series is popular
enough, it may be animated after or even during
its run, although sometimes manga are drawn
centering on previously existing live-action or
animated films (e.g. Star Wars).
Types of Manga
As stated in the introduction
there are a number of different types of Manga.
The type does not necessarily fall into
categories like sci-fi or fantasy but rather the
way the story is written. Shojo manga is
considered to be manga written for women and it
is often written by women. Shonen manga on the
other hand is considered to be written for young
men. There are also other types of manga that
are considered to be for specific age groups of
men. In the US however Manga has so far only
become popular with the young crowd and
therefore most stores only sell Shojo and Shonen
manga.
Modern shōjo manga romance
features love as a major theme set into
emotionally intense narratives of
self-realization. With the superheroines, shōjo
manga saw releases such as Naoko Takeuchi's
Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, which became
internationally popular in both manga and anime
formats. Groups (or sentais) of girls working
together have also been popular within this
genre.
Manga for male
readers sub-divides according to the age of its
intended readership: boys up to 18 years old (shōnen
manga) and young men 18- to 30-years old (seinen
manga); as well as by content, including
action-adventure often involving male heroes,
slapstick humor, themes of honor, and sometimes
explicit sexuality. The Japanese use different
kanji for two closely allied meanings of "seinen"—青年
for "youth, young man" and
成年
for "adult, majority"—the second referring to
sexually overt manga aimed at grown men and also
called seijin ("adult"
成人)
manga. Shōnen, seinen, and seijin manga share
many features in common.
The easiest difference to
remember between Shonen and Shojo manga is that
Shonen manga is usually filled with mostly
action and limited character and story
development. There is usually little angst and
drama beyond what is necessary to advance the
plat. Shojo on the other hand is typically
filled with complex plots and characters and
plenty of angst and drama. In Shojo manga, the
emphasis is rarely on the action but more on the
drama and romance between the characters.
There are also types of sexually explicit manga
that is available for all sexes and sexual
preferences, these are rarely sold in major
bookstores but can be found at online book
sellers.
Popularity of Manga in Japan
Japan is not only the place that
the Manga originated but it is also the place
that Manga reigns supreme. It is not strange to
see men and women of all ages reading Manga. It
is even common of large sections of magazines to
be dedicated to serial mangas. But not only is
it common to have manga published in book and
magazine format but a whole new form of manga
has also been developing in Japan.
Some Manga series are so popular
that fans will write their own manga stories
based on the popular series. These fanstories
are called dojinshi. They can expand on stories
already written in manga, rewrite the stories in
their own way, simply include popular characters
or they can even be completely original. These
stories are even published and accounted for a
$27 billion industry in Japan. Manga is so
popular in Japan that people refuse to believe
that their favorite series is done that they
will pay for stories written by others in order
to keep it gong.
In Japan, manga
constituted an annual 406 billion yen
(approximately $3.6 billion USD)
publication-industry by 2007. Recently, the
manga industry has expanded worldwide with
distribution companies license and reprint manga
into their native languages.
After a series has run for a
while, publishers often collect the stories
together and print them in dedicated book-sized
volumes, called tankōbon. These are the
equivalent of U.S. trade paperbacks or graphic
novels. 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 got older and the need
for something special grew. Old manga have also
been reprinted using somewhat lesser quality
paper and sold for 100 yen (about $1 U.S.
dollar) each to compete with the used book
market.
Marketeers primarily classify
manga by the age and gender of the target
readership. 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. Due to
cross-readership, consumer response is not
limited by demographics. For example, male
readers subscribing to a series intended for
girls and so on.
Japan also has manga cafés, or
manga kissa (kissa is an abbreviation of
kissaten). At a manga kissa, people drink coffee
and read manga, and sometimes stay there
overnight.
There has been an increase in
the amount of publications of original webmanga.
It is internationally drawn by enthusiasts of
all levels of experience, and is intended for
online viewing. It can be ordered in graphic
novel form if available in print.
The Kyoto International Manga
Museum maintains a very large website listing
manga published in Japanese
Popular Manga Series
Some series of manga are
increasingly most popular than others and these
manga can extend for 30 books or more. Perhaps
one of the most popular mangas as at least among
women is Pretty Sailor Soldier Sailor Moon. This
manga was also an anime series and it was the
popularity of the anime that caused the manga to
rise to popularity in the United States.
The anime has been cited as
reinvigorating the magical girl genre by adding
dynamic heroines and action-oriented plots.
After its success, many similar titles
immediately followed. Magic Knight Rayearth,
Wedding Peach, Nurse Angel Ririka and
Revolutionary Girl Utena all owe much of their
basis to the popularity of Sailor Moon. Sailor
Moon has been called "the biggest breakthrough"
in English dubbed anime up until 1995, when it
premiered on YTV, and "the pinnacle of little
kid shojo anime". Matt Thorn notes that soon
after Sailor Moon, shōjo manga began to be
featured in book shops, as opposed to
fandom-dominated comic shops. It is credited as
the beginning of a wider movement of girls
taking up shōjo manga
Another popular manga is Bleach
which is currently one of the best selling
mangas in Japan and around the world.
Bleach has been continuously
serialized in the Japanese manga anthology
Weekly Shōnen Jump since August 2001, and has
been collected in 42 tankōbon volumes as of
October 2009. Since its publication, Bleach has
spawned a substantial media franchise. The manga
has been adapted into an animated television
series produced by Studio Pierrot which is still
ongoing in Japan as it adapts the story from the
manga. The series has also spawned two original
video animations (OVAs), three animated feature
films, seven rock musicals, and numerous video
games, as well as prompted the release of many
types of Bleach-related merchandise.
Other popular mangas include
Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist. The
best-selling manga series in Japan to date is
One Piece. The manga series has sold over 6
million copies since 2008. The manga features
the story of pirates on the search for the
elusive treasure that will make them kings among
pirates.
Manga and Anime
Quite often people will use the
terms manga and anime interchangeably. It is
true that many manga have been made into anime
and vice versa but the terms are completely
different. Manga solely refers to the graphic
novels that are published in book form (and read
back to front) and anime refers to the animated
cartoons.
It is important to note that
even though manga and anime may be inspired off
one another they can be completely different.
For example the Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon manga
was written almost entirely for young girls, but
the anime was created to have a much broader
appeal.
Many people will have different
preferences between manga and anime with many
believing that the manga is much better than the
anime and vice versa. The difference is that
typically the anime will focus on the action
part of the story while the manga will usually
focus more on the characters and the story.
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