Saturday, March 7, 2009

Manga in general…

Well, many people ask, “What in the world is the difference between American comics and Manga(Japanese Comics)???”

If you’ve asked this question before, this post is meant for you, the Ignorant One.

Firstly, the drawing style is very, very different. The most prominent being how manga artists draw the facial expressions of their characters. The trademark larger-than-life eyes and the gravity defying hair of the characters are the best examples of what I mean. Manga artists aim for a more exaggerated style while comic artists go for a more realistic style. 

This is a rarer case. =]

Oh yes, you may have noted the excessive sweating of the man (whom I do not recognize from any manga) which implies his nervousness (or perhaps, although unlikely, some unknown sweating disorder). Manga artists love to use sweat and other minor physical characteristics of humans to showcase their emotions. Others being throbbing veins, blushing(I do not mean Pikachu) and the likes.

Secondly, one manga series belongs to one artist, unlike American comics where more than one artist may use the same character as long as consent is given by the company which owns the comic. For this reason, the plot is very consistent, with only one arc of the series going on at the same time (Which is actually a rather good thing). HOWEVER, the flipside to this would mean no other interpretations of the same characters of a series. It’s really up to your own taste.

Thirdly, this is perhaps the most obvious, manga is mostly printed in black and white, while comics are printed in colour. Depending on how you see it, this may be good or bad.

Fourthly, manga doesn’t just go for the Biff-Bam-Boom which majority of the comics do, but instead focus on many aspects. Manga are normally split into two categories, Shoujo and Shounen. Shoujo refers to manga targeting female readers, such as Ouran High School Host Club and Fruits Basket. These manga revolve around romance, love and what the Japanese term as Slice Of Life, a manga genre which refers to the depiction of the life of an average person. As you may have guessed, Shounen manga target male readers. Examples include battle mangas such as Bleach and Naruto, detective mangas such as Detective Conan and sports mangas such as Eyeshield 21. Obviously, I have a slight (Okay maybe great) preference towards Shounen mangas, but I do like some Shoujo mangas, like those I mentioned in the above. Some manga are also unique in terms of their themes, such as Akumetsu, which speaks of a boy with powers of cloning himself publicly killing politicians and other people who have proven to be corrupt and detrimental to the Japanese society and economy. The reader will be made to think if this super-terrorist’s actions are justified, especially when he has, up to the present, a zero-mistake kill rate (which means he hasn’t wrongly killed anybody innocent yet). Another type of manga which makes some people smile when mentioned is the Ecchi genre. This is one of those genres which make manga famous. Ecchi denotes sexy content that is added into the story mainly for fans of the genre. That being said, no nudity is ever involved (Only some tentacles and other you-would-never-guess touching where they’re not supposed to).

So that’s it for now. I’ve mentioned some of the manga I love, some of which I’d be writing on in the future. But for now, bye~

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