Manga 2010 Manga Images

and Kitao Shigemasa. Manga (kanji: ), in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th century. 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/commerce, among others. (e.g. ''Star Wars''). "Manga" as a term used outside Japan refers specifically to comics originally published in Japan. In France, "la nouvelle manga" has developed as a form of ''bande dessinée'' (literally ''drawn strip'') drawn in styles influenced by Japanese manga. In the United States, people refer to manga-like comics as Amerimanga, world manga, or original English-language manga (OEL manga).

Etymology

The Japanese word ''manga'', literally translated, means "whimsical pictures". The word first came into common usage in the late 18th century with the publication of such works as Santō Kyōden'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'' books (1814–1878) containing assorted drawings from the sketchbooks of the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai.

History and characteristics

Historians and writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga. Their views differ in the relative importance they attribute to the role of cultural and historical events following World War II versus the role of pre-War, Meiji, and pre-Meiji Japanese culture and art. One view emphasizes events occurring during and after the U.S. Occupation of Japan (1945–1952), and stresses that manga strongly reflect U.S. cultural influences, including U.S. comics (brought to Japan by the GIs) and images and themes from U.S. television, film, and cartoons (especially Disney). Modern manga originated in the Occupation (1945–1952) and post-Occupation years (1952–early 1960s), while a previously militaristic and ultra-nationalist Japan rebuilt its political and economic infrastructure. An explosion of artistic creativity occurred in this period, involving manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka (''Astro Boy'') and Machiko Hasegawa (''Sazae-san''). . Sazae appears with her hair in a bun. ''Astro Boy'' quickly became (and remains) immensely popular in Japan and elsewhere, In 1969 a group of female manga artists (later called the ''Year 24 Group'', also known as ''Magnificent 24s'') made their ''shōjo'' manga debut ("year 24" comes from the Japanese name for 1949, the birth-year of many of these artists). Modern ''shōjo'' manga romance features love as a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization. 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); ''Shōnen'', ''seinen'', and ''seijin'' manga share many features in common. Boys and young men became some of the earliest readers of manga after World War II. From the 1950s on, ''shōnen'' manga focused on topics thought to interest the archetypal boy, including subjects like robots, space-travel, and heroic action-adventure. The role of girls and women in manga produced for male readers has evolved considerably over time to include those featuring single pretty girls (''bishōjo'') With the relaxation of censorship in Japan after the early 1990s, a wide variety of explicitly-drawn sexual themes appeared in manga intended for male readers, and correspondingly occur in English translations. The ''gekiga'' style of drawing—emotionally dark, often starkly realistic, sometimes very violent—focuses on the day-in, day-out grim realities of life, often drawn in gritty and unpretty fashions.

Publications

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 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 (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.

Magazines

Manga magazines usually have many series running concurrently with approximately 20–40 pages allocated to each series per issue. Other magazines such as the anime fandom magazine ''Newtype'' featured single chapters within their monthly periodicals. Other magazines like ''Nakayoshi'' feature many stories written by many different artists, these 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. Magazines often have a short life. =

History

= Kanagaki Robun and Kawanabe Kyosai created the first manga magazine in 1874: ''Eshinbun Nipponchi''. The magazine was heavily influenced by ''Japan Punch'', founded in 1862 by Charles Wirgman, a British cartoonist. ''Eshinbun Nipponchi'' had a very simple style of drawings and did not become popular with many people. ''Eshinbun Nipponchi'' ended after three issues. The magazine ''Kisho Shimbun'' in 1875 was inspired by ''Eshinbun Nipponchi'', this was followed by ''Marumaru Chinbun'' in 1877, and then ''Garakuta Chinpo'' in 1879. In 1905 the manga-magazine publishing boom started with the Russo-Japanese War, ''Shōnen Pakku'' was made and is considered the first ''kodomo'' magazine. The ''kodomo'' demographic was in an early stage of development of Meiji period. ''Shōnen Pakku'' was influenced from foreign children's magazines such as ''Puck'' which an employee of Jitsugyō no Nihon (publisher of the magazine) saw and decided to ''Shōnen Pakku''. In 1924, ''Kodomo Pakku'' was launched as another ''kodomo'' magazine after ''Shōnen Pakku''. In the boom, ''Poten'' was published in 1908 which comes from the French "potin". All the pages were full color influenced from ''Tokyo Pakku'' and ''Osaka Pakku''. It is unknown if there was any other issues than the first. ''Kodomo Pakku'' was launched May 1924 by Tokyosha and featured high-quality art of many members of the manga society like Takei Takeo, Takehisa Yumeji and Aso Yutaka. On some of the manga it used speech balloons for representation, other manga from the previous eras did not use speech balloons and were silent. Published from May 1935 to January 1941, ''Manga no Kuni'' coincided with the period of the Second Sino-Japanese War. ''Manga no Kuni'' featured information on becoming a mangaka and on other comics industries around the world. ''Manga no Kuni'' handed its title to ''Sashie Manga Kenkyū'' in August 1940.

''Dōjinshi''

''Dōjinshi'', produced by small amateur publishers outside of the mainstream commercial market, resemble in their publishing small-press independently published comic books in the United States. Comiket, the largest comic book convention in the world with over 510,000 gathering over three days, is devoted to ''dōjinshi''. While they are many times original stories, many are parodies of or include characters from popular manga and anime series. Some ''dōjinshi'' continue with a series' story or write an entirely new one using its characters, much like fan fiction. In 2007, ''dōjinshi'' sold for 27.73 billion yen (245 million USD).

International markets

the influence of manga on international animation had grown considerably over two decades. ("Influence" refers to effects on the comics markets outside of Japan and to aesthetic effects on comics artists internationally.) Traditionally, manga stories flow from top to bottom and from right to left. Some publishers of translated manga keep this format, but other publishers flip the pages horizontally, changing the reading direction to left to right, so as not to confuse foreign readers or traditional comics-consumers. This practice is known as "flipping". For the most part, the criticisms suggest that flipping goes against the original intentions of the creator (for example, if a person wears a shirt that reads "MAY" on it, and gets flipped, then the word is altered to "YAM"). Flipping may also cause oddities with familiar asymmetrical objects or layouts, such as a car being depicted with gas pedal on the left and the brake on the right, or a shirt with the buttons on the wrong side.

United States

Manga made their way only gradually into U.S. markets, first in association with anime and then independently. Others soon followed, including ''Akira'' from Marvel Comics-Epic Comics and ''Appleseed'' from Eclipse Comics in 1988, and later ''Iczer-1'' (Antarctic Press, 1994) and Ippongi Bang's ''F-111 Bandit'' (Antarctic Press, 1995). In the 1980s to the mid-1990s, Japanese animation, like ''Akira'', ''Dragon Ball'', ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'', and ''Pokémon'', made a bigger impact on the fan experience and in the market than manga. Simultaneously, the Japanese publisher Shogakukan opened a U.S. market initiative with their U.S. subsidiary Viz, enabling Viz to draw directly on Shogakukan's catalogue and translation skills. '' in a Barnes & Noble bookstore The U.S. manga market took an upturn with mid-1990s anime and manga versions of Masamune Shirow's ''Ghost in the Shell'' (translated by Frederik L. Schodt and Toren Smith) becoming very popular among fans. Another success of the mid-1990s was ''Sailor Moon''. In the following years, manga became increasingly popular, and new publishers entered the field while the established publishers greatly expanded their catalogues.

Europe

Manga has influenced European cartooning in a way somewhat different than the United States experience. Broadcast anime in Italy and France opened the European market to manga during the 1970s. According to the Japan External Trade Organization, sales of manga reached $212.6 million within France and Germany alone in 2006. European publishers marketing manga translated into French include Glénat, Asuka, Casterman, Kana, and Pika Édition, among others. European publishers also translate manga into German, Italian, Dutch, and other languages. Manga publishers based in the United Kingdom include Gollancz and Titan Books. Manga publishers from the United States have a strong marketing presence in the United Kingdom: for example, the Tanoshimi line from Random House.

Localized manga

A number of artists in the United States have drawn comics and cartoons influenced by manga. As an early example, Vernon Grant drew manga-influenced comics while living in Japan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Ben Dunn's 1987 ''Ninja High School'', Stan Sakai's 1984 ''Usagi Yojimbo'', and ''Manga Shi 2000'' from Crusade Comics (1997). By the 21st century several U.S. manga publishers had begun to produce work by U.S. artists under the broad marketing label of manga. TokyoPop is currently the largest U.S. publisher of original English language manga. Francophone artists have also developed their own versions of manga, like Frédéric Boilet's ''la nouvelle manga''. Boilet has worked in France and in Japan, sometimes collaborating with Japanese artists.

Awards

The Japanese manga industry grants a large number of awards, mostly sponsored by publishers, with the winning prize usually including publication of the winning stories in magazines released by the sponsoring publisher. Examples of these awards include:
the Akatsuka Award for humorous manga
the Dengeki Comic Grand Prix for one-shot manga
the Kodansha Manga Award (multiple genre awards)
the Seiun Award for best science fiction comic of the year
the Shogakukan Manga Award (multiple genres)
the Tezuka Award for best new serial manga
the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize (multiple genres) The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has awarded the International Manga Award annually since May 2007.

See also

Anime
Emakimono
Etoki
Japanese popular culture
Lianhuanhua
List of films based on manga
List of licensed manga in English
List of manga artists
List of manga distributors
List of manga magazines
Manga iconography
Oekaki
Omake
Original English-language manga
Q-version
Scanlation (fan-scanned and -translated manga)

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links