FAQ 4
ts...@msc2.msc.cornell.edu
Alt.Manga Definition:
"What is Manga"?
ver 0.9
Edited by Chih-Ping Kuo
This article answer the question "What is Manga?". It is made up from three
spearate articles written by various people on this subject.
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The following is written by one unknown contributor for r.a.a. in 1991. The
original article is intended to be an overview for both anime and manga.
Apology here for heavy editing is necessary to make it suitable to alt.manga.
If the original author can contact anyone on alt.manga to make his name known, I
will be more than willing to credit him for this article as it shall be.
****
The first thing that should be noted is that it is more than
just "sex and violence". The only reason that those types of manga
are so prevalent in the U.S. (and other countries) is
that it is the only types that "run the gauntlet and survive".
I will explain later why is so in this article. Manga is virtually
merged with the history of anime and , to a lesser extent, business
in Japan. I will not go too deep into those subjects. If you want
to read about those subjects, I suggest that you purchase "Manga!
Manga!" and "Inside the Robot Kingdom" by Frederik L. Schodt.
"Manga! Manga!" gives a fairly complete coverage of the history
of manga and how it interacts with society. "Inside the Robot
Kingdom" gives a history of robotics (in fiction and in real life)
in Japan and how it interacts with the society of Japan (and compares
them with other countries).
Manga was, for the most part, just like any other form of
entertainment (like fictional books really, perhaps similar to the
way most people view fictional novels). This perception allowed
manga to enter into many diverse fields. While there is the
stereotyped "boys" and "girls" comics (which are very profitable),
there are serious comics about people setting up businesses and striving
to succeed in them (the more common businesses are restraunts (sp?)
[one well-known one is "Mister Ajiko" which was done in both manga
and in anime television] but there are manga about fishing, sports
(professional and amateur), hotels, and probably at least one manga
on every type of job you can think of, if you look hard enough).
There are also manga for virtually every type of genre, from soap
operas to family stories to history to science-fiction/fact/fantasy/
whatever to fantasy to horror and sex (for some reason this type
has a been fixated upon by anti-anime and some anime people). The
comic publishers have many methods for packaging the manga: weekly,
monthly, one-shot specials; "telephone book style" (this is a term
that seems to have been created in the U.S. for referring to the
compiled comics; usually 20 or so comics are bound and sold in one
book; the average cost is about 5 dollars, with older comics selling
for less; the paper is very cheap and the book was not meant to be kept);
individual book form (usually the size of a paperback novel, though
some are larger; they tend to cost around 4 to 6 dollars, equivalent;
most comics that have appeared in the compiled format end up in the
individual form for fans to keep permanently). The really successful
manga, and some which were not, end up in anime form. Usually, the
anime is for television, not movies.
Distribution system in Japan
It should be kept in mind that there is no real official distribution
system in Japan for this stuff, really. (note that some people in the
U.S. regard domestic comics as being made up of "funny papers", childish
rags, or as "sex and violence corruptors of children", this is how some
people view manga in Japan, too.)
As mentioned above, most anime start out as manga. If there is
enough popular support, then the company tries to get it into anime form.
I think the makers try to get some feedback from the fans, but I do not
know if this is true. This can be noted from how well the paperback
individual versions sell (by the way records can be kept by the piece
of identification paper that is inserted at the top of book; the cashier
registrar is supposed to slip it out and use it to order some more;
some U.S. hobby stores do not know that and leave the slip inside;
this usually confuses non-Japanese buyers that they are "book marks",
not knowing their purpose).
Before I forget, most Japanese book shops (and comics) will allow
you to order the books, magazines and comics that they do not carry,
but you will have to pay about 50 to 100 % of the cost up front (to
make sure you come back to pay the rest)(some shops also can order
CDs and some other stuff too). Japanese record/CD shops, likewise,
can place orders for stuff that they do not have.
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The following article is from a thread by both Patrick Yip and Iain Sinclair,
which is another way of define Japanese manga.
****
pck...@athena.mit.edu (Patrick C Yip) writes:
>Narrow definition: Manga is Japanese comics
>Broad definition: Manga is the comics done in the style of Japanese comics.
>
>What style? The most prominent would be the character design. But then
>style of doing the background, the style of depiction of action, the
>style the story flows are kinda different. I'm not so articulate in
>pinpointing the difference. Some voluteers might want to help :)
Yeah. You could write for pages about this...
Osamu Tezuka (sp?) puportedly was one of the first people to
realise that comics should take their time to tell a story, with
several pages devoted to especially dramatic scenes. Manga has
since evolved into a storytelling medium which usually feature
one of more of the following characteristics:
- liberal use of sound effects, usually strongly integrated with the art.
- liberal use of halftone and shading patterns. Almost always optimised
for black and white publication.
- well-developed conventions for representing action, emotion, romance,
satire, slapstick, "naughty bits", etc.
- meticulous depiction of inanimate objects like buildings, cars
and weapons.
- people and animals tend to be depicted in varying degrees of caricature.
- typeset speech bubbles (excepting "gag" strips).
- intended to be read rapidly.
- oriented towards creating mood, developing characters or telling a story,
rather than the realist scene-by-scene approach of
most western comics.
There are others, too (I'm probably missing some important points).
And yes, there are significant exceptions. Manga like Ushio to Tora
and Kujaku-Oh Taimaseiden use very little halftone and have very strong
inking/linework (to create a specific mood, I suppose. Ushio to Tora
looks a bit scrappy but it has a wonderful creepy atmosphere!). They
are indisputably manga, though.
--
Iain Sinclair axo...@socs.uts.edu.au
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The following is from an article by Chih-Ping Kuo, which answer some of the
common questions on manga.
****
> tet...@media.mit.edu (Tetsuo TeX Naraha) writes
> Major Manga magazines, their target readers.
Shonen Jump, Shonen Sunday (for male), Flower Comic (for female), just
about all major comic targets 10-25 years old. Check the Usenet Manga Titles
List for more comprehensive listing and description.
> How American comics and Japanese Manga differ
American comic, each title is individually pressed, each author is responsibile
for around 20-40 color pages per month, majority of comic is done in one
layer (one kind of pen, different coloring, seldom, if any screen tones are
used.)
Japanese manga, each manga magazine is combined by 10-15 or so manga
artists (usually one or two major manga star artists to lead the pack)
each author works on around 12-18 B&W pages per week. Majority of manga
is done in different layers (lots of cut and paste for different pattern and
screen tones, no, they did not, and can not draw all of them in one week!) many
star authors have assistants for background, etc. so the author only need to
work on the characters. and after quite a while each individual story is
collected into compile version (usually for weekly, about 11 weeks of materials
in one volume, and about 3 months after the last story was published on the
magazine, a very good reason for this is if they come out too soon, there is no
reason to buy the magazine)
monthly manga and quarterly also exist. The very successful manga artist can
also come out works when they feel like it (Nausicaa, Appleseed, Akira), or more
than one topic (w/ lots of help from assistants) at one time. (Kia Asamiya has 3
currently working, Dark Angel, Compiler, and Silent Mobius)
Also, the Japanese weekly manga is extremely cheap, 200+ pages in very
bad quality paper sell for 190 to 220 yens. they are not to be collected
in the same sense as the American counterpart (only the compile version
of each individual story is for colletion), and comic collection is not in
style, either. Not too many people do that, and old comic don't worth much.
(the reason, I suppose, had to do with the volume of manga the industry put out
each week!)
> History of Japan's Manga (trend, great authors, business growth)
On the history of manga, try start w/ Osamu Tezuka, the author of
Astroboy, Blackjack, Firebird, and many others. generally consider the
father of modern Japanese manga and anime.
> Top 10 manga today, their authors
hmmmm, I am not aware anyone done such a study. I will probably guess
Dragonball is the #1 manga right now.
one way to judge the popularity of manga is to see if it had been translate
into TV series, and how long a run it had achieved (usually, if the series
goes more than one season or 30 episodes then it is a success.
Another way to do this is to see how long the series last. Generally any weekly
title last more than 2.5 years (10 compilation books) is a hit. Successful
titles can have a run of 5-6 years. Golgo 13, which started in the earlier
70's, is on compilation book #81!
> How rich are Manga authors?
Unless you are talking about the top 10% manga artists, they are VERY poor
working in extremely inhuman working hours.
because, there are virtually thousands of them responsible to put out hundreds
of manga storys each week. If they falter in anyway, ten of thousands of manga
artists wannbe will fill their places quite easily.
Rumiko Takahashi are generally considered the most well paid manga artist, she
earned anywhere from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 in 1991, depend on who you ask.
It would be a safe assumation that a big part of of her earning come from
royality for her works in merchandise, anime shows, etc. She is also rich
enough to hire 4 full time assistants to help on her works.
> How to become top Manga authors?
Be very good and very lucky, most of them got started by winning some
amature manga contest those manga magazine held once or twice a year.
by winning those contests you are giving a "spot" on the magazine to
show your works.
some of them also attend manga school which teach the finer point of
manga style drawing (yeah, lots of scissor and glue works :)
> How important is Manga business for the publishing companies?
VERY important, some companies have their majority of publishing on
manga, some is just totally devoted to manga, manga probably used
the most paper second after the newspaper in Japan.
> Also, can I get English version of Japanese Manga?
lots of different manga titles had been translate into English, (not
as simple as it sounds, usually the American company not only
1. pay royality, 2. done the translation, they also have to do retouch
on the art work itself since one of the manga style is to spell out the
sounds of the action involved all the way across the entire panel. and
the retoucher had to make sure the artworks looks ok reading left to right.
some company also try to maximize their money return by colorization.
so they can charge more money even compare to regular American comic.
of course, all of the companys had broken each manga story into American style
comic volumes, 25-50 pages per month, and some company is "famous" for their
on time delivery.
then after all the individual volumes are sold did the Amercian company come
out the compilation issues in trying to get few more bucks out of it. per
average collecting Englished manga is a painful experience for people who has
access to the original because 1. it is too expensive compare to the Japanese
counterpart, and 2. it is so slow! and 3. the intergrity of the artwork and
dialog is usually compromised some what and the printing quality is usually
below the Japanese standard.
> I would like to let the other student know this great Japanese
> entertainment as atractively as possible. Any suggestions would be
> really appreciated.
let them read some of the more popular titles and make sure they understand
what is going on. after that it is up to each individual, start them up
in English environment. (like Appleseed, Nausicaa, Crying Freeman, etc)
and gradually to the great titles that is not yet translate (Ranma, City
Hunter, etc)
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