What is Manga

 

Manga are Japanese comics. The main difference between them and American comics is that manga make up a large percentage of the Japanese publishing market, so that there are comics available for all ages, genders and interests. Golf manga, football manga (both American and European), fishing, food, wine, superheroes, aliens, true crime, action....whatever a person might like, there is probably a manga about it.

If you'd like to get a quick snapshot of the kinds of things that are available in manga, check out these titles, just to give you some idea of the kinds of variety there are:

One Piece - this is a fighting fantasy story about a rubber pirate. It is the world's best-selling manga. (Volume 64 of the series in Japanese had a 4-million copy first printing.) Viz Publishing

Sailor Moon - This series just celebrated its 20th anniversary last week. The new English language version has been on the NY Times Graphic Books Bestseller list since it came out. This series is pretty much what people think of when they think of "manga" - girls with big eyes and small mouths and short skirts fighting monsters. 20 years old - and it's not only still around, it's doing really well...a new Japanese print edition and a new anime were announced last week. Kodansha USA

Drops of God - This series is about...wine. It's sort of a fighting manga, but the fights are wine tastings. A young man and his rival compete to find the twelve finest wines of the world, and gain access to their father's fortune. Sound goofy? It is, but this goofy manga has been affecting wine market pricing for years. When one wine was mentioned in this manga, the vintner took it off the market so people would not speculate in it. Before it ever was translated into English, Drops of God was profiled by the Wall St. Journal, the New York Times and Wine Spectator. Vertical Publishing

Sakuran - This story is about a girl brought up in a brothel and how she is trained to become the top rank in the house. Coming this year from Vertical Publishing.

Jormungand - A very cheerful, at times funny, story about arms dealers. This is a pretty typical "action for adult men" series, like a SpikeTV kind of thing. Viz Publishing

None of these manga are like one another. Except in that they are all manga. You might hate them all, but they will give you a super quick glimpse of a few completely different types of manga.

 

 

What is refer in West as (Japanese) manga is a type of comic (manga) called “story manga” in Japan. Story manga synch the panel and dialogue placements and size with the viewing speed and movement of reader’s eyes. Manga is much similar to a draft storyboard used for actual film production. This allow readers to view rather than read comic to digest story.,

The result is much more dynamic and varied expression of emotion, drama and action compared to written novel or american style of comic which is more like story book (you need to stop, look at pictures and spend time reading text).

Obviously, medium can’t be as dynamic or dramatic or real as high production live TV/film or animation. But while a film would cost at least few millions dollar and animation would cost few hundreds thousands dollar at least, manga story could be produced in few hundreds dollars in term of materials (paper, pen, ink etc, or free if you use PC).

This allow rapid production of story on weekly basis for the whole year (about 50 episodes per year). A weekly manga magazine like Shonen Jump contain about 20 different serialized series and it cost like $2 per edition because manga is still black/white and those weekly magazine use low grade pulp paper. And the aforementioned, Shonen Jump sell 2.4 millions every week (so revenue of 5 million dollar every week). Even you take distribution cost and lock bottom price of $2, that is still few 10 thousands dollar per story of gross cash every week, which goes into labour, which are far better specialised in manga production.

The editor/manager act as producer (typical things in Jump is to change anything into battle/action manga in the middle of series. Also, they tend to prolong series way way past its peak). Then the author is more like director because he actually do very little drawing. He set the panel placement and framing of characters within panel (and he draw face of main characters). Then there is a scriptwriter (often, author also dub as script writer). The rest are “assistants” because they don’t do creative work. They trace, colour, draw background, characters (except face of main characters) etc.

Then about 3/4 months worth of episodes are bundled into a paperback book (tankobon), which cost about $5. They use better quality paper but production cost is already recouped so any tankobon sale are $$$. Congratulation. You became a millionaire (if you draw for major publishers). Also, this is why about 3rd of publishing in Japan are manga. In term of production cost/creativity, it is the best medium.

P.S. manga scanslation doesn’t quite reflect what it is like for Japanese readers. Japanese vertical writing move from right to left. So panel movement of Japanese manga assume people read and view from right to left. English translation either have to flip paper or people have to read left to right yet view right to left.

Also, this apply to any language translation but translated line are about 20 to 30% longer than original one. And usually, Japanese to English line are 50% longer. (I used to work as a game localisation tester)