So what's the fascination with Manga/Anime?

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 9:45 am

Astroboy, Kimba the White Lion, and Gigantor were shown in America before Speed Racer, but things didn't start getting into full swing until the late 80s or very early 90s, I'd guess.

Neko would probably know more about this than I do.

Ayame Ex_Goddess · Post by **Ayame Ex_Goddess** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:24 am

I would like to interject really quick that I disagree that manga is much easier to draw than european style (I know it was covered awhile ago, but I think it needs to be said). I mean, I did a newspaper comic for three years that was more of a conventional cartoonish style and it took me 1/10th of the time to crank out something. Manga may 'appear' easy to draw, but it's not easy to draw 'well' and you can get fast at drawing ANYTHING if you never draw anything else.

And you mentioned that a comic with 'manga' in the description automatically gets hits? Well, that NEVER happened for me, could it mean I suck? Most probably. But I'll bet if I had put VIDEO GAMES as the genre and basically copied Penny Arcade I'd get about 1,000,000 more hits a day than I do now.

...Okay, I am calm now. Disengaging 'Rant' mode...

Seriously, it's easy to make generalizations based on dozens of people who read Naruto and One Piece, but it's just as easy to point out that the new 'thing' is copying Jhonen Vasquez not only in style, but in substance. I can't even BEGIN to tell you how many times I've had to see rehashes of that stupid 'flying pig' joke.

I might have missed the point of this entirely, but then, I am one of the people who's being generalized here, and I do take a (very) little pride in my work.

Kirb · Post by **Kirb** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:33 am

jesslynstormheart wrote:Those are some interesting examples, MercuryHat. I wouldn't have pegged those as Manga on first glance. They seem to have branched away a little from the typical style. Of course, I'm no expert.

You really shouldn't assume that there is one overlaying style (huge eyes, small mouth) in anime and manga. It's like assuming that all american comics are all based off of Stan Lee's work or something. It only shows me that you haven't really explored the genre.

But hey, what about that old cartoon, "Speed Racer"? That was made before I was even born. Way before anyone ever thought of anime or manga but there are definite similarities. I wonder if Speed Racer was the initial seed that sparked the whole anime storm?

In Japan or America? As Merc says, Astroboy, Kimba and Gigantor were shown in America before Speed Racer, but frankly, I would say the movie Akira led the way for growing anime popularity in the west in 1988. Mainly because of its excellent animation and darker storyline.

But manga in Japan has been around since... I'd say about the 1940s. Then came along the good Doctor Tezuka, who single-handedly jumpstarted the entire manga industry with his mangas Blackjack, Astroboy, Dororo and Kimba in the early 50s.

SEE I KNOW STUFF TOO

Jops · Post by **Jops** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 11:31 am

Maybe someone already pointed this out, if so sorry, but i didn't notice when scannign the thread.
Anyway, I think this also contributes in making manga so popular:

The fact that manga characters generally tend to have big eyes and large mouths (or eventually tiny, but grow exaggerately large if they're shouting/screaming/yawning/jawdroppin and so on).
Now, one's mood/feeling is mostly experessed (in a purely visual way) by the shape of the mouth and the eyes. So, having these two facial features oversized, although they may feel weird at first, makes it more immediate for the reader to get the character's feelings... and it's also a lot easyer for the arstist to reperesnt them properly.

Des · Post by **Des** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:25 pm

Kirb wrote: But manga in Japan has been around since... I'd say about the 1940s. Then came along the good Doctor Tezuka, who single-handedly jumpstarted the entire manga industry with his mangas Blackjack, Astroboy, Dororo and Kimba in the early 50s.

Hehe, actually the term "manga" and graphic stories were around back in the Edo period of Japan. But yeah, that's modern day manga you're talking about ^^ (See! Asian art history DID teach me something!)

Ayame: I really truely believe that GOOD Japanese comic style is much harder to draw because the basics are skewed. Anime is a VERY stylized style. Its like trying to learn anatomy from Micky Mouse, its just not gonna happen.

The Neko · Post by **The Neko** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:42 pm

Actually, I make a distinction between Tezuka and modern manga. Modern manga originated from American comic artists establishing schools in Japan after World War II. I mean, if you take the japanese style of comics before that period, and then applied it towards the American school of comics, you can really see how modern stylizations came about. I kind of wished that the schools came in much later so that the old style could establish itself more. It really disappeared after that.

MixedMyth · Post by **MixedMyth** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:31 pm

RA wrote:
MinekaC: you obviously haven't read any good comic books. Try Sandman, or Transmetropolitan, or something. :s Sure there are a lot of comic book superheroes, but even so a lot of comic book superheroes have to be more interesting to avoid being typical. Batman's "hush" series and ...ho shi, forget the artist's name but it's a big book called "kingdom come" and is very nice and is ALL superheroes.

Or Watchmen. Now THERE is an excellent graphic novel. I avoided it because I thought it was one of those classics that everyone praises, but isn't very good when you actually sit down with it.

I was soooo wrong.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 2:23 pm

Mr.Bob wrote:I know, but it seems that no one's taken a serious interest into translating the works of a lot of European artists into English.

I couldn't believe when I heard that aproximately half of Corto Maltese's albums has never been translated in English.

You can't really know how good comics can be till you've read freaking Corto Maltese! USA generally seems to suffer from being hermetic to the rest of the world, or that's at least impression I got. Comics don't get translated and films get stuffed next to porn.
Things are much better for comics in west Europe, it seems. It's where comics are really anknowledged as art and there's no that belief that comics are for children. It's not that commercial crap isn't the most popular thing in France too, but while in USA good authors mostly linger in underground, in France they are placed in shop windows.
I can't really advocate anyone that sulks and complains about how "there's no good comics".

This thread got me thinking. Can anyone remember the first time they saw the manga style? My first memory was seeing a comic called 'Metal Bikini' when I was a teenager. I was thinking, "Whoah, that's kinda hot." Probably about the same time "Dirty Pair" was around.

I think it was '89 or something when I was watching Macros and other stuff on satellite TV. Then some time later dubbed "Robotech" on our channels.

Kirb · Post by **Kirb** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 4:01 pm

Des wrote:Hehe, actually the term "manga" and graphic stories were around back in the Edo period of Japan. But yeah, that's modern day manga you're talking about ^^ (See! Asian art history DID teach me something!)

I guess it was a good thing I was referring to modern manga and not woodcut prints from the 1600s then.

Mr. Bob wrote:I know, but it seems that no one's taken a serious interest into translating the works of a lot of European artists into English.

Asterix is something I've always wanted to read, but it's rather hard to come across actual translated books. I'm not even sure if they exist.

Mr.Bob · Post by **Mr.Bob** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 4:53 pm

Funny about that. Asterix is (together with that tuft haired boy reporter) the only exception to that, in being that it exists in about 35 languages worldwide. Now those guys at least knew how to market.
However I find this irritating becuase, usually, that's the only title outsiders can think of as far as the Continental European scene is concerned. Asterix is good, but it isn't GREAT. And yet there're are loads of people who love it but remain unaware that it really is the tip of the iceberg even as far as Asterix's writer and artist are concerned, let alone the thousand of other brilliant comics.

Kirb · Post by **Kirb** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 5:19 pm

That's a shame. Hopefully european comics will have a surge in popularity like manga. I'd like to read the stuff.

Vorticus · Post by **Vorticus** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 6:25 pm

Get yourself to the cookout and I'll bring my Asterix collection for you to peruse Kirb. Until a few years ago I didn't even know Asterix was made by Europeans.

MixedMyth · Post by **MixedMyth** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 7:07 pm

Mr.Bob wrote:Funny about that. Asterix is (together with that tuft haired boy reporter) the only exception to that, in being that it exists in about 35 languages worldwide. Now those guys at least knew how to market.
However I find this irritating becuase, usually, that's the only title outsiders can think of as far as the Continental European scene is concerned. Asterix is good, but it isn't GREAT. And yet there're are loads of people who love it but remain unaware that it really is the tip of the iceberg even as far as Asterix's writer and artist are concerned, let alone the thousand of other brilliant comics.

Heh heh! I grew up on Asterix and Obelix. But you're right...I havn't read their other stuff. I should!

Also grew up on Tintin.

Ahaugen · Post by **Ahaugen** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 9:25 pm

i'm starting to think that this interest in japanese comics stems from white guilt and the thought pattern of everything in the 20th century that whitey has "touched" has turned to total crap, the "pure" manga is much better (and it's also why fanboys go apeshit when whitey messes with it)

Vorticus wrote:Get yourself to the cookout and I'll bring my Asterix collection for you to peruse Kirb. Until a few years ago I didn't even know Asterix was made by Europeans.

i've known about Asterix since jr. high, but that was only because of a french class i was forced to take that didn't teach me a damn thing about french ... some day i'll tell you the story, but in a more appropriate thread.

War · Post by **War** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:30 am

The only translated European comics I can think of are Asterix, Tin Tin, Lucky Luke and Blacksad. Which makes me sad. Because I'm terrible at French.

Also, don't read the newer Asterixs. Falling Sky involves spaceships, aliens and superhero look alikes :/.

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:43 am

And Mickey Mouse.

Cope · Post by **Cope** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:24 am

...and a manga samurai/cockroach thing!

Berg · Post by **Berg** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 4:04 am

Wasn't the latest Asterix pretty much just ignorant manga-bashing and stereotyping?

The Neko · Post by **The Neko** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 5:24 am

ahaugen wrote:i'm starting to think that this interest in japanese comics stems from white guilt and the thought pattern of everything in the 20th century that whitey has "touched" has turned to total crap, the "pure" manga is much better (and it's also why fanboys go apeshit when whitey messes with it)

That or the people who make it can't make anything good to begin with, so why should it be any different with manga? If someone can't draw, or can't write, changing the style won't fix what's already broken.

EvilChihuahua · Post by **EvilChihuahua** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 7:49 am

The library here used to have a lot of Asterix and Tintin (They've probably all fallen apart now), and I used to love them. Also, as to where they were made, I believe it was Belgium.

Comic Genesis Forums

So what's the fascination with Manga/Anime?

Asterix NZ read it so I didn't have to.