What is Manga?
Heard about manga before, but not really sure what it is?
Maybe you have an idea of what it is, but don’t know much about it, and where it came from. Well, the purpose of this page is to give you a little bit better idea of what MANGA is, and why it interests me!
MANGA
Manga is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons. A Manga Artist is one who makes the comics and cartoons. Manga Artists make all kinds of comics such as InuYasha, Ranma 1/2, Ayashi No Ceres, Tsubasa, and even more. All of the ones that I have mentioned are Animes too.
So, What is the difference between Manga and Anime?
Like I said earlier, Manga is a sort of comic that comes from Japan. It comes in small books and is run in certain magazines. Anime on the other hand, is animated (thus the name) and runs on television in Japan. Both of course get imported to other countries.
Well, there you have it… the Technical term… “Manga” in japan means any printed cartoon, and “Anime” refers to any animated film. But there is more to it than just that.
If you consider “modern manga,” some influences are obviously taken from western cartoons, yet they also take influence from Chinese art as well. this results in a unique style that you see today!
Another difference when compaing Manga to Comics is that while most comics and cartoons are geared towards a younger crowd, Anime and Manga Can be geared towards youth and adults. There are plenty of Adult-Oriented Anime and Manga series out there, whereas you would be hard-pressed to find one in cartoon format!
Have you ever noticed, that in Anime or Manga characters have Huge eyes? the reason for this is because Osamu Tezuka, one of the most famous creators of anime/manga saw that in movies like Bambi and Snow White the characters had large eyes that made showing characters emotions much easier. Tezuka’s works have set the standard for many generations of anime and manga artists.
Showing stress or a tense situation is done with what looks like a mathematical plus sign on the forehead. The sign is supposed to be a bulging vein… A rather gross thing unique to anime and manga is that big, wet, drippy snot bubbles coming out of a characters nose denote that the character is asleep. Finally, a large sweat bead on the characters forehead shows that they are nervous. It’s a very common occurrence for people to be nervous in Japan during conversation, because in Japan people are often too polite to say what they’re really thinking.
Well, there you go… a quick info session on what Manga is. I will probably post a more in-depth history of Manga eventually as well, I hope you enjoyed it!
