A Discussion of Manga

Junji Ito is a very good creator of horror drawings. He creates the whole manga, but in my view his storytelling is not close to being as notable as his images :)


So what's your favorite image from what he drew?
 
I thought many european comics were universal enough to not need any presentation but obviously i was wrong.

So i will start with the obvious ones like Asterix or Tintin series, which are the epitome of francobelgium comic, along with Lucky Luke, Spirou, the Smurfs... or Spanish humor comics like Mort & Phil or Superlopez.

For more mature readers i can think now of other artists like Jean Giraud (aka Moebius): "Blueberry series to later sci-fi works like the Incal", Boucq: "Les pionniers de l'aventure humaine" ,Enki Bilal: "Nikopol Trilogy", Bourgeon: "The Twilight Companions, The Cyann Saga", Milo Manara: "the Clic series, Indian Summer"......

If any, i would say that real European Comic is mostly death today, there is not a comic industry in Europe anymore, like in Japan or USA, however it is a shame to see that such talented artists and all his great work seems today lost and ignored by young readers.
 
Eh, I can't take that story seriously any more.
 
Dont know that much about manga, but I dont see how it can in any way be as diverse as European comics. Most mangas are about some cyber-girl with huge eyes and huge tits fighting in a futuristic Techno-Tokyo all looking exactly the same. However Eurocomics range from Tintin or Asterix to Manara erotic stories including any possible degrees and styles in the middle.

I'm well aware of the range -, but "cybergirls running around future Tokyo" description has very little to do with manga. There ARE mangas like that, of course, but they're not even close to a representative samples. It's like assuming Euro comics are about intrepid reporters because that's what Tintin and Spirou and Fantasio are.

For a start, if one look at the three biggest selling mangas in history - One Piece, Naruto and Dragonball - we have Pirates in a fantasy world, Ninjas in a fantasy world, and fantasy martial arts based on Journey to the West or something. None of them particularly known for cyber-robot girls in Future Tokyo.

Beyond those (I suppose you could liken them to, say, Astérix and Lucky Luke), you got a massive range of stories, ranging from detective story set in modern Tokyo (Case Closed/Detective Conan), to Martial Arts drama period pieces (Rurouni Kenshin), to sports stories (Captain Tsubasa), to Steampunk Fantasy (Fullmetal Alchemist), to Romantic Comedy (Nodame Cantabile), to romantic fantasy (Inuyasha), to post apocalyptic (Attack on Titans. From what little I understand of it). And, of course, to erotica - erotic mangas are very much a thing. Some would say too much of a thing, for that matter. The range is just as broad, if not broader, than European comics.

The big eyes and oversized breasts, well, that's just the manga art style. And yes, I will give you that in terms of ART STYLES the European genre is much more diverse. But in terms of actual genre and types of stories? It's an even match.
 
From what I've understood there's an almost redicilous amount of manga produced. As in, there might be more manga in production than european and american comics combined. If nothing else, the sheer volume makes for a rather diverse set of genres in manga.

The previously mentioned Hayate the combat butler is actually pretty diverse on it's own, I think.

As for the diversity of european comics: either you guys are overestimating it or, more probably, Norway is a cultural backwater that mostly gets american comics (seriously, I've mostky seen Spider Man and Donald Duck on shelves)
 
From what I've understood there's an almost redicilous amount of manga produced. As in, there might be more manga in production than european and american comics combined. If nothing else, the sheer volume makes for a rather diverse set of genres in manga.

The previously mentioned Hayate the combat butler is actually pretty diverse on it's own, I think.

As for the diversity of european comics: either you guys are overestimating it or, more probably, Norway is a cultural backwater that mostly gets american comics (seriously, I've mostky seen Spider Man and Donald Duck on shelves)

I know there were a couple of old magazines with european comics. Like Tempo which published lucky luke, asterix, sprint, blueberry and more. And in the magazine Agent X9(American comic) you had Modesty Blaise. But nowadays you have to go to Outland to find these things. Valerian and Laureline which is thought to have inspired the visuals of Star wars is also good.
 
I know this thread is pretty much dead,but why not?

I've found a new obsessionmanga (well it is a manwha, but whatever) that I really like, Westwood Vibrato, which under the right (or wrong depending on how you view it) circumstances looks like Westwood vibrator.

It is set in Africa, so it might be offensive as a foreigner is writing about a culture he or she isn't a part of, but the author treats the setting with respect and it has some deep lines. The most recent one that I like is, "Africa is a place where human greed is purely present...A land that must be unhappy because it holds so much"
 
I liked Lone Wolf and Cub. Most other manga are too decompressed for me.
 
If it doesn't have Judge Dredd in it, I'm not interested.
 
There's a lot of stuff. As a result, there is a lot of bad stuff, a lot good stuff, and a heaping helping of "this story is very similar to others in its genre with somewhat different twists".

A lot of the more popular ones get made into anime (hunter x hunter is really good for example), with varying degrees of butchery/change (and some change isn't necessarily for the worse).

But it's definitely worth emphasizing the point that the variation in manga compared to other comic-like media is staggering. We're talking about stories where a young girl gets a magic power and uses it to help people because it's the right thing to do...versus stories with tons of nightmare fuel and a main character driven to (completely understandable given the setting) near-madness at times as he slaughters horrors in a word that appears to have little hope.

Both are "manga" (and there are even inversions of both of these examples, with a very dark world for the magic girl or a mostly-for-laughs setting where the main character nevertheless slaughters demonic horrors!), so pick what kind of story you're looking to read. There is so much, far more than I could ever manage in my spare time, even if I didn't generally prefer more mental activity (IE gaming) when not tired.

Hayate I have not read all of, bit lengthy for my tastes but it's got a fair bit of parody in it and leans on humor a lot more so than serious themes, despite the main character's origin story (he could have been made a lot darker but the writer didn't do so, presumably on purpose).
 
Dont know that much about manga, but I dont see how it can in any way be as diverse as European comics. Most mangas are about some cyber-girl with huge eyes and huge tits fighting in a futuristic Techno-Tokyo all looking exactly the same. However Eurocomics range from Tintin or Asterix to Manara erotic stories including any possible degrees and styles in the middle.

Maybe they're typically cyberpunk or whatever, but mangas are just as varied and more than anime is. Mangas are typically source material for anime shows. Beyond that, there's a ton of manga that isn't developed into anime. Quite analogous to western books and movies.

Of course, the artistic style is going to be more or less the same as other manga, but the stories within are plenty diverse.
 
There is a lot of iconography and folkways in manga and anime that I just don't get because I wasn't raised in that culture. I know what, say, a lump on cat's head means in a cartoon, but I don't know what a drop of water means in manga.




Actually, I've learned what a drop of water means (generally embarrassment, frequently vicarious embarrassment) but I don't understand why it means that and every time I see it I have to think about what it means in a manner that I don't for American comic cartoon symbols.

Which may be why I'm drawn to one of the least cartoony of manga, Lone Wolf and Cub, despite liking Western cartoon comics generally.

Usagi Yojimbo is very interesting to examine. Stan Sakai, Usagi's creator, is a Japanese-American who makes this funny animal book about a Japanese rabbit samurai but his art is much more Western than Japanese. Indeed, Sakai's work is probably more European than American, which I would attribute to the influence of Sergio Aragonés whose Groo series is lettered by Sakai.
 
Apparently something like 89% of Japanese read manga on a regular basis which have a wide variety of stories and genres. Probably the best I have read

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
20 year work of art that is the benchmark in which all other mangas are measured up to. And multi million selling book.
 
Apparently something like 89% of Japanese read manga on a regular basis which have a wide variety of stories and genres. Probably the best I have read

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
20 year work of art that is the benchmark in which all other mangas are measured up to. And multi million selling book.

Nausicaa is pretty swell, although I only watched the movie, that said Hayao Miyazaki both wrote the manga and directed the movie, so I assume they are close enough to one another.
 
Nausicaa is pretty swell, although I only watched the movie, that said Hayao Miyazaki both wrote the manga and directed the movie, so I assume they are close enough to one another.

The movie was the first full length animated movie produced in Japan and set a new standard for animation and production values. It would need a Game of Thrones OVA to really do the manga justice as the movie is pretty much the first maybe 10% of the manga. Also I have high praise for the manga artwork, it is tremendous
 
I like to read Berserk.
http://view.thespectrum.net/series/berserk-chapter-334.html?ch=Volume+01&page=1

It's been going 25 years and has great artwork. (in recent years anyway)
The story is very very dark ^.^


It stars the original spiky haired protagonist with the hugely oversized sword, Guts!


Not sure why I have to read right to left.
Gives me headache.
Hunter x Hunter is very good too.
 
I like to read Berserk.
http://view.thespectrum.net/series/berserk-chapter-334.html?ch=Volume+01&page=1

It's been going 25 years and has great artwork. (in recent years anyway)
The story is very very dark ^.^


It stars the original spiky haired protagonist with the hugely oversized sword, Guts!


Not sure why I have to read right to left.
Gives me headache.
Hunter x Hunter is very good too.

Right to left is standard in Japan for Manga, I think it's just that their language is different to that extent. The sentence structure of Japanese is ordered differently than English, which makes it hard to pick out sentences if you think from an English progression when trying to listen to them (assuming you recognize any words).

I second both Berserk and Hunter x Hunter. Both are dark but Berserk is much more so. HxH is pretty unique in manga storytelling in that its supernatural elements are mostly ordered and rule-bound. I also like it because even its most cliche' character (the protagonist) deviates from a typical mold on several counts, while Killua is just a great character on all fronts.

Berserk has nightmare fuel in spades so I wouldn't recommend it to the squeamish, its story is a bit harder to follow also. It's a pretty good read but I think HxH as wider appeal. I would not recommend either for children, definitely not Berserk but HxH would require a little age to appreciate as well.
 
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