Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Rough Guide To Manga
The Rough Guide To Manga
ROUGHGUIDES
Cover images:
FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST
Hiromu Arakawa/SQUARE ENIX.
DEATH NOTE 2003 by Tsugumi Ohba,
Takeshi Obata/SHUEISHA Inc.
NARUTO 1999 by Masashi Kishimoto/
SHUEISHA Inc.
USA
Can
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$18.99
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781858 285610
Manga_final_Cover_V2.indd 1
Manga
... a comprehensive
explanation of the
art... this is a
fantastic book
www.roughguides.com
Manga
Jason s. Yadao
25/06/2009 11:18
Listen Up!
also
from
RO
UG
HG
UID
ES
US $18.99/CAN $22.99
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19/12/08
11:20:13
25/06/2009
11:18
Manga
by
Jason S. Yadao
www.roughguides.com
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Credits
The Rough Guide to Manga
Publishing information
This first edition published October 2009 by
Rough Guides Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL
375 Hudson Street, New York 10014, USA
Email:[email protected]
Distributed by the Penguin Group:
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL
Penguin Putnam, Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
Penguin Group (New Zealand), Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Printed and bound in Singapore by SNP Security Printing PTE.
The publishers and author have done their best to ensure the accuracy and currency of all information in The Rough Guide to Manga;
however, they can accept no responsibility for any loss or inconvenience sustained by any reader as a result of its information or advice.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages
in reviews.
Text Jason S. Yadao and Jason S. Yadao/Rough Guides 2009
288 pages; includes index
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-85828-561-0
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
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Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgements
viii
1 Manga Chronicles
the story of manga
33
3 A Manga Primer
decoding styles and genres
57
4 The Canon
fifty essential manga
Akira
Ashita no J
Astro Boy
Azumanga Daioh
Banana Fish
Barefoot Gen
Battle Royale
Black Jack
Blade of the Immortal
Cardcaptor Sakura
Case Closed/Detective Conan
77
78
80
82
85
87
88
90
92
94
96
102
Crying Freeman
Cyborg 009
Death Note
Doraemon
Dr. Slump
Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z
Drifting Classroom
Fist of the North Star
Fruits Basket
Fullmetal Alchemist
Fushigi Yugi
103
106
110
112
114
116
118
120
122
123
126
iii
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130
134
136
138
139
142
144
146
147
150
152
154
156
157
Naruto
Nausica of the Valley of the Wind
Oh My Goddess!
One Piece
Paradise Kiss
Peach Girl
Phoenix
Please Save My Earth
Ranma
Rose of Versailles
Sailor Moon
Slam Dunk
To Terra
Vagabond
159
162
164
166
167
169
171
173
175
178
180
182
186
188
5 Beyond Manga
anime, live action, videogames
191
6 The Players
manga publishers
209
7 The Information
where to go next
247
Glossary
261
Index
266
iv
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Introduction
Flash back to 1997 for a moment, when
I was toiling away at my journalism
degree at the University of Hawaii.
It was the latter part of a significant period in American comics, a
time when several universe-shaking
events happened one after the other:
Superman died, Batman had his back
broken, Wolverine had his indestructible adamantium ripped out of his
body by Magneto, Green Lantern Hal
Jordan went crazy it was an interesting time to be a comics collector.
Mind you, I had no idea at the time
that comics existed with perfectly
good, mature stories that didnt involve
superheroes, like Dave Sims Cerebus,
Jeff Smiths Bone, and the Hernandez
Brothers Love and Rockets. I had grown
up on a steady diet of full-colour comic
stories with Archie, Richie Rich, Little
Lulu, Looney Tunes and Disney characters. The only other types of comics
I knew about were the hero-versusvillain slugfests, and I wasnt really interested in those that is, until newspaper
stories started hyping the momentous
changes to the Superman and Batman
franchises. I dutifully followed along
with those stories as four Supermen
showed up, as a new, more violent
Batman ripped through Gotham
City, and finally as the status quo was
restored to those series.
And that was the problem for me and
comics in 1997: I was bored with the
status quo. It was around this time that
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vi
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vii
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Acknowledgements
Its both simple and difficult to write an acknowledgements section simple
because you have in mind a whole list of people you want to thank, difficult
because you have a feeling of dread lurking in the background that youre
going to forget someone. First of all, thanks to Sean Mahoney, who believed in
my work enough to offer me the opportunity to write what youre now reading,
and to Kate Berens, Andrew Lockett and the rest of the Rough Guides team for
helping to nudge, poke, prod and otherwise will this project to completion.
Thank you also to Simon Richmond and Abe Chang, who helped polish up the
Manga Chronicles, Manga Goes Global and Beyond Manga sections respectively, as deadlines grew tight. This book also wouldnt be a reality if not for the
help and support of Wilma Jandoc, my dearest friend and colleague who will
always be the Tag-Team Partner in Anime and Manga Fandom for me. Thanks
also to my other friends who kept me sane and laughing throughout my
many months of book-writing: Charlene Robinson, Christina Chun and Jackie
Carberry. A special nod to people who helped and supported me throughout
my career: my mom and dad (of course!), Brandi-Ann Uyemura, Tracy OrilloDonovan, Jim Borg, Gary Chun, Lucy Young-Oda and my Mililani Missionary
Church family. And of course, I must thank Carrie Higa, the friend whose copy
of the first volume of Maison Ikkoku started me on a journey that I never could
have imagined would have included writing a book available worldwide. Much
love to you all.
Rough Guides would like to thank Chlo Roberts for tireless work on the pictures;
Link Hall for design and last-minute font work; Jane Lui and Evelyn Dubocq
at Viz Media for assisting with the cover; and Mr Yohei Tanahashi at Kodansha
Ltd, Amy Huey at Dark Horse, Kaoru Morimura at Tuttle-Mori, Jessica at Vertical,
Adam Arnold at Seven Seas, Colin Turner at Last Gasp, Rumana Haider at Simon
& Schuster UK, Andrew Whelan and Vy Nguyen at Tokyopop, Amiram Reuveni at
Fanfare/Ponent Mon and Frank Pannone at Media Blasters for their help in the
production of this book.
The Publishers have made every effort to identify and to contact the correct rights holders
in respect of images featured in this book. If, despite these efforts, any attribution is missing
or incorrect, the Publishers will correct it, once it has been brought to their attention, in any
subsequent printings.
viii
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Manga
Chronicles
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The seeds of
manga
The Japanese have been culturally
attuned to reading stories through
pictures down the centuries. It can be
argued that the stylistic seeds of what
eventually would be called manga were
planted as far back as twelfth-century
Japan in the form of emakimono,
narrative picture scrolls with
occasional text. Emakimono usually
depicted people, animals or religious
figures in a series of pictures that told a
story, often rendered in ink with light
washes of colour. Text was used only
when necessary to explain what was
going on. Readers viewed these scrolls,
which sometimes stretched as long as
eighty feet, a portion at a time from
right to left. The most widely celebrated
example of this art is The Tale of Genji,
the tenth-century royal court romance
attributed to Murasaki Shikibu and
adapted to various forms of media over
successive centuries. A manga version
by Waki Yamato was even published in
Japan by Kodansha between 1980 and
1993, and partially translated into
English by the Kodansha Bilingual
imprint.
For the purposes of manga history,
though, scholars usually point at the
Chj jinbutsu giga (Scrolls of
Frolicking Animals and Humans),
often shortened to Chjgiga, a set of
four scrolls attributed to Sj Toba,
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Manga Chronicles
Simon Richmond
Early Western
influences
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Style takes
shape: 190045
At the dawn of the twentieth century
new American comic strips, such as the
Yellow Kid and The Katzenjammer Kids,
began to filter into Japan, further
inspiring local artists to emulate this
Western way of telling stories. One such
artist, Rakuten Kitazawa (18761955),
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Around the time newspaper-style comic strips were growing in popularity in Japan
largely thanks to foreign expatriates, a Japanese expatriate was working on a comic of
his own. Yoshitaka Kiyama emigrated to the United States in 1904, adopted the
Western first name of Henry, and took up classes at the San Francisco Art Institute
while working at a variety of jobs. His artwork earned him several awards between
1915 and 1920, a number of exhibitions in San Francisco, and even a scholarship from
the New York Art Students League.
But it was an exhibition he held in San Francisco in February 1927 that gives him a
place in Japanese manga history. It was at that exhibition that he displayed what he
called Manga Hokubei Iminshi (A Manga North American History),
52 comic-style episodes depicting the lives of Kiyama and three
of his friends in San Francisco over a twenty-year period,
beginning with his arrival. Kiyama tried to get a newspaper to
publish his work, but its novelistic length 104 pages was
likely a key factor in his lack of success.
Instead, he published the comic book himself, going back to
Tokyo in 1931 to get it printed and returning to San Francisco
with copies of the newly retitled Manga Yonin Shosei (The Four
Students Manga). It came complete with forewords and praise
from influential figures such as the Japanese consul general for
its documentary-style veracity (each of the mangas characters
speaks in his native tongue, be it Japanese, English or even
Chinese) and humour.
And that might have been the end of the story were it not for
Frederik L. Schodts finding the book in a library in Berkeley,
California, in 1980. Seventeen years later, he began translating it
for an English-speaking audience, and in 1998 Stone Bridge Press
released the book as The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese
Experience in San Francisco, 19041924. And so what was
arguably the first manga if not the first graphic novel of any
type to be released in the US was reintroduced, for a new
generation to appreciate.
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Manga Chronicles
Simon Richmond
Manga
prototypes
The early twentieth century also saw the
emergence of magazines aimed at
children that served as prototypes for
modern-day manga magazines. While
todays magazines often devote hundreds
of pages solely to manga, these early
magazines mixed in comic strips and
single cartoons with articles illustrated
with photographs and illustrated stories,
all printed in considerable amounts of
colour. Magazines from the 1930s like
Shnen Club (for boys), Shjo Club (for
girls) and Yonen Club (for younger
children) were already targeting specific
audiences, a trait that has carried over to
modern publications.
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Astro Boy: Osamu Tezukas enduring character has come to symbolize manga
around the globe.
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Tezukas
impact: 194559
Following the nations unconditional
surrender in 1945, most Japanese intent
on rebuilding their lives after the devastation of the war had little time or
money for publications of any kind,
including manga. This hit the big pre-war
publishers hard, as did Allied occupation
force censorship of certain subjects: art
forms, including manga, had to steer
clear of topics that might inspire a resurgence of militarism, which put a
temporary stop to political cartoons.
Even so, people were hungry for entertainment that could help them forget
about the past or distract them from the
present. Catering to this need, a cottage
industry of new publishers emerged in
Osaka, printing cheap, long-format story
comics called akahon (red books) for
their red-ink covers and selling them
from street stalls. It was in akahon that a
young medical student called Osamu
Tezuka would make his first distinctive
mark in manga history.
While he might be universally known
today as the God of Manga, perhaps
the most divine blessing bestowed upon
this prolific artist was that he came along
at just the right time in manga history.
When the nineteen-year-old Tezuka
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Osamu Tezuka
Manga artist / anime director, 192889
Please, please let me continue to work These were reportedly the last words from a
man who during his life had produced no fewer than 150,000 pages of manga for around
600 different titles, not to mention scores of animated works, and had acted as a global
ambassador for the art form in its crucial boom years from the 1950s through to the
1980s. Small wonder that Osamu Tezuka is commonly referred to as the God of Manga.
Tezukas skills lay in his ability to innovate and adapt, paying tribute to what already
existed while taking those conventions to another level with his artistic style. He was a
fan of the Disney and Fleischer animated films that had made it into the country, and the
art he drew with what would soon become the trademark of Japanese cartoon art,
big-eyed characters paid homage to the character designs of those films. He was also
obsessed with perfection in his art, often revisiting his earlier works to change the order
of the story chapters and tweaking the artwork whenever they were reprinted.
The characters themselves were like a travelling troupe of virtual actors, with Tezuka as
the director (indeed, he would frequently insert a caricature of himself into his series,
always wearing his trademark beret). The Tezuka star system took secondary characters
like Mustachio, Dr Ochanomizu, Hamegg and Spider and placed them in different series,
sometimes with different names and occupations like actors taking on different roles.
The storytelling mechanism was influenced heavily by his frequent visits as a youth to see
the famed Takarazuka Revue, an all-female theatre troupe in his home town of Takarazuka
that specialized in performing lavish, Broadway-style romantic musicals.
What also helped drive Tezukas popularity was his ability to provide audiences with
exactly what they wanted. At the start of his career, epic stories like New Treasure Island,
Princess Knight and Astro Boy captivated the post-war, entertainment-starved audience. As
the children who read his manga aged and manga began edging towards grittier fare
influenced by the gekiga movement, Tezuka responded with more complex, adultoriented series, delving into such subjects as the human psyche, religion and spirituality.
His sphere of influence extended beyond manga, too. Astro Boy, first broadcast on
Japanese TV in 1963, was the realization of his dream to become an animator like Walt
Disney. While his studio, Mushi Productions, struggled financially from the day it opened
to when it went bankrupt in 1973, Tezuka gained much respect and won awards for
experimental shorts such as Tales of the Street Corner (1962); the Fantasia-inspired Pictures
at an Exhibition (1966); Jumping (1984); and his final film, Self Portrait (1988). He also
pioneered animation for adults in the late 1960s with Arabian Nights and Cleopatra.
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A maturing
audience
After the Treaty of San Francisco, between
the Allied powers and Japan, came into
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Manga monthlies
As the same time that Tezuka was
producing his early akahon works, he
was also being commissioned by two
new monthly magazines Manga
Shnen, published by Gakudosha,
and Shnen magazine, published by
Kobunshato create what would
become two of his career-defining series.
Jungle Taitei (Jungle Emperor), the series
that Western audiences would later
know as Kimba the White Lion, went to
Manga Shnen and became the first
single-story manga serialized in a
magazine, starting in 1950, while Shnen
received Tetsuwan Atomu (Mighty
Atom), the series that would become
Astro Boy in the West, starting in 1952.
Eventually the demand for Tezukas
comics was such that he would move in
1953 from Osaka to Tokyo, the centre of
publishing in Japan, where he would set
up a studio in the citys Tokiwaso
apartment complex a year later. Other
mangaka who would also go on to
become legends in the industry soon
joined him at Tokiwaso people who
also got their start in Manga Shnen.
While the magazine would only run
for eight years from its debut in 1947,
Manga Shnen was significant in that it
featured predominantly manga rather
than the comic/prose combination that
had been the blueprint for post-war
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Sazae-san
Simon Richmond
Machiko Hasegawa, one of the earliest women mangaka, portrayed with her
titular character Sazae-san.
Pioneering female mangaka Hasegawas Sazaesan is one of the most famous manga characters
in Japan. As post-war Japanese society and
especially the roles of women evolved, so too
did the adventures of Sazae Fuguta, a liberated
woman of the 1940s who marries Masuo, a
28-year-old salaryman. Even though the story of
their life together mirrored contemporary life in
Japan, from the food rationing and American occupation in the late 1940s through the hippie and
feminist movements in later years, the characters
themselves never aged. The four-panel strips
were turned into an anime series in 1969 that is
still going today, making it the longest-running
animated TV series in history.
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Manga Chronicles
Advent of the
weeklies
By the late 1950s, with Japans economy
well on the way to recovery, more people
could afford to buy more manga more
often. At the same time, radio and television were becoming increasingly
popular, and publishers realized they
would have to ramp up their publication
schedules from the monthly model so as
not to lose readers to other forms of
entertainment.
On the same day, 17 March 1959, rival
weekly magazines Shnen Sunday (a
Shogakukan production) and Shnen
(from Kodansha) launched, both failing
in an attempt to be first on the market.
Like Nakayoshi and Ribon, the magazines
are still published today. They remain
competing publications but in a rare
alliance between the two, as part of their
fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 2008
09, each magazine featured a crosspromotional cover image of boxer Ippo,
from the Shnen series Hajime no Ippo,
shaking hands with young detective
Conan Edogawa, from the Shnen Sunday
series Detective Conan / Case Closed.
The success of the weekly manga
magazine format over the monthlies may
have been a financial boon for publishers,
but it was a bane for the manga artists,
who were subsequently required to churn
out four times as much material. As the
manga industry skewed more towards
producing titles for younger readers,
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Real-life inspiration
During his career Osamu Tezuka tackled a wide variety of subjects, mostly fantastic and
springing from his own imagination. Occasionally, though, he took inspiration from
real life and incorporated historical figures into his manga or created manga based on
other peoples works that he felt passionately about. Heres a few of the well-known
subjects from lesser-known series in Tezukas catalogue of work (at least those
published in the English-speaking world).
Adolf Hitler
During the war there was a community of European Jewish refugees living in Kbe, a
port city not far from where Tezuka lived in Takarazuka. Its very likely that Tezuka knew
about this community and its circumstances and that this knowledge inspired his
series Adorufu ni Tsugu (Tell Adolf; 5 vols, 198385; published in English as Adolf by Vizs
Cadence Books, 199596). This epic tale of mysterious murders and political intrigue
spanning decades features three Adolfs the real leader of the Nazi Party, and a
German boy and his Jewish friend living in Japan at the onset of World War II. This is
one of Tezukas most adult-themed works and, although the story tends towards
melodrama, it is also a gripping thriller with a moving conclusion.
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Tetsujin-28
Mitsuteru Yokoyama; pub Kobunsha (Jp,
195666); not licensed for English translation
Mitsuteru Yokoyamas manga was the first
to feature in a starring role that mainstay of
manga and anime: the giant robot. In this
case, the robot is the 28th in a series of
robots that were designed to defend Japan
during the war hence the title, meaning
Iron Man 28. Afterwards, the robots
mission was changed from fighting to
peacekeeping. Under the control of a young
boy, Shotaro Kaneda, it fights crime around
the world that is, if its remote control
doesnt fall into the wrong hands. The
animated adaptation of this story would air
in the US in the mid-1960s as Gigantor.
Maturity and
diversity:
196079
As the industry headed into the 1960s, it
was clear that more artists would be
needed to meet the surging demand for
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Back to politics
Kamui Den, as it turned out, was the
right manga for the right period in
Japanese history. Its themes of class
struggle against injustice and corrupt
authority were perfect for an emerging
college student resistance movement
who, like their contemporaries around
the world, railed against the issues of
the day, such as the growing conflict in
Vietnam and the continued existence of
American forces on Japanese soil. By
the late 1960s, editors at several
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womens athletics appeared on the storytelling radar for the first time with
Chikako Uranos volleyball-based series
Attack No. 1 in 1968. Tsuru-hime Ja!
(Heres Princess Tsuru!) in 1973 by Yoshiko
Tsuchida, an understudy of male
gag-manga artist Fujio Akatsuka, proved
that women could tackle this hyperactive,
nonsensical genre just as well as men.
The accelerating evolution of shjo
manga in the 1970s was, in effect, a
microcosm of what was taking place in
the industry during that decade. Women
were proving that they could tackle
different types of stories from their own
perspectives, and the way they were
telling those stories sometimes by
adopting shnen manga conventions
attracted a crossover male audience to
their work as well.
In addition, the manga generation
from the 1940s and 50s had grown up
and was now producing its own stories
based on a diverse array of personal
interests and experiences. Manga, rather
than film or television, had become the
preferred pop culture venue, being easily
and cheaply accessible at bookstores,
newsstands, train stations and coffee
shops. Magazines were available for all
different tastes and interests, often
collecting several twenty- to thirty-page
stories in a thick, 200- to 400-page
stapled collection that could be as
chunky as a typical phone book.
Manga, in short, was diversifying and
adapting in the boom times of the
Japanese economy. That diversification
GeGeGe no Kitar#
Shigeru Mizuki; pub Kodansha (Jp, 1965
69), Kodansha International (US, 2002);
vols Jp 9, US 3
Originally published under the title Hibaka no
Kitar (Graveyard Kitar), this whimsical manga
has as its hero Kitar, one of two remaining members of the Ghost Tribe and a leading advocate for
peace between humans and ykai (a supernatural
being in Japanese folklore, similar to a ghost).
With the assistance of wise Daddy Eyeball, who
is both Kitars father and a giant eyeball, the
rodent-like ykai/human Ratman, and a host of
magic-imbued gizmos, one-eyed Kitar fights
monsters and does good deeds. While Mizukis
story is aimed at a shnen audience, his art has a
more realistic look owing to his experience working on gekiga series.
Apollos Song
Osamu Tezuka; pub Shonen Gahosha (Jp,
1970), Vertical (US, 2007); vols 1
Chikaishi Shogo has never known love in his life
and has become quite the violent delinquent. In
an effort to prevent him from striking again, the
police place him under the care of Dr. Enoki.
Enoki subsequently subjects Shogo to a series
of electrotherapy sessions, during which Shogo
meets the goddess of love and undergoes the
trials of love. Thus Shogo experiences a neverending, Sisyphean cycle of romance, repeatedly
thrust into a new situation in a different time,
falling in love with a woman and subsequently
losing her. Tezukas favourite theme of the cycle
of life and death is on display here, as are his
ideas on the essence of love and sex.
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Mazinger Z
Buddha
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Apocalypse Meow
Motofumi Kobayashi; pub Softbank Publishing (Jp), ADV (US); ser Combat Magazine
(19912005); vols Jp 4, US 3; age 16+
Its the Vietnam War as no one except, perhaps,
author Kobayashi could have possibly imagined
it: with a corps of American bunnies fighting a
force of determined Viet Cong cats. It would seem
as if a story involving anthropomorphic combatants would be light-hearted, but Kobayashi uses a
great deal of historical research as the foundation
for his story. Its among the best series from ADV
Mangas early days.
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Black Lagoon
Rei Hiroe; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US,
UK); ser Sunday GX (2002); vols ongoing;
age 18+
Mangas equivalent of a summer blockbuster
action movie, a series where you jump in, turn
off your brain and prepare to be thoroughly
entertained. A group of mercenaries aboard the
titular torpedo boat Dutch the Boss, Benny
the Mechanic and Revy Two Hand takes on
the unlikeliest of travelling companions: Rokur
Rock Okajima, an office worker whose company
disavowed his existence after the crew took him
hostage. So while Rock tries to negotiate his way
through the crews frequent smuggling jobs
throughout southeast Asia, everyone else prefers
to let their actions do the talking. Rei Hiroe loves
to draw guns and women, so its no surprise to
see that when gun-toting Revy hits a scene, the
bullets will start flying and the body count will
start rising.
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Manga Chronicles
Love*Com (Lovely
Complex)
Aya Nakahara; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (US,
UK), Madman (Aus); ser Bessatsu Margaret
(2001); vols 16; age 16+
The classmates of Risa Koizumi and Atsushi
tani nickname the pair after a popular comedy
duo comprising one tall and one short member.
In this case, Risa is the tallest girl in the class,
while Atsushi is the shortest boy. In trying to get
away from each other and date other people,
though, they end up uniting to help each other
get what they want and in the process learn
that they have much more in common than
they realize. The concept may be simple, yet
Nakahara manages to capture all the ups and
downs, from light-hearted comedic moments
to uncertainty over their feelings for each other.
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Vampire Knight
Matsuri Hino; pub Hakusensha (Jp), Viz (US,
UK), Madman (Aus); ser LaLa (2005); vols
ongoing; age 16+
Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu are members of Cross
Academys Disciplinary Committee, a group
tasked with keeping the squealing, fawning girls
in the high schools Day Class away from the
elegant, beautiful boys in the Night Class. Unbeknownst to the Day Class, the Night Class boys
are also vampires, a secret that must be protected
in a world of vampire/human conflict. While
the opening panels suggest a romantic school
comedy, Matsuri Hino instead builds a dramatic
story of vampires, tragic secrets and doomed
love. Hinos male character designs have a wispy,
effeminate look to them, and scenes of Zero,
whos slowly becoming a vampire, biting human
Yuki for her blood are sensually paced.
Yotsuba&!
Kiyohiko Azuma; pub MediaWorks (Jp),
ADV (US, vols 15), Yen Press (US, UK, vols
6 onward); ser Dengeki Daioh (2003); vols
ongoing
For his first series after Azumanga Daioh (see
p.85), Kiyohiko Azuma moves away from the
four-panel format to tell short stories in more
traditional multi-panel manga. Little green-haired
girl Yotsuba, along with her dad, Koiwai, have just
moved to a new neighbourhood, and now Yotsuba wants to learn about everything in her new
surroundings As their neighbours, sisters Asagi,
Fuka and Ena, quickly find out, Yotsubas naturally
inquisitive mind and her tendency to apply what
shes learned to the extreme make for some
entertaining adventures. Azuma creates again a
world full of bubble-eyed, innocent-looking girls,
but this time adds more multi-dimensional male
characters like Koiwai and his best friend, Jumbo,
so called because he towers over the other
characters in height.
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Manga
Goes
Global
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Manga in Asia
Just as mangas artistic style was initially
shaped by political cartoons imported
from the West and adapted by local
artists around the turn of the nineteenth
century, so too were the styles of its closest
Asian relatives manhwa in Korea and
manhua in China. As Japans imperialist
ambitions grew, Chinese and Korean
cartoonists began to satirize the threat of
Japanese annexation, but after subsequent
occupation they ended up producing
pro-Japanese propaganda in the 1930s.
With Japans defeat at the end of
World War II, Chinese and Korean
artists were free once more to pursue
their own paths, and both manhua and
manhwa would flourish soon afterward.
However, political circumstances within
the two countries, as well as a gradually
resurgent Japan and its growing manga
market, ensured those renaissances were
short-lived but not before several key
artistic distinctions between the three
forms had developed.
Koreas manhwa:
the first 70 years
Today, South Korea is second to only
Japan in Asian comic production a
fact that underlines the two countries
long history of enjoying stories told in
a dynamic mix of pictures and words.
Koreans saw their first single-panel
editorial cartoon in 1909, drawn by
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Manhwa post-1979
Parks assassination in 1979 led to
a gradual easing of restrictions on
manhwa, and the industry boomed
as a broader range of titles featuring
more true-to- life characters and plots
were published. The government also
began to see the economic potential
in the industry, establishing agencies
to promote the art both at home and
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Faeries Landing
Hyun You; pub Daiwon C.I. (SK, 1998),
Tokyopop (US); vols 19
Although its nominally set in modern-day Korea,
Faeries Landing has plenty to keep fantasy fans
transfixed. It all starts off a bit like one of Rumiko
Takahashis manga with its sixteen-year-old male
protagonist becoming hitched by convoluted
means to the beautiful faery Fanta, as well as her
rival Medea who curses the hapless boy to suffer
through 108 failed relationships. Much of the
original Korean folk tale references were ditched
for the English translation.
Priest
Min-woo Hyung; pub Daiwon C.I. (SK,
1998), Tokyopop (US); vols ongoing
A gothic horror tale, inspired by the Japanese
computer game Blood and with a distinctive
angular art style. The plot, which takes place
in the American Wild West, the time of the
Crusades and the modern day, centres on
Ivan Isaacs, a deceased priest who continues
to battle evil, even though hes sold his soul
to the devil. Alliances are realigned when the
Ragnarok
Myung-jin Lee; pub Daiwon C.I. (SK, 1995),
Tokyopop (US), Madman (Aus); vols 10, on
hiatus
The manhwa on which the massively multiplayer
roleplaying game is based takes Norse mythology
as its source. A warrior named Chaos finds out hes
the reincarnated form of Balder, the God of Light,
when the reincarnated form of Fenrir the Wolf
God asks for his help in bringing about Ragnarok,
the prophesied fall of the gods and the rise of the
age of man. The games popularity is such that
Lee has apparently put the planned forty-volume
manhwa on hiatus to work on story expansions.
Unbalance x Unbalance
Dall-young Lim (story), Soo-hyon Lee (art);
pub Daiwon C.I. (SK, 2005), Infinity Studios
(US); vols ongoing
This school-based drama, which zones in on a
tricky studentteacher relationship, provides an
insight into modern Korean life. The mildly rebellious student hero Jin-ho Mung is one point of
a romantic triangle with the virginal homeroom
teacher Hae-young Nah and the half-Korean, halfBritish Caroline, Nahs teaching assistant. The art
style reflects mangas influence.
Chinas manhua:
18671950s
In China, Western-style satire and caricature was introduced via China Punch,
the countrys own version of Britains
Punch magazine, in 1867. Cartoonist
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Journey to the
West
Western artists from Charles Wirgman
to Walt Disney may have had a great
influence on manga, but the reciprocal
influence of manga on the West has taken
far longer to develop, partly because of
the still prevalent attitude that comics are
largely for children, and partly because of
the mediums subject matter often being
so culturally specific to Japan.
Mainstream acceptance has developed
just in the past decade or so, mainly
piggybacking off the success of anime
(animated films, TV and DVD series
made in Japan), which sparked demand
from fans and a rush for publishers to
snap up associated manga for translations.
The prevailing trend has been for the
United States to get an English-translated
series first, with those series then trickling
down to eager fans in the UK, Australia,
New Zealand and other English-speaking
territories. Meanwhile, in other European
countries such as France and Belgium,
both with venerable and respected
histories of comics (where they are
known as bandes dessines), the embrace
of manga has been more enthusiastic.
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Japanese-inspired American
comics
Before US publishers started translating manga directly, some cut their teeth on
home-grown titles that incorporated the characters and sometimes the plots of the
Japanese print originals. Shogun Warriors published by Marvel in 1979 was one such
title it introduced many American kids to manga and animes giant robot stars such
as Mazinger Z, Raideen, Getter Robo, and Grendizer (aka Goldorak), well known for
over a decade to the Japanese.
As with Astro Boy two decades earlier, the TV success in the 1980s of Robotech (three
different anime series Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada edited together to
form a single 85-episode series) inspired the Comico comic Robotech; the first edition
of the comic actually ran under the title Macross.
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mail-order department soon was established and promoted in anime fan club
bulletins. Books Nippan also tried its
hand at publishing translated manga,
debuting the 88-page Manga anthology
in the early 1980s, as well as a Star Blazers
anime manga based on the TV series in
1984.
As American readers began to thrill
to manga, so too did some local comic
book artists become enamoured of the
mediums distinct art style, which played
with ideas that were little exploited
in the US comics industry at the time
(see box overleaf). Mangas storytelling
technique didnt rely on richly coloured,
meticulously detailed still-frame shots,
but on more simply drawn yet dynamic
characters, with multiple frames used to
depict a single action and a raft of visual
devices used to keep the eye moving
from one panel to the next. There was
a certain energy in manga that same
cinematic energy that Tezuka developed
and honed many years earlier.
Frederik L. Schodts book Manga!
Manga!, first published in 1983, tapped
into the growing fascination with
Japanese comics. It was the first Englishlanguage book on the subject and
contained translations of episodes from
four seminal manga, including Tezukas
Phoenix (see p.171) and Riyoko Ikedas
Rose of Versailles (p.178). Two years later
Antarctic Press would start publishing
Mangazine, featuring fan-produced
comics drawn in the Japanese style if
American fans couldnt get the original
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An industry takes
shape
With the market for translated manga
growing slowly but surely off the back
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Spreading the
word
With a steady stream of titles being
released, there now were enough manga
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Licence to print
When a series is generated that could potentially attract interest outside of Japan,
one thats sold well and often has been collected into tankbon (paperback book
collections of the chapters that run in magazines), prospective publishers enter the
picture and try to negotiate a deal that will result in the licensing of a property, or the
awarding of exclusive rights to a particular publisher. Its a highly competitive process,
as everyone knows which are the hot properties and is willing to pay top dollar to get
them. Some publishers even begin to make offers while stories are still being serialized in magazines.
It helps to have established connections in the industry beforehand, as well as the
skills necessary to negotiate in Japanese culture. Trust and status are also key, with
the Japanese publishers more likely to deal with established publishers abroad than
up-and-coming operations. Adam Arnold of Seven Seas once wrote: Theres tons
of gossip, publishers trying to undermine each other, infighting, and bitter rivalries
all for the purpose of winning that prized licence or the affection and favour of the
biggest and best Japanese publisher. There are already a number of special relationships between US and Japanese publishers, with Viz jointly owned by Shogakukan
and Shueisha, Del Rey allied with Kodansha, and Yen Press working closely with
Square Enix.
Assuming that a publisher gets the desired licence, the next step is to translate
the pages from Japanese into English. Considerations that must be made include
whether to stick with straight translations or translate and then adapt into more
natural-sounding English, all while keeping the original art intact as much as
possible. If an anime adaptation exists, the question also arises of whether the
animes translation of certain names should be retained, or whether the manga
version should strike out on its own. For instance, in Excel Saga, Viz ended up translating the dogs name as Mince, whereas ADV Films, in its translation of the anime,
retained the untranslated name Menchi.
Once the script is done, it gets sent to a layout department, which plops the newly
translated dialogue into new bubbles. The process is easier with unflopped manga,
where pages retain their original right-to-left orientation, but even so there still
remain questions of how much and what to translate. Sound effects, for instance, can
be left untranslated, or explained in notes at the bottom of the page. For more on the
conventions and techniques unique to manga, see Chapter 3.
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Breaking the
stereotypes
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw
manga, albeit in a largely Westernized
version, introduced successfully to an
English-speaking audience. However, the
titles chosen for translation by publishers
also tended to play safe around the
unspoken rules of the American comics
market namely that they should be
action or science-fiction genre comics
targeted at boys and young adult males
and predominantly sold from speciality
comics shops, which in themselves were
considered to be the domain of boys.
Hence many of the titles being
shipped over from Japan were shnen
and seinen series, with plenty of junk as
well as a few gems. They were packaged
like any other comic book, with graphic
novel collections coming out rarely, if at
all; the frames would read left-to-right
instead of the native right-to-left; and
new chapters would be released monthly
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Pokmania
At the same time Sailor Moon was
helping blaze a trail for shjo manga
titles in the US, 151 collectible creatures
available on two videogame cartridges
for the Nintendo Game Boy were
about to extend the market wide open
in another direction. The launch of
the Pokmon game in the US in 1998
spawned a generation of childrenturned-Pokmon-trainers who simply
had to catch all of those creatures,
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US publishers
strike it rich
Tokyopops move broke the market wide
open with first printings of its unflopped
books selling out immediately. Nearly
200,000 books were shipped in April
2002 alone. Mangas visibility grew
exponentially as Tokyopop rolled out
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European and
Australian
opportunities
By 2007 over 1200 manga titles were
available for US fans to buy from some
15 different publishers, generating sales
of around $210 million, according to
research firm ICv2. However, two years
later ICv2 was reporting a seventeen
percent drop in sales to about $175
million a sign that the US market for
manga may have reached its limit. Milton
Griepp, ICv2s president, suggested four
reasons for this decline: the overall
economic recession in the US; the drop
in the number of anime screened on
TV; the change in graphic novel buying
policy by US bookstore Borders; and the
impact that the Twilight series of teenage
novels was having in siphoning off
potential female readers of manga.
There are worries that this drop in sales
could signal more fundamental problems
for the American manga industry. The
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The international
manga debate
The question of whether manga can truly
be called manga if its produced outside
of Japan has long been a matter of bitter
contention among fans. Purists insist
that manga must be created in Japan to
be considered as such. Anything else is
simply black-and-white comic books
done in the style of manga, with foreign
artists paying tribute to the artistic
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Global mangas take on the high-school genre: Hollow Fields was a runner-up at
Japans inaugural International Manga Awards in 2007.
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Hollow Fields
Madeleine Rosca; pub Seven Seas (US, UK,
Aus, 2007); vols ongoing
The creation of Australian artist Rosca, this reads
like a manga version of Harry Potter with a more
average lead character and much more whimsical
evil. Lucy Snows decision to take a short cut
International
competitions
In 2007 two separate efforts to recognize
international manga creators were
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Hybrid manga
Apart from drumming up further
interest in and a wider understanding
of the rich variety of manga in overseas
markets, one of the main reasons for
these awards has been to find and foster
non-Japanese talents. It is hoped that
their sometimes distinctively different
drawing styles and stories will reinvigorate Japans declining market for comics,
in the process creating what some may
call a hybrid product.
The seeds of such a movement
already seem to be sprouting. Alternative American comic book artist Paul
Pope, author of THB, a sci-fi story set
on Mars, worked for Kodansha for five
years, during which time he developed
the manga Supertrouble. Kodansha
have also commissioned Felipe Smith,
creator of Tokyopops OEL manga MBQ
to draw a monthly series for its Morning
2 anthology, and picked up for publication the successful webcomic Megatokyo
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Dramacon
Svetlana Chmakova; pub Tokyopop (US,
200507); vols 3
Amateur writer Christie is attending her first
anime convention with her artist boyfriend,
setting up a table in the Artists Alley to
co-promote their new manga together. But
things arent going well for the couple and
a mysterious, rather charming cosplayer that
Christie sees could very well change her life.
Theres a playful style to Russian-Canadian
Chmakovas art and her world is populated with
an energy (not to mention chibified cuteness)
that shows she has a firm grasp on the shjo
storytelling style.
Megatokyo
Fred Gallagher (and Rodney Caston, vols 1
& 2); pub Dark Horse (US, vols 14, 2002),
CMX (US, ongoing)
This English-language webcomic has broken
out of the Internet to become a bestselling print
product. Visiting Japan is the dream of many
anime, manga and videogame fans. Getting stuck
there? Not so much. Thats what happens to Piro
and Largo and while a fair amount of handwringing takes place, they soon settle in to their
new lives Piro as a worker at a small bookstore,
Largo as a somewhat paranoid teacher convinced
that 3v1l lurks everywhere and must be
pwned. Its a story packed with sad-looking
girls and parodies of Japanese dating-simulation
games and is above all a tribute to the manga
that Gallagher enjoys reading.
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A Manga
Primer
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Decoding
manga
Manga covers a bewildering range of
subjects, aimed at every type of reader
imaginable, but its still readily identifiable as manga, thanks to a number of
elements found nowhere else, which
together form a kind of common
language. Although there are exceptions,
its these unique artistic and narrative
conventions, sometimes the result of
traditional production processes, that
distinguish manga from other types of
sequential art, such as Western comic
strips and comic books.
Manga are comics rendered in black
and white that much is obvious from
a first glance. But there have been
plenty of Western comics in black
and white too, from newspaper comic
strips to independent comics, including
prominent series like Jeff Smiths Bone
and Dave Sims 300-issue Cerebus. What
makes manga fundamentally different
from these examples are the circumstances under which its produced and
consumed. Many series in Japan are
created for weekly magazines, meaning
the artist has to churn out an entire
chapter of thirty to forty pages of art
every week. Such short turnaround
times mean that artists must often
choose which parts of the page will
get an extra layer of artistic detail and
which parts will be rendered in a form
of artistic shorthand. (For more on how
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Long-running
stories
While there are a few exceptions in
which a series has lasted for several
decades Golgo 13, Doraemon and the
tongue-twisting Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Ko-en Mae Hashutsujo
(see pp.138, 112 and 21) among them
or instances where an artist has died
before the story could be completed,
manga are finite entities with a distinct
beginning and end. For the most part,
manga readers go into a series knowing
that it will end someday, although it
may not be in the neat and tidy way that
Western audiences expect in their pop
culture media. Manga conclusions have
a tendency to be open-ended, empowering readers to continue the story as
they see fit. Its as if the author is telling
readers, Okay, this is the end of one part
of these characters lives and Im done
telling this story, but from this point
forward life in general goes on.
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Emotional
shorthand
Eyes and hair arent the only forms of
nonverbal expression for manga characters. In fact, an entire iconography of
emotional expression has developed
around characters heads alone.
When blood gushes from (often
male) characters noses, its an indication that the character is sexually
aroused by what theyre seeing, often
an attractive member of the opposite
sex. This notion is based in traditional
Japanese folklore. On the other hand,
a large snot bubble sometimes appears
attached to the nose of a character
whos fast asleep.
An open-ended cross formed by
four little V-shapes can appear on the
temple or over the head of an angry
character, implying that the characters
veins are bulging.
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A Manga Primer
Sound effects
and speech
Ambient sounds and the onomatopoeic
representation of particular actions or
events are just as much a part of the art
as the people, places and things depicted
in manga, with the size of the sound
effects and their position on the page
determining the strength and direction
of the sound. Consider them as being
like the zap! or kapow! of Western
comics, but on a more frequently used
scale. In what is known as giseigo, all the
ambient noise in a particular scene, from
the quietest doki doki (representing a
heart beating) to the BUGOOOOOO
of a loud explosion, is given in simple
Japanese kana characters. A less familiar
concept are the sound effects that are in
reality silent, but used symbolically for
example, the shiiiiiiiiiiin that appears
behind a characters head at awkward
moments, or the hyoi hyoi and choi
choi of a dogs paw waving and tail
wagging, respectively. This type of sound
effect, known as gitaigo, is drawn in
both the simple alphabet of kana and
more complex kanji, and often denotes
a certain mood or condition. Harsh,
violent sounds can be drawn with sharp
angles to the characters, while softer,
gentler sounds are drawn with more
rounded characters.
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Anatomy of a Bloodbath:
the artisteditor relationship
Manga publishers have since the 1940s used talent competitions as a way to find
new artists from among their readership. From the 1960s it became an established
method of submitting work for publication, with professional manga creators judging
the competitions. These days, however, publishers can no longer rely on that method
alone to grab the best up-and-coming talent, and so publishers scout artists who are
already working, whether as a self-published creator of djinshi (see p.26) or as an
apprentice under a professional mangaka.
Once an artist is taken on by a publisher, the next step is to assign an editor, who
performs a critical role in bringing out the best in the artist and ensuring his or her work
is consistent with the editorial philosophy of the publication while keeping them on
track to produce enough content for the particular magazines cycle. Communication
between artist and editor has become even more crucial since the larger publishers
created new divisions of labour in the 1960s, to speed up the processes for weekly
production of magazines. Its the editor who carries out many of the key steps in this
process: checking rough sketches; ordering, supervising and editing lettering and
typesetting; and taking responsibility for the manga creators meeting their deadlines
with publishers and printers. Editors are also responsible for determining the mix of
stories in a particular issue, how many pages of each story to run, and which artists
will be used to accomplish that mix. That responsibility can be overwhelming at times.
In extreme cases, an artist may sometimes have to produce upwards of eighty pages
weekly, to meet the demands of an audience eager to see the next instalments of their
favourite series. Editors have been known to confine an artist in a room with nothing
but food or to keep him or her hostage until the work is finished. And adding to
the pressure is the small matter of producing content that meets audience approval.
Shnen Jump, for instance, regularly runs an audience approval poll; if a new series
doesnt show signs of improving its standing within a ten-week period, its cancelled.
Many a manga carries omake (extra content) about the relationship between editors
and artists, with artists showing signs of going crazy as deadlines approach and the mean
editor breathes down their necks. With all of this work thrust upon them, artists rarely
generate series by themselves, often employing assistants to help them create the art.
These assistants could be associates, friends... or even parents. For instance, Mihona Fujii,
the author of GALS!, enlisted the help of her mother on that series... and then proceeded to
gently skewer her in a series of cartoons she called Anatomy of a Bloodbath.
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Categories
and genres:
sorting it all
out
When it comes to categorizing manga,
there are plenty of familiar genres you
can apply, from romances to actionadventures, comedies to horror stories,
sports stories and science fiction, plus
the less usual cooking, pachinko and
stories about day-to-day office work
any genre that can be conceived, theres
likely to be at least one series that covers
it. Mangaka are aware of the challenges of
each genre and adjust their styles accordingly: what constitutes high drama in a
love story aimed at teen girls, for instance,
is different from the drama in a highstakes mah-jongg match. But with manga
embracing all kinds of readership, genre
is only part of the story: the Japanese
categorize manga by first dividing series
into those targeted at either male or
female audiences, then splitting these
into two or three different age groups.
Thats not to say these categories are
set in stone. Many of the categories
covered in this section, and especially
the main four shjo (for young girls
and teens), shnen (for young boys and
teens), seinen (older males) and josei
(older females) offer series with a
broader-ranging appeal. Readers often
pick and choose manga from various
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Sh#nen manga
The target audience for shnen manga
may be boys from early elementary
school to their late teens, but its appeal is
probably the widest reaching, attracting
female as well as older fans. Its also
mangas oldest genre, with representative works ranging from Osamu Tezukas
earliest successes to modern-day hits
like Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist and One
Piece. The most successful properties can
generate considerable spin-off profits,
from anime adaptations, toys, videogames and various collectible trinkets.
Shnen properties are, in fact, the most
likely to be animated. At over 38 percent
of the market, its the largest category of
manga in Japan, where the bestselling
shnen magazines, Shueishas Weekly
Shnen Jump and Kodanshas Weekly
Shnen Magazine, regularly shift more
than 2 million copies a week each. In
English-speaking markets, its shnen,
along with shjo manga, thats drawn in
the majority of fans over the past decade.
Exactly what gives shnen its
universal appeal can be summed up
by the results of a survey conducted by
Weekly Shnen Jump soon after it began
publishing in 1968. Young readers were
asked for the word that most warmed
their hearts, what they placed as the first
priority in their lives, and what made
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Bleach
Tite Kubo; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (US, UK),
Madman (Aus); ser Weekly Shnen Jump
(2001); vols ongoing; age 13+
Tite Kubo, influenced by the supernatural
creatures in Shigeru Mizukis GeGeGe no Kitar
and the weaponry and battle sequences in
Knights of the Zodiac/Saint Seiya (see p.146),
created an action-packed tale of souls and swords
that has become one of the most popular shnen
titles worldwide and earned a Shogakukan
Manga Award in 2005. Ichigo Kurosaki is a newly
inducted Soul Reaper who must guard those he
loves, help good wandering spirits find eternal
peace and defend against Hollows, evil spirits
that prey upon the psychic energy of humans.
Kubos strengths are in developing characters
whose outer appearances often mask their true
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Captain Tsubasa
Yoichi Takahashi; pub Shueisha (Jp); ser
Weekly Shnen Jump (198188); vols 37
A story that embraces many key shnen
manga elements the power of friendship and
teamwork, characters with fantastic special
abilities, hard work and a determination to
succeed paying off in the long run within
the framework of one of the worlds most
popular sports, football (soccer). When just
over a year old, Tsubasa Ozora was saved from
an oncoming bus by clutching onto a football.
Now an elementary school student, he dreams
of one day winning the FIFA World Cup with the
Japanese team. He gets help from the friends
he meets along the way and a mentor
in Brazilian football star Roberto Hongo. While
the series has never appeared in English, there
have been successful Italian and Spanish
translations.
Rurouni Kenshin
Nobuhiro Watsuki; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz
(US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser Weekly Shnen
Jump (199499); vols 28; age 16+
This series, set in the midst of Japans Meiji period
in 1878, follows a former government assassin,
Hitokiri Battsai, who has foresworn violence
and changed his name to Himura Kenshin. All he
wants to do is retire in peace, but when there are
old enemies, corrupt revolutionaries and a dirty
past to confront, the battles seem unlikely to
end. Unlike other tales of wandering swordsmen
such as Blade of the Immortal, Lone Wolf and Cub
and Vagabond (see pp. 94, 147 and 188), Watsuki
has domestic squabbles between Kenshin and
kendo instructor Kamiya Kaoru providing lighthearted moments amongst the battles. Watsukis
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Yakitate!! Japan
Takashi Hashiguchi; pub Shogakukan (Jp),
Viz (US, UK); ser Shnen Sunday (2002);
vols ongoing; age 16+
What Iron Wok Jan (see p.142) does for cooking
in general, Yakitate!! Japan does specifically
for breadmaking, transforming the simple act
of food preparation into flashy high-drama
competition. Earnest young hero Kazuma Azuma
possesses the Hands of the Sun, which help
him produce perfect loaves of bread. His goal in
life is to make a bread that will put Japan on the
map never mind that getting people to eat
bread instead of rice is a challenge in itself. The
manga is packed with puns (the Japanese word
for bread is pan, hence Kazumas goal is to make
Japan, or Japanese bread) and memorable
characters, such as Kazumas former swordsmanturned-baker rival.
Seinen manga
To borrow a term from Ed Chavez at
Mangacast, seinen manga is manly
manga for manly men. If shnen manga
is all about action, then seinen manga
is where characters take action to the
extreme. Older males are the target
audience, after all, demanding a more
mature style of story, the equivalent
of an R-rated movie, with more frank
depictions of violence and sex. Moral
conundrums are no longer good versus
evil affairs, but rendered in many shades
of grey. The stories are grounded more
in reality, whether its a historical drama,
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A Manga Primer
Chobits
CLAMP; pub Kodansha (Jp), Tokyopop
(US, UK, Aus); ser Weekly Young Magazine
(200002); vols 8; age 16+
The front cover of the original Japanese edition of Chobits volume 1 showcases
CLAMPs gorgeous character artwork.
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Initial D
Shuichi Shigeno; pub Kodansha (Jp),
Tokyopop (US, UK, Aus); ser Weekly Young
Magazine (1995); vols ongoing; age 13+
The Initial D manga and its subsequent anime
adaptation accomplished in Japan what The Fast
and the Furious film franchise accomplished in the
West: a glorification of the adrenaline-pumping,
high-stakes underground street-racing culture
with enough hardcore racing detail to satisfy
aficionados. The series appears at first glance
to be a standard shnen story complete with
escalating battle structure: Takumi Tak Fujiwara,
a teen with natural race-driving talent, rises from
humble tofu delivery boy to street-racing legend
in the mountain passes of Japan. But theres a
realistic edge to the racing sequences, and the
occasional focus on Takumis relationships has a
sensitive touch.
Sh#jo manga
Shjo manga, aimed squarely at teenage
girls, is often stereotyped as the home
of unabashedly sappy romances
featuring invariably beautiful characters.
Countless heroines usually spunky,
independent high school girls (high
school begins at age fifteen in Japan)
manage either by accident or through
some convoluted scheme to manoeuvre
themselves straight into the arms of
the hottest guy in school. If the girl is
extremely lucky (or unlucky), shell be
at the centre of a whole group of hot
guys, with a love triangle or larger love
polygon the inevitable result. Chances
are good that shell end up with the guy
of her dreams, and his identity is often
blatantly telegraphed by less experienced
artists. Often these stories have a fashion
show sensibility, too, with characters
showing off the artists clothing design
through frequent close-ups.
Finding true love is by no means all
that shjo manga is about, though, as
it offers many of the same genres as
shnen manga. Science fiction? While
not as common today, many early
shjo artists tackled such stories, with
such examples as Moto Hagios They
Were Eleven (see box opposite) and
Keiko Takemiyas To Terra (see p.186)
among them. Sports? Theres Mitsuba
Takanashis Crimson Hero, about a girl
who shuns the traditional Japanese
lifestyle at her parents restaurant, opting
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Kodocha
Miho Obana; pub Kodansha (Jp),
Tokyopop (US, UK); ser Ribon (199498);
vols 10; age 13+
Following a well-worn shjo premise, initial
animosity between two characters fades over
time as they get to know each other better,
eventually giving way to friendship and romance.
The players here are Sana, an ever-cheerful
eleven-year-old TV star, and Akito, a sullen boy
who often causes trouble in her class. Obanas
attention to detail on a visual and emotional
level makes her series stand out, however. Take
Sanas mother, who wears elaborate headdresses,
miniature playgrounds in which the chipmunk
that lives in her hair can play. Emotionally, heres
a world in which nothing can be taken at face
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Josei manga
Just as seinen manga is the more mature,
realistic relation to shnen manga, so
josei manga is to shjo. Josei is a much
smaller category, though, comprising
under seven percent of the Japanese
market. Its also a relative newcomer,
establishing itself in the late 1970s and
early 80s with the creation of such
anthologies as Shueishas You, Kodanshas Be Love and Shogakukans Big
Comic for Lady, designed to appeal to
female office assistants in their twenties
and thirties the first women to have
grown up with manga and entered
the workforce, and a new audience for
manga publishers to tap.
As with seinen, josei are grounded
in more realistic situations. Out, too,
go the sparkly eyes and dream-like
wispy backgrounds of shjo, in favour
of less idealized characters and more
expressive artistic styles. Meanwhile,
the romantic relationships portrayed
in josei manga tend to go beyond shy,
giggly high school crushes and delve
right into the sexual realm. The heroines
of josei are determined women who
know exactly what they want in life, after
all, even if they have to go on some sort
of spiritual or physical journey to find
their true calling. These women also
regularly confront issues ranging from
overbearing mothers-in-law to sexual
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Dolis
Maki Kusumoto; pub Shodensha (Jp), Tokyopop (US, UK, Aus); ser Feel Young (1998);
vols 1; age 16+
The first thing that grabs you about Dolis is its
appearance: simply drawn characters, sparse
layouts with words often floating through
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Happy Mania
Moyoco Anno; pub Shodensha (Jp), Tokyopop (US, UK); ser Feel Young (19952001);
vols 11; age 18+
As a heroine, 24-year-old Shigeta is far from
perfect. She drifts from job to job, sleeps with
the wrong men, and never seems to get any
further in her quest for love and happiness. But
in this complex, contemporary romance, there
are no easy answers. Even her best friend Fuku,
a steadying presence and voice of reason, has
relationship problems in the form of an unfaithful
partner. And then theres poor Takahashi, whos in
love with Shigeta but always gets passed over in
favour of her crush of the moment.
Nana
Ai Yazawa; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US,
UK), Madman (Aus); ser Cookie (2); vols
ongoing; age 18+
Despite both being twenty years old and having
the same name, Nana Komatsu and Nana
Osaki couldnt be more different. Komatsu is a
nave, middle-class girl, Osaki a world-weary
rocker who was abandoned by her parents and
expelled from high school. Their lives come
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sexuality at a time when such discussions were still taboo for women.
Shnen-ai manga didnt fade until
the early 1980s, around the same time
the yaoi djinshi movement emerged:
amateur artists taking the brotherly
bonds seen in popular shnen manga
such as Captain Tsubasa and Knights of
the Zodiac, and transforming them into
explicitly romantic relationships. The
term yaoi combined the first syllables
in the Japanese phrase yamanashi,
ochinashi, iminashi (no peak, no point,
no meaning) and thats what these
djinshi contained: suggestive sequences
and explicit sex with no real attempt at
telling a story. The movement rekindled
an interest in telling original stories, and
professional publications returned to the
genre in the late 1980s under the new
label of boys love manga which in
Japan today describes both manga and
djinshi.
Regardless of the terminology, these
stories have remained popular in Japan.
Its thought that part of the appeal is
the freedom given the mangaka to play
with relationship roles. Traditionally,
the Japanese man assumes the dominant
role in a relationship, with a woman
submissive to his needs, but in boys
love manga, the roles can be fluid and
changeable.
Western readers and publishers have
adopted yaoi as their catch-all term,
but whatever you call it, its clear the
genre has stirred the most fervent, vocal
fandom among female readers. Mainly
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J-Boy by Biblos
various; pub Biblos (Jp), Digital Manga
Publishing (US); ser n/a; vols 1; age 18+
This anthology featuring nineteen short stories
by eighteen yaoi creators is perfect for readers
who want to get a sampling of what yaoi is all
about without having to commit to a single
series. Stories range from the fairly innocent
(two boyfriends break up and then spend the
rest of the story figuring out that they probably
shouldnt have broken up) to the somewhat
obscene (a roving samurai teaches a dojo how to
embarrass an opponent through kinky sex) to the
downright kinky.
Yuri manga
The word yuri is short for yurizoku,
a term coined in 1971 by the editor of
a gay mens magazine who reasoned
that if gay men are barazoku, or the
rose tribe, then lesbians are the lily
tribe. Lesbians eventually dropped the
term in favour of rezubian, but the
word stuck to describe any popular
works, including manga, that contain
girl-loving-girl content, whether the
target audience is lesbians or straight
women or men.
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Maria-sama ga Miteru
Oyuki Konno (text), Satoru Nagasawa
(art); pub Shueisha (Jp); ser Margaret; vols
ongoing
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Ricatte Kanji!?
Rica Takashima; pub Michi Publishing/Terra
Publications (Jp), ALC Publishing (US, UK,
Aus); ser Phryne/Anise (19952004); vols 1
Written as a response to all of those tragic yuri
series in science-fiction settings, this story ends
up being quite refreshing in its frank, cheerful,
depiction of the lesbian community in Tokyo.
Rica is a college student whos out of the closet
but remains shy and inexperienced, while Miho
is an art school student. When the two meet in
Nichome, the gay and lesbian district of Tokyo,
they hit it off and, with a bit of shy uncertainty
throughout, make the transition into becoming a
full-fledged, rather cute couple.
Strawberry Panic!
Sakurako Kimino (story), Namuchi Takumi
(art); pub MediaWorks (Jp), Seven Seas (US);
ser Dengeki Gs Magazine (200507); vols
2; age 16+
Take Maria-sama ga Miteru and infuse it with a
heavy dose of yuri-based parody (which likely
went over the heads of the audience to which
the manga was targeted). What emerges is an
over-the-top romp through many yuri conventions, revolving around the premise of a group
of girls attending one of three schools and the
lesbian love interests that develop around their
interactions.
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A Manga Primer
Hentai manga
Every pop culture outlet has some little
corner where sex reigns supreme. In
manga, that place is called hentai, the
category that brings to mind tentacle
monsters, fairies having sex with
mutant insects and alien rape. Japans
more relaxed attitude towards sex in the
mainstream media, coupled with these
stereotypes, has led to the misperception in some quarters that manga equals
porn. But while its true that seinen and
josei titles deal with sex quite openly
(see previous sections in this chapter),
they shouldnt be confused with hentai
or ero manga.
Hentai manga in Japan is more like
hardcore pornography, in that its widely
consumed but rarely spoken about, and
encompasses all sorts of festishistic
and niche interests. That said, you can
blame the bizarre depictions of sexual
acts mentioned above on the inventiveness of artists in evading censorship.
Article 175 of the Japanese penal code,
originating in 1907, mandates imprisonment for distributors and consumers
of obscene writings and artwork, a
term that was subsequently taken to
mean stimulating sexual desire. In
the decades since, the ruling has been
interpreted to mean that depicting sex
was okay, but depicting realistic sexual
acts between two people and specifically pubic hair and genitalia was not.
And so from the publication of the first
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Akira
Katsuhiro tomo; pub Kodansha (Jp), Dark Horse (US, UK, Aus); ser Young
Magazine (198290); vols 6; age 16+
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Ashita no J#
Tetsuya Chiba; pub Kodansha (Jp), no English translation; ser Shnen
Magazine (196873); vols 20
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Astro Boy
Osamu Tezuka; pub Kobunsha(Jp), Dark Horse (US, UK); ser Shnen (195268);
vols 23
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Azumanga Daioh
Kiyohiko Azuma; pub MediaWorks (Jp), Yen Press (US, UK); ser Comics Dengeki
Daioh (19992002); vols 4; age 13+
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Banana Fish
Akimi Yoshida; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (UK, US); ser Bessatsu Shjo Comic
(198591); vols 19; age 16+
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Barefoot Gen
Keiji Nakazawa; pub Shueisha (Jp), Last Gasp of San Francisco (US, UK, Aus);
ser Weekly Shnen Jump (197374); vols 10
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Battle Royale
Koushun Takami (text), Masayuki Taguchi (art); pub Akita Publishing (Jp),
Tokyopop (UK, US); ser Young Champion (200005); vols 15; age 18+
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Black Jack
Osamu Tezuka; pub Akita Shoten (Jp), Vertical (US); ser Shnen Champion
(197383); vols 17
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The unorthodox Black Jack, taking on the patients no other doctor will touch,
though always on his own terms.
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Cardcaptor Sakura
CLAMP; pub Kodansha (Jp), Tokyopop (UK, US), Madman (Aus); ser Nakayoshi
(19962000); vols 12
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CLAMP
Manga artist collective: Satsuki Igarashi (1969), Nanase Ohkawa (1967), Tsubaki
Nekoi (1969), Mokona (1968)
CLAMP which means a pile of potatoes, according to the artists is mangas
equivalent of a rock band that started o playing in the garage and ended up
churning out chart-topping global hits. Fans rattle o their names as easily as an
earlier generation would those of John, Paul, George and Ringo; and about six
thousand fans waited hours at Anime Expo 2006 in California to see them make their
US anime convention debut.
So it wasnt altogether unexpected when the core four of the all-female collective
did the rock-star thing of changing their names for their fifteenth anniversary celebration in 2004. As de facto group spokeswoman Ohkawa explained, the group simply
wanted to try out new names. So Mokona Apapa dropped half of her name because
it sounded too immature for her liking; Mick Nekoi changed her first name to Tsubaki
because she was tired of having people comment that her name was similar to that
of Mick Jagger; Ohkawa changed her name to Ageha to go along with the others, but
has since returned to her original Nanase; and Satsuki Igarashi changed her name by
using dierent Japanese characters to write it.
While their breakthrough mainstream hit was RG Veda in 1989, the groups working
relationship began earlier as an artists circle producing amateur manga, or djinshi, at
Japans premier showcase for amateur manga talent, Comic Market (aka Comiket). The
group was bigger back then, with as many as eleven women filling their ranks at one
point. Of those who have left, the only ex-CLAMP member to have made an impact on
the Western market is Tamayo Akiyama, whom Tokyopop marketed as an ex-CLAMP
member with the hope that it would boost sales of her books. The groups signature
works in those days were the CLAMP Presents djinshi, in which they parodied
popular series like Captain Tsubasa and Knights of the Zodiac, as well as lesser-known
series and even live-action movies.
Its their ability to produce work catering to a wide range of dierent audiences
that has continued to make CLAMP so successful. Popular works have included such
disparate series as Angelic Layer (shnen), Chobits (seinen), Cardcaptor Sakura and
Magic Knight Rayearth (both shjo for younger age groups), X/1999 (shjo for older
teens) and Legal Drug (shnen-ai). Each series features an art style tailored for its
audience; the art in Angelic Layer, for instance, emphasizes action sequences and
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speed lines, while X/1999 is filled with images of beautiful boys, elegant girls and
backgrounds of feathers flying everywhere. This willingness to adapt has granted
them a good deal of creative flexibility; as Ohkawa told Timothy R. Lehmann in
MANGA: Masters of the Art, publishers often meet with them, lay out the basic target
audience for the series, and then let CLAMP take it from there. Ohkawa is the one
who determines the rough story, while the others flesh out the ideas and design the
characters and settings.
Several US publishers have benefited from the sales bump that a CLAMP series has
provided, including Tokyopop (which received the lions share of CLAMP work during
the manga boom of the early 2000s), Viz (X/1999), ADV (Kobato), and Del Rey (Tsubasa
Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic). Dark Horse is the latest publisher hoping to benefit
from the CLAMP cachet, with a series of mangettes that were unnamed at the time
of writing.
Clover
pub Kodansha (Jp), Dark Horse (US); ser
Amie (199799); vols Jp 4 (suspended),
US 1; age 16+
Coming o the success of Cardcaptor Sakura,
Clover was a visually rather simple, spare
work by comparison. Yet if anything, CLAMP
approached this series with an even greater
attention to detail, distilling the artwork to
elements cast in black and white and arranging
those elements on the page in a cinematic style
that often breaks away from the traditional
panel-grid format. What results is a story that is
at turns starkly beautiful and violent, a cyberpunk tale with similarities to Akira but with an
edgy shjo sensibility.
In a country ruled by powerful psychics
known as Wizards, the Clover Leaf Project
rates and segregates children based on their
latent powers. The most powerful, Three-Leaf
and Four-Leaf Clovers, are promptly isolated
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CLAMP cont.
School, a sprawling, five-point campus built by
the Imonoyama business conglomerate that
incorporates every level from kindergarten to
high school. (Its also a convenient common
setting in which CLAMP allowed many of their
djinshi-era characters to play.) The first series,
Man of Many Faces, featured Akira, a boy who
leads a double life as the youngest in a long
family line of mysterious thieves, and how
he falls in love with Utako after he escapes
into her room while fleeing the scene of one
of his thefts. Duklyon, CLAMPs spoof of the
tokusatsu (transforming costumed superhero) genre, features Kentaro and Takeshi as
costumed superheroes that battle a line-up
of bad guys that get progressively wackier as
the series progresses. The final series in the
trilogy, CLAMP School Detectives, is CLAMPs
take on the mystery genre. It brings back Akira
as the class treasurer together with two other
characters to solve mysteries: Nokoru, the
smartest student in school, and Suou, a martial
arts master.
Tsubasa Reservoir
Chronicle
pub Kodansha (Jp); Del Rey (US, UK); ser
Weekly Shnen Magazine (2004); vols
ongoing; age 13+
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xxxHolic
pub Kodansha (Jp), Del Rey (US, UK); ser
Weekly Young Magazine (2003); vols
ongoing; age 13+
While Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle takes a visceral,
action-adventure approach to its story, its
current crossover partner, xxxHolic, takes a more
emotional, ephemeral approach, spotlighting
CLAMPs most complex and elegant artwork
to date. High school student Kimihiro can see
demons and spirits, and its driving him crazy.
For help, he goes to a shop that grants wishes,
but in exchange the customer must surrender
something of equal value. The owner, the
mysterious witch Yuko, grants him his wish in
exchange for him becoming her assistant and
helping to grant other peoples wishes; joining
him on some of his tasks are Domeki, Kimihiros
calm, sarcastic classmate whom Kimihiro
considers to be a rival (although Domeki
couldnt care either way), and Kunogi, Kimihiros
love interest who inadvertently brings bad luck
to everyone except for her parents and Domeki.
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Case Closed /
Detective Conan
Gosho Aoyama; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (UK, US); ser Shnen Sunday
(1994); vols ongoing; age 16+
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Crying Freeman
Kazuo Koike (text), Ryoichi Ikegami (art); pub Shogakukan(Jp), Dark Horse
(US); ser Weekly Big Comic Spirits (198688); vols 9 (Jp), 5 (US); age 18+
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and eliminates foes outside the organization as well as other traitors within.
One would-be traitor, Bai-Ya Shan, the
granddaughter of Mother Tiger and
Father Dragon, initially plots a coup
dtat against Yo. Once shes defeated,
though, she becomes an ally to the
couple and the primary comic relief
in the series, for her insistence on
being little sister (though her height
and girth suggest anything but little)
and bodyguard for them, which means
often running into missions stark
naked.
As is fitting for a series centred on
neverending warfare between rival
syndicates, the body count rises steadily
from the first page and doesnt let up
until a few thousand pages later. Unlike
in shnen manga, theres no escalation in the powers of the rivals that Yo
faces, but rather constant violent action
throughout, broken up by frequent bouts
of passionate sex. Its unbridled 1980s
pulp action at its finest, establishing a
standard for manly romances that has
yet to be surpassed.
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Cyborg 009
Shtar Ishinomori; pub various (Jp), Tokyopop (US); ser various (196498);
vols Jp 36, US 10; age 13+
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Sh#tar# Ishinomori
Manga artist and anime/tokusatsu creator, 193898
Shtar Ishinomori may not be nearly as well known as Osamu Tezuka in the
Western world, but the contributions he made to the early development of manga
and Japanese pop culture conventions are undeniable. As one of the first of the new
breed of manga artists to emerge in the post-World War II Japanese manga market,
the career of Ishinomori (born Shtar Onodera in 1938; Ishinomori is a reference
to his home town) followed the same pattern as most other successful creators at
the time. His first published work was Nikyuu Tenshi in 1954, a short story that caught
the attention of Osamu Tezuka, who invited Ishinomori to assist him with Astro Boy.
On graduating from high school in 1956, Ishinomori did just that, contributing to
what would later become Astro Boys Electro story arc. His work would show the
influence of Tezukas style.
Where Ishinomori would make his own mark and establish himself as the King of
Manga would be in developing superhero and supergroup archetypes, first in manga
and eventually gravitating towards anime and tokusatsu (live-action superhero) series.
His characterization of the superpowered hero with an emotional flaw, first seen in
Cyborg 009 (see p.106), would manifest itself in adapted tokusatsu series such as Kamen
Rider and Kikaider. With their elaborate costumes and transformations, these series in
turn fuelled interest in Ishinomoris manga properties, which were often turned over to
other artists to maximize production.
Ishinomori died from heart failure a few days after his sixtieth birthday. Shortly
afterwards, the Guinness Book of World Records posthumously recognized him as the
comics creator who had generated the most output in his lifetime, with more than
128,000 pages produced. About 10,000 of those pages were devoted to an informational manga, Manga Nihon no Rekishi (A Manga History of Japan), which has never
been translated.
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Kamen Rider
pub Sun Comics (Jp); vols 4
The first of Ishinomoris manga to go the
tokusatsu route, Kamen Rider is the story of
Takeshi Hongo, a human altered by the evil
secret society Shocker but who managed to
escape before he could be brainwashed. Now
with the ability to transform into Kamen Rider,
Takeshi must turn on his evil creators and save
the world. Ishinomoris manga diverged from
the live-action series in that Hongo actually
was killed by twelve Shocker Riders, but the
blow suered by one of the Riders knocked
some sense back into him, and he took over
the Kamen Rider mantle.
Japan Inc.
pub Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Jp), University of California Press (US); vols 1
Back in the heady days of the Japanese
bubble economy, American businesspeople
wanted insight into just what was making this
successful economy tick. And so this manga
was created, to cover the main economic
issues from rising oil prices to banking
globalization in an entertaining style. The
bubble may have burst three years after this
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Skull Man
Kazuhiko Shimamoto; pub Media Factory
(Jp), Tokyopop (US); vols 7
In the original, hundred-page story published
in 1970, Skull Man was one of mangas first
antiheroes, a man willing to sacrifice innocent
peoples lives if it meant taking a step towards
his own goals. Kazuhiko Shimamoto resurrected the character in 1997 at the behest
of an increasingly ill Ishinomori, receiving
copies of the proposed story and plot notes.
This story follows Tatsuro Kagura, an adopted
son seeking revenge against the people who
killed his birth parents. Little does Tatsuro
realize that the person who killed them was
his grandfather and that for the past few
years, said grandfather has been raising his
younger sister as well. All the while, he must
also fight o shape-shifting creatures created
by scientific experiments gone horribly wrong.
The completed modern series, while criticized
for having an unsatisfying ending, successfully
expands on Ishinomoris original story while
keeping its essence intact.
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Death Note
Tsugumi Ohba (text), Takeshi Obata (art); pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (UK, US),
Madman (Aus); ser Shnen Jump (200306); vols 12; age 16+
ood-versus-evil morality
tales quickly get dull.
Besides, the world doesnt
usually operate in black and white:
innumerable, subtle shades of grey is
more like it. Its in this grey area that
Death Note dwells, a series whose
ambiguous morality is embodied by
its main character, seventeen-year-old
Light Yagami. One of the top high-school
students in the country, Light is feeling
bored when he spots a notebook on the
ground and takes it home with him. As it
turns out, the notebook is a Death Note,
used by the shinigami, or death gods, to
determine the time and circumstances
of peoples death (see box opposite). This
particular notebook was the property of
the mischievous shinigami Ryuk; just as
bored as Light, hes curious to see what
will happen to the book when it falls into
human hands. Light is permitted to use
the Death Note to kill people, but theres
a catch: when his own name is written in
the book, he is fated to suffer an eternity
of terror and torment in a limbo that is
neither in heaven nor hell.
In spite of that warning, Light takes
up the challenge. For his first, tentative
step, he targets a criminal he sees on TV,
who has taken several people hostage in
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Rule to a kill
To list all of the rules and regulations involved in the proper use of a Death Note
requires a book in itself: licensed Death Note replicas contain forty pages worth of
rules gathered from throughout the manga as well as the anime series. These, then, are
the first four rules, governing principles upon which the rest build:
The human whose name is written in a note will die.
A note will not take eect unless the writer has the persons face in their mind
when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be
aected.
If the cause of death is written within forty seconds of writing the persons name,
it will happen.
If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the
next six months and forty seconds.
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Dr. Slump
Akira Toriyama; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (UK, US, Aus); ser Shnen Jump
(198084); vols 18; age 13+
ny English-speaking manga
fan will be familiar with
Dragon Ball; theyre less
likely to have come across Akira Toriyamas previous series, Dr. Slump, a showcase
for the artists comedic skills thats been
slower to reach a Western audience.
When a mangaka names two of his
core characters after different types
of Japanese rice cakes, its likely a
sign that hes crossing over into zany
shnen territory. In this case, Dr. Senbei
Norimaki and his robot girl Arale were
set up to deliver a classic comedy series.
Toriyama never makes clear why
Senbei, an otherwise brilliant inventor
who goes by the nickname of Dr.
Slump because he hasnt created
anything of note lately, was inspired
to create Arale. Maybe he just wanted
company around the house; maybe it
was to satisfy his continual craving to
invent stuff. Or maybe its because he
needed a tool to spy on buxom junior
high school teacher Ms Yamabuki. In
any case, what he ends up creating is
a humanoid robot... who, when fully
assembled, immediately starts pointing
out all of her makers design flaws, like
giving her a flat chest, blurry vision that
requires glasses to correct, and leaving
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Doraemon
Fujiko F. Fujio; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Shogakukan English (UK, US, Aus); ser
various magazines (196996); vols Jp 45+, US, UK, Aus 10
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Dragon Ball
Akira Toriyama; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (UK, US), Chuang Yi (Aus); ser Shnen
Jump (198495); vols 42 (released as 16-vol Dragon Ball and 26-vol Dragon Ball
Z in US, UK, Aus); age 13+
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Fruits Basket
Natsuki Takaya; pub Hakusensha (Jp), Tokyopop (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser
Hana to Yume (19982006); vols 23; age 13+
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Fullmetal Alchemist
Hiromu Arakawa; pub Square Enix (Jp), Viz (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser
Shnen Gangan (2001); vols ongoing; age 13+
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Hagane no RenkinJutsushi vol. 16 2007 Hiromu Arakawa/SQUARE ENIX. First published in Japan in 2007 by SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
English translation rights arranged with SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. and VIZ Media, LLC.
The brothers Elric still dream of a day when they will be able to recover their
flesh and blood bodies.
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Fushigi Yugi:
The Mysterious Play
Yuu Watase; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser Shjo
Comic (199296); vols 18; age 16+
ell-written
books
have the ability to
whisk readers off to
fantastic realms in the virtual sense,
anyway. No one expects to be literally
sucked into an alternate world, which
is exactly what happens to Miaka Yuuki
and her friend, Yui Hongo. Both girls are
cramming in order to get into Jonan High
School, the top-rated school in their city,
and while Yui has a good chance, Miaka
is more likely to win a competitive eating
contest (her seemingly endless appetite
is a running joke throughout the series).
Then, while theyre studying in the local
library, an earthquake hits, knocking
them into a room with a door clearly
marked DO NOT ENTER and jostling
a book, The Universe of the Four Gods, to
the floor. Herein contains the tale of a
young lady and her quest to gather the
seven constellations of Suzaku together,
the introduction reads. And if you, the
esteemed reader, should read to the
storys end, the spell contained within
this book shall bestow upon you the
powers of the heroine, and grant you
your wish. For indeed the moment the
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Yuu Watase
Manga artist and writer, 1970
Thanks to some heavy marketing by Viz, who picked up on the popularity of Fushigi
Yugi and ran with it, Yuu Watase a pen name, written with kanji characters taken
from the names of some of her male characters is one of the more recognizable
names in the Western shjo manga market today. Her popularity was such that she
was invited to Anime Expo in Los Angeles in 1998 even before her work was formally
published in the US, drawing a sizeable crowd.
Of course, the fact that she also draws what are considered some of the prettiest
pretty boys in shjo manga doesnt hurt, either. Its those boys, along with her
penchant for weaving elements of Chinese, Japanese and Western mythology into her
stories and an uncanny understanding of just what girls want in their romances, that
have kept her readers coming back to her stories time and again.
Manga and drawing have been lifetime loves for Watase, who admitted in an
interview published in the first Fushigi Yugi art book that she was a very strange
child, foregoing the usual childhood games and finding friends in favour of coming
up with new manga stories. She debuted in 1989 with the sixteen-page short story
Pajama de Ojama (An Intrusion in Pajamas), a cute love story based on a legend
that if a girl likes a boy, she should take a picture of him, stick it under her pillow
at night, and try to wear the same pyjamas he wears when she goes to bed, the
result being that shell get to spend seven minutes after midnight with him. In 1998
she was honoured with the Shogakukan Manga Award for shjo manga for Ceres:
Celestial Legend.
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Absolute Boyfriend
pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser Shjo Comic (200305);
vols 6; age 16+
Watase takes the classic love robot romantic
comedy and reworks it from the girls point of
view. Riiko has never been lucky with love, so
when a Kronos Heaven salesman gives her a
card for a website that sells love androids, she
takes advantage of the customize your own
boyfriend feature and orders one. But she
forgets to return Night after the three-day trial
period, meaning she now owes Kronos Heaven
a cool 100 million. The salesman allows her to
keep Night on the condition that she helps them
collect data on how women think, in an eort to
perfect future models. Riiko has to deal now with
her growing love for Night and his for her.
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Imadoki
pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US, UK); ser
Shjo Comic (200001); vols 5; age 16+
Tampopo Yamazaki thinks shes fulfilled
her lifelong dream by getting into Meio, a
prestigious high school in Tokyo. Shes brought
back to reality, though, when she realizes
that shes a nobody there, shut out from the
complex network of family connections and
wealth that defines the schools social order. Yet
Tampopo isnt one to give up easily; she starts
a gardening club, and slowly begins attracting
the attention of people like Koki Kugyo, a boy
who initially shunned her but shares her love
for gardening. The question is whether class
dierences can be set aside for whats turning
out to be a budding romance.
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forces the sun to go supernova, obliterating the entire solar system. Still, theres
something within Tetsuro that fascinates
Ankoku no Shihaisha, the same youthful
determination to keep the memory of
Earth alive that soothes Maetel and
prompts Captain Harlock, whenever
their paths cross, to offer encouragement.
However, Maetel and Tetsuro never
do reach Eternity at least, in the pages
of this manga. The final frame is a tight
shot of Maetels eyes, where she tells
Tetsuro: Three-Nine will take you to the
great being who controls light and time...
Darqueens eternal opposite! From there,
your new journey will begin, taking
you beyond light, beyond time to the
very reason you were born! Perhaps
Matsumoto never meant for the epic to
end, leaving the reader to decide whether
Tetsuro makes it to Eternity or not. And
perhaps some manga are never meant
to have neatly wrapped up endings, left
forever to drift among the stars.
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Leiji Matsumoto
Manga artist and anime director, 1938
While still a teenager, the artist formerly known as Akira Matsumoto won the best new
artist contest in Manga Shnen in 1953 for his story Mitsubachi no Bouken (Adventures
of a Honeybee). He had decided to skip college in favour of a full-time career as an artist,
and worked on a number of shjo series between 1953 and 1971. It wasnt fulfilling work,
though, and these days its hard to name any of Matsumotos early shjo titles.
During these formative years in the industry, he met and married fellow shjo
manga artist Miyako Maki, who would go on to create the Japanese equivalent of the
Barbie doll, Licca-chan. But it wouldnt be until 1971 that he would get his second big
break with the series Otoko Oidon (I Am a Man), a slice-of-life story about a student
fresh out of high school struggling to get into college. Matsumoto won the Kodansha
Culture Award in the childrens manga category for that series in 1972.
Matsumoto was already dreaming of bigger worlds, however, and of ways to bring
them to life beyond the printed page. For like his contemporaries Osamu Tezuka and
Shtar Ishinomori, Matsumoto was fascinated by the animation work of Walt Disney
and Max Fleischer and longed to become involved himself, joining the production sta
of what would become one of the cornerstone anime series of the 1970s and the source
for the Star Blazers cartoon series in the US: Uchuu Senkan Yamato (Space Battleship
Yamato). The series success would spark a number of legal battles over its ownership.
Matsumoto handled the art design in his own unique style, tossing out many of the
original ideas that producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki had proposed. As a result, both men
have laid claim to the Yamato copyright over the years, and it wasnt until 2003 that the
matter was finally settled: Matsumoto got the conceptual art and character and ship
design, and Nishizaki got the Yamato name and the plot. His artistic style is unmistakeable, featuring pensive, willowy women, masculine heroes and elaborately rendered
machinery, whether its a spaceship or a World War II biplane.
Matsumotos Leijiverse is filled with recurring characters, including the beloved
Captain Harlock. In an interview in 2005, he described the characters as being like his
children. The good characters represent my own belief in what is good, he said. For
example, Captain Harlock. He lives freely under my flag; I am the kind of person who
would sacrifice my life to protect my family and friends. For the bad characters, I make
them as evil as possible, infuse them with traits that I find loathsome. I dont want to
populate my stories with half-baked villains.
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Matsumoto has also expanded his influence beyond traditional anime and manga.
He is the chairman of the Copyright Board of the Japan Cartoonists Association and
the Association of Copyright for Computer Software and has pushed for mechanisms
that prevent illegal copying of copyrighted works and campaigns to educate the
public. In 2003, Matsumoto collaborated with the French musical group Daft Punk on
Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, a series of anime music videos that
were eventually compiled and released as a feature on DVD. Since then he has also
moved into the realm of online comics; his latest project, Out of Galaxy: Gin no Koshika,
debuted in Japan via Nintendos WiiWare download service. While English subtitles are
available, Nintendo has not announced whether it will make this online manga available to English-language territories as well.
Senj# (Battlefield)
pub Shogakukan (Jp); ser Big Comic
(197378); vols 8
Less well known than his sci-fi stories is Matsumotos collection of short stories set in World
War II. The only one to be formally translated
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Genshiken
Kio Shimoda; pub Kodansha (Jp), Del Rey (US, UK); ser Afternoon (200205);
vols 9; age 16+
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A tribute to otaku: the front cover of the original Japanese first volume of
Genshiken.
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Golgo 13
Takao Saito; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US); ser Big Comic (1969); vols
ongoing; age 18+
he adventures of the
trained assassin Duke
Togo, better known as
Golgo 13, number more than four
hundred stories, filling thousands of
printed pages in Japan. Exposure in
Western markets may be more limited,
but you dont really need to read it all
to get a sense of what this assassin can
accomplish. The stories are all selfcontained, each with its own complex
network of relationships and real-world
intrigue, ready to be broken wide open.
In the world of Golgo 13, being a
target of the famed assassin means
youre marked for certain death. His skill
is such that sometimes he barely needs
to appear in the manga that bears his
name; all he has to do is show up in a
few frames, pull a trigger and bang his
target has joined the choir invisible.
But when the assassin has been
plying his craft for the better part of
four decades, making Golgo 13 one of
the oldest manga still in publication in
Japan today, all those brief appearances
add up to a rather impressive dossier.
If theres a conflict or conspiracy in the
world sometime in modern history,
chances are that the assassin played a
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days are spent lying underneath staircases lamenting his lot in life, smoking
cigarettes and peeking up girls skirts,
his nights at home with porn mags in a
bachelor-pad hovel.
Far from being the tough womanizer,
though, hes a rather sympathetic
22-year-old who hopes to make a decent
living and find some purpose in life.
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JoJos Bizarre
Adventure
Hirohiko Araki; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (US, UK); ser Weekly Shnen Jump
(19872004), Ultra Jump (2005); vols ongoing; age 16+
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Love Hina
Ken Akamatsu; pub Kodansha (Jp), Tokyopop (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser
Weekly Shnen Magazine (19982001); vols 14; age 16+
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Love Hina volume 1: which of the bevy of cute girls will find true love with
Keitaro?
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Love Roma
Minoru Toyoda; pub Kodansha (Jp), Del Rey (US); ser Afternoon (200205);
vols 5; age 16+
hen
MangaBlog,
Brigid
Alversons
daily roundup of
manga news and reviews, sought recommendations for a reader looking for slice
of life manga, several people suggested
Love Roma. And for good reason: Minoru
Toyodas first and only notable manga to
date portrays through simple, blocky
artwork the story of a humble high school
romance, where two students meet, fall in
love with each other with the encouragement of their circles of friends, and work
out the kinks along the way to develop a
solid relationship.
At the series core is the spirit of
manzai, a type of Japanese stand-up
comedy where a funny man, or boke,
says something ridiculous and a straight
man, or tsukkomi, tries (often in vain) to
correct him. Whenever Hajime Hoshino
and the target of his affection, Yumiko
Negishi, are out in public, whether at
school or out on a date, their conversations often turn into a virtual comedy
routine, with Yumiko often playing the
tsukkomi to Hajimes boke pronouncements and the people around them
acting like an audience, oohing, aaahing,
laughing and clapping at whatever
happens between the couple. This is all
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Lupin III
Monkey Punch; pub Futabasha (Jp), Tokyopop (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser
Weekly Manga Action (196772 14 vols, 197781 17 vols); age 16+
he manga exploits of
master
thief
Arsne
Lupin III resonated with
Japanese audiences across three decades
and spawned three anime TV series
plus numerous films and TV specials,
including one film, Castle of Cagliostro,
directed by famed anime director Hayao
Miyazaki. Not bad for a title that was
only supposed to be a three-month
contract project.
Yet aside from Miyazakis movie and
a short run for the anime adaptation on
Cartoon Network, Lupin III hasnt struck
the same chord in the West. Its not for
lack of trying: Tokyopop released Lupin
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Maison Ikkoku
Rumiko Takahashi; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US, UK); ser Big Comic Spirits
(198087); vols 15; age 16+
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Monster
Naoki Urasawa; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US); ser Big Comic Original (1994
2001); vols 18; age 16+
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Naruto
Masashi Kishimoto; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser Weekly
Shnen Jump (1999); vols ongoing; age 13+
o a generation of Western
manga fans who have
come of age in the past
seven years, Naruto is manga. The series
popularity in Japan, where more than
4,250,000 tankbon were sold in 2008, has
carried over elsewhere, with new volumes
regularly charting on USA Todays list of
the top 150 bestselling books. Viz, in an
effort to nudge the series closer to the
Japanese release schedule and discourage
the download of fan-scanned and translated chapters from the Internet, accelerated its release schedule of Naruto books
in the US, first in the autumn of 2007,
then again in early 2009.
Kishimotos character designs have
changed how contemporary audiences
view ninjas. These arent the ninjas stereotyped so often in the Western world,
the ones shrouded in black and wearing
masks, carrying around throwing stars,
knives and katana blades, skulking
around in the darkness and assassinating
targets at will. The ninjas of Naruto wear
normal clothes, headbands rather than
hoods, get hired to carry out missions
at least they still carry around throwing
stars, knives and katana blades.
Naruto is a mischievous teenager
when we first meet him, a Ninja Academy
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Oh My Goddess!
Ksuke Fujishima; pub Kodansha (Jp), Dark Horse (US, Aus), Titan Books (UK);
ser Afternoon (1988); vols ongoing; age 13+
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One Piece
Eiichiro Oda; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (US, UK, Aus); ser Weekly Shnen Jump
(1997); vols ongoing; age 13+
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Paradise Kiss
Ai Yazawa; pub Shodensha (Jp), Tokyopop (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser Zipper
(200004); vols 5; age 16+
igh-class fashion in a
series like this could
never be contained in
any run-of-the-mill manga anthology.
Leave it to a Japanese fashion magazine,
Zipper, to serve as the home for a manga
about a group of young designers... who
know theyre being featured in a manga
in a Japanese fashion magazine.
Paradise Kiss is nothing if not selfaware. Characters from one of Ai
Yazawas earlier manga series, the
untranslated Gokinjo Monogatari, make
cameo appearances (one even gets a
rather descriptive informational box
highlighting his appearance, in response
to which he promptly complains that the
author described him as a middle-aged
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Peach Girl
Miwa Ueda; pub Kodansha (Jp), Tokyopop (US, as Peach Girl and Peach Girl:
Change of Heart); ser Bessatsu Friend (19972004); vols 18; age 13+
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Courtesy of Kodansha Ltd
Momos blonde hair and tan mark her out as a ganguro, but Miwa Uedas witty
script shows theres much more to her than that.
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Phoenix
Osamu Tezuka; pub Osamu Tezuka (Jp, 196772), Asahi Sonorama (Jp,
197686), Kadokawa (Jp, 198688), Viz (US, UK); ser COM (196772), Manga
Shnen (197686), The Wild Age (198688); vols 12; age 16+
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Ranma 1/2
Rumiko Takahashi; pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US, UK, Aus); ser Weekly Shnen
Sunday (198796); vols 38; age 16+
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Rumiko Takahashi
Manga artist, 1957
Osamu Tezuka may be Japans most beloved manga artist, but when it comes to the
English-speaking market, that honour may well rest with Rumiko Takahashi. While her
first series translated for an American audience, Urusei Yatsura, may not have generated the sales numbers Viz had hoped for, subsequent releases, including Maison
Ikkoku, Ranma and her most recent series, Inuyasha, gained a sizeable readership.
Inuyasha, one of the series that benefited the most from the boom in translated
English manga, turned out to be so popular that Viz slapped yellow From the creator
of Inuyasha stickers on everything the company had in print by her.
Takahashis popularity isnt limited to the English-speaking market, of course. Virtually
everything shes touched has been turned into an anime series, including her shorter
Rumic Theater and Mermaid Saga stories, and shes the highest earning mangaka in
Japan. Yet back when she was attending high school in her hometown of Niigata, the
only drawing she did was in the margins of her notebook. Manga creation began as
nothing more than a hobby, but she grew serious about pursuing drawing as a career
while attending Japan Womens University in the mid-1970s. She enrolled for two years at
Gekiga Sonjuku, a manga school known for the demanding nature of its founder, Kazuo
Koike of Lone Wolf and Cub fame. Under Koike, she drew hundreds of pages and learned
the importance of showcasing interesting characters and letting them dictate the flow of
her stories. Studying at Koikes school would lead her to another mentor: horror manga
author Kazuo Umezu, under whom she would work as an assistant for two years.
Takahashi first published several short manga stories as part of the Japan Womens
University Manga Club in 1976, then decided against working at a conventional oce
job in favour of becoming a professional mangaka. It was a decision from which her
parents tried to dissuade her. Fortunately, her work caught the eye of the right people
at Shogakukan, who invited her to write a story for Shnen Sunday. That story was
Urusei Yatsura, which debuted in 1978 and began a publishing relationship with the
magazine that has lasted now for more than twenty years.
Since 1978, Takahashi has helped shnen and seinen manga find its sensitive side.
Romantic tension, sometimes blossoming into full-blown love, features in many of her
major works. This cross-pollination of romance and action, along with a healthy dose
of slapstick comedy and tense drama, has broadened her appeal among male and
female audiences alike both in Japan and around the globe.
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Inuyasha
One-Pound Gospel
Mermaid Saga
pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US, UK); ser
Shnen Sunday (198494); vols 4; age 16+
The influence of Kazuo Umezus horror
fantasies is evident in this story about a race of
mermaids who can grant eternal life to those
who kill them and eat their flesh but at a
horrific cost. Those who become immortal
continue to feel physical pain and also must
suer the emotional anguish of seeing their
loved ones age and die. Yuta, a 500-year-old
immortal, and his travelling companion Mana
wander Japan and help those cursed by the
mermaids powers.
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Urusei Yatsura
pub Shogakukan (Jp), Viz (US); ser Shnen
Sunday (197887); vols Jp 34, US 9 (cancelled); age 13+.
Takahashis first major hit series earned her
Shogakukans Best New Manga Artist award
and established her as a force on the manga
scene. Its an unusual story about a lecherous
teen, Ataru, who saves the Earth from invading
aliens only to be forced into a marriage with
the gorgeous tiger-striped-bikini-clad alien girl
Lum. The first few chapters can test your tolerance of slapstick humour and random gags,
but the series improves thanks to Takahashis
growing grasp of comic timing.
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Rose of Versailles
Riyoko Ikeda; pub Shueisha (Jp), Sanyusha (US); ser Margaret (197273);
vols Jp 10, US 2
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An image of Marie Antoinette from Ikedas 1970s manga forms the backdrop
for the Takarazuka theatres production of Rose of Versailles in Feburary 2006.
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Sailor Moon
Naoko Takeuchi; pub Kodansha (Jp), Tokyopop (US); ser Nakayoshi (199297);
vols 18; age 13+
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Slam Dunk
Takehiko Inoue; pub Shueisha (Jp), Gutsoon! Entertainment (US, 5 vols,
suspended), Viz (US), Madman/Chuang Yi (Aus); ser Shnen Jump (199096);
vols 31; age 13+
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Takehiko Inoue
Manga artist, 1967
Takehiko Inoues manga career to date has by and large been defined by two
distinct subjects: basketball and swordsmen. Considering one of Inoues hobbies is
playing basketball and his successful Slam Dunk (see p.182), Buzzer Beater and Real
all come out of that, the sports-themed manga make sense. The swordsmen theme
only emerged when he decided to take a break from basketball and his editor
handed him a novel about famed swordsman Musashi Miyamoto as a means to
relax. He had planned to stop drawing manga altogether, but a more serious series
focusing on the human condition, the stellar swordsman study Vagabond (see
p.188), resulted instead.
Inoue had a desire to draw since early childhood but felt coming out of high school
that he wasnt skilled enough to go into the fine arts, so instead took up writing; but
he carried on drawing and sent samples to the Shnen Jump rookie artist contest.
Around the same time he served as an assistant to Tsukasa Hojo, who was drawing the
classic series City Hunter, and learned the basics of drawing manga.
This experience paid o when, in 1988, Inoue earned the Osamu Tezuka Prize for
best new manga artist with his debut work, Kaede Purple. A short story about basketball, it was the foundation for what would become Slam Dunk and the award just the
first of a number Inoue has earned over the years for his various titles. Inoues next
professional series work was on Kazuhiko Watanabes Chameleon Jail, followed by his
own wildly popular Slam Dunk, which ran until 1996.
The distinguishing qualities of Inoues manga are his constantly evolving art style
and an impeccable sense of timing. His artistic talent grows considerably during Slam
Dunk, while in Vagabond the artist switched to a brush style midway through a story
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arc about Musashis main rival, Kojiro, because he felt he couldnt express emotions
properly with a simple pen-and-ink style. As for the timing, every one of his chapters
ends on a clihanger and slowly builds to a climax.
The translated version of Vagabond has been a consistent hit among older readers;
its characters even adorn the walls of the US flagship store of Japanese bookseller
Kinokuniya in New York City in a mural the artist drew for the store in 2007.
Buzzer Beater
Real
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To Terra
Keiko Takemiya; pub Asahi Sonorama (Jp), Vertical (US, UK); ser Manga Shnen
(197780); vols 3; age 13+
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Vagabond
Takehiko Inoue; pub Kodansha (Jp), Viz (US, UK), Madman (Aus); ser Morning
(1998); vols ongoing; age 16+
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Beyond
Manga
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Beyond Manga
Manga to
anime: page to
screen
Ever since Astro Boy first flew across the
TV screens of Japanese households in
1963, fulfilling Osamu Tezukas dream
of producing Japanese animation (which
would come to be known the world over
as anime), there has existed a certain
synergy between anime and manga.
Whenever a manga series breaks out and
begins to captivate a larger audience, the
chances of it becoming adapted into an
anime series grow. In fact, about sixty
percent of anime adaptations can trace
their origins directly to a successful
manga series. Often the anime series
becomes so popular that the manga is
overshadowed, as is the case with the now
classic anime Neon Genesis Evangelion
(see p.197).
In Western markets, the trend is
reversed to an extent, with most readers
first exposed to the corresponding anime
series on TV. The manga series Dragon
Ball, Sailor Moon, Naruto, Bleach, Death
Note, Fullmetal Alchemist and Inuyasha
all entered widespread public consciousness in this way, and its no secret that
manga series are marketed alongside
the anime whenever possible. Love Hina
(see p.150) has been one of the more
pervasive manga series in recent years
to have expanded onto multiple fronts,
including the requisite TV series (not
to mention the additional merchandise
Manga on TV
The most common manga-to-anime
transformation is the TV series. Most
manga adapted into anime series follow
the formula of 13-, 26- or 52-episode
seasons (based on the allotted schedule
on a given network). Some of the more
popular anime series air for several
seasons and the rare mega-success can
stretch into hundreds of episodes (see
Crayon Shin-chan on p.195). Individual
episodes clock in at about 25 minutes,
though shorter episodes have gained
popularity in the past few years. OVAs
(or OAVs) Original Video Animations are direct-to-video episodes that
are produced as an addendum to anime
series, or as special one-offs.
Considering manga are often produced
by individual artists, whereas anime
series are the work of multiple production
teams who may outsource some of the
animation, too its not surprising that
the manga and related anime series often
run to different production schedules.
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Simon Richmond
Manga on TV:
some highlights
Berserk
Kentaro Miura; pub Hakusensha (Jp), Dark
Horse (US); ser Young Animal; vols ongoing;
age 18+
A sign for Osamu Tezuka World in Kyoto, Japan, sporting the artists most
famous anime and manga characters.
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Crayon Shin-chan
Yoshito Usui; pub Futabasha (Jp), CMX (US);
ser Weekly Manga Action; vols ongoing;
age 18+
Shinnosuke Nohara, also known as Shin, is a
rather precocious five-year-old boy who hits on
women, pulls his pants down to do butt cheek
and Mr Elephant dances, and otherwise makes
the lives of his teachers, parents, friends and
even his dog a living hell in short, a Japanese
Bart Simpson. Shin-chan manages to inject
himself into any situation and wreaks havoc in
a way that only an innocent-looking kindergartener can.
Shin-chan has been a part of Japanese manga
readers lives for close to two decades now, but
the history of the English-language adaptations
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Beyond Manga
Excel Saga
Koshi Rikdo; pub Shnen Gahosha (Jp), Viz
(US); ser Young King OURs; vols ongoing;
age 13+
A battle is brewing over control of the city
of Fukuoka. On one side is the underground
organization ACROSS, led by Lord Ilpalazzo,
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Anime to
manga: screen
to page
Its inevitable that anything that stirs fans
into a tizzy will get a second go-round in
some form or another. Usually its manga
turned into anime, but just occasionally
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Project.hack 2002. First published in Japan in 2002 by KADOKAWA SHOTEN PUBLISHING CO., LTD., Tokyo.
Beyond Manga
.hack//Legend of the Twilight follows main characters Shugo and Rena as they
explore The World, the MMORPG at the centre of Project .hack (see p.205).
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Anime to manga:
some highlights
Di Gi Charat Theater:
Dejikos Summer Vacation
various; pub Broccoli Books (Jp, US); ser
From Gamers; vols 1
Di Gi Charat: Piyoko is
Number One!
Beyond Manga
Di Gi Charat
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Haruhi Suzumiya
Escaflowne Energists
Memories
The Melancholy of
Haruhi Suzumiya
Gaku Tsugano; pub Kadokawa Shoten (Jp),
Yen Press (US); ser Shnen Ace; vols ongoing; age 13+
The Melancholy of
Haruhi Suzumiya-chan
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Manga into
live action
Manga normally reach the screen
via animated adaptations, but there
are some select works where flesh
and blood actors have brought the
monochrome tales to life. A wide
variety of manga has made it into liveaction movies and TV series shnen
as well as shjo titles with varying
levels of success. There are far more
titles made in Japan and other Asian
companies than ever reach Englishspeaking audiences, however.
That might change, though, with a
batch of high-profile titles under development in Hollywood. Whether or not
these films ever make it has yet to be
seen its not the first flurry of interest
from US studios, after all. But with 2009s
Dragonball Evolution film, the recent
Transformers franchise and the revival
of Street Fighter on celluloid, anime
and manga properties do seem to be
following the trend of American comicbook heroes path to the cinema screen.
In particular, Leonardo DiCaprio is set
to produce live-action Akira and Ninja
Scroll films, Steven Spielberg is attached
to a live-action Ghost in the Shell, and
Cowboy Bebop looks set to blast off with
Keanu Reeves as the lead. Infamously,
Neon Genesis Evangelion was announced
in 2003 with a global production team
and concept art by Weta Workshop
(famous for The Lord of the Rings and
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King Kong). At the time of writing, development of this proposed trilogy was still
moving forward, keeping fans on tenterhooks.
Hollywood dreams are all well and
good, but on a smaller scale, several
Japanese live-action adaptations have
come to pass. Scoring a number-one
box-office smash was the Boys Over
Flowers (see opposite) live-action film.
Other titles to have reached the big
screen, albeit with limited releases in the
West, have been a trilogy of Death Note
movies, also released on DVD.
Smaller-screen live adaptations
can sometimes work better, as was
the case with Rumiko Takahashis
Maison Ikkoku (see p.156), which
spawned nearly one hundred anime
episodes beginning in 1986, although
a live-action movie the same year was
abysmal: badly acted, poorly scripted
and edited, and deviating significantly
from both the manga and anime. More
than twenty years later, TV Asahi
produced a couple of feature-length TV
dramas, cleverly set in the present with
flashbacks to the 1980s, that have been
far better received.
Nana (see p.72) is another manga to
have a successful anime series, plus (not
surprising considering the rock music
theme) soundtracks and tribute albums.
The 2005 live-action film and accompanying soundtrack led to a pan-Asian
Nana craze, grossing more than 4
billion in Japan; the sequel, however,
wasnt up to scratch.
LIve-action manga:
some highlights
Battle Angel Alita
Yukito Kishiro; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz (US);
ser Business Jump; vols 9; age 13+
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City Hunter
Tsukasa Hojo; pub Shueisha (Jp), Gutsoon!
(US); ser Weekly Shnen Jump; vols 35;
age 13+
In this popular shnen manga Ry Saeba is
one of the most efficient sweepers in Tokyos
Shinjuku district, a gun-for-hire working to rid the
city of its criminal elements. All anyone needs to
do to employ his services is write a message on a
chalkboard in Shinjuku Station and hell take the
case especially ones involving beautiful female
clients. Its a pity his pickup skills which often
involve the term mokkori (a Japanese sound
word that indicates an object rising quickly)
arent as finely honed as his crime-fighting skills,
which include a sixth sense for danger and keen
marksmanship. Thats probably why he needs
Kaori Makimura, the adopted sister of his dead
partner and friend, to keep him in line.
The manga spawned four anime series, two
OVAs, three specials, one animated film, and a
live-action film starring the legendary Jackie
Chan. Controversy surrounded the 1993 film
when Chan publicly denounced it (though it was
a success in Hong Kong) and called out director
Jing Wong in the press. Wong in turn took a shot
at Chan in his subsequent film.
In 1991, the Hong Kong film Saviour of the
Soul took elements from City Hunter by including
characters from the manga, but little of the plot
points. Mr Mumble in 1996 did the opposite
sticking close to City Hunters original conceit,
but changing the characters names. Recently
announced was a co-production between Fox
Television and South Korean SSD to produce a
new live-action adaptation.
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Videogames
and manga
The issues of source material, intellectual property and marketing savvy come
full circle in the case of videogames.
Successful manga/anime series all hope
to expand into more profit-generating
areas, whether its videogames, trading
cards or other merchandise. With
videogames, its not simply a case of
sticking a favourite character on a key
ring: theres a lot more at stake in terms
of time and cost, and so manga (and
anime) creators often play a major role in
the games industry. For example, Dragon
Ball creator Akira Toriyama designed
the characters for Dragon Quest one
of the most successful RPG videogame
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Videogames and
manga: some
highlights
.hack//Legend of the
Twilight
Tatsuya Hamazaki (story), Rei Izumi (art);
pub Kadokawa Shoten (Jp), Tokyopop (US,
UK); ser Comptiq; vols 3; age 13+
Project .hack (pronounced dot hack) is a microcosm of multimedia launched by producers
CyberConnect2 and Bandai in 2002. Project .hack
invaded multiple fronts including videogames,
card games, anime, novels, manga, and tons of
merchandise. This assault across geek culture
was a meta-contextual web gone wild, spearheaded by icons like Koichi Mashimo (famed
anime director of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor,
Sorcerer Hunters, Noir and Tsubasa Chronicles)
and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (character designs
best known for his work on Neon Genesis
Evangelion).
With the PlayStation2 game .hack//Infection
(the first of four) and the anime series .hack//
Sign, the world was introduced to The World a
fictional massively multiplayer online roleplaying
game (MMORPG). Players interact with The
World using virtual reality headsets and game
controllers. Most characters in the .hack franchise
are known only by their virtual avatars (game
characters) that exist within The World, but the
storylines also include their real world players as
characters. (Confused yet?)
Brain-meltingly complex, the
.hack world (including the sequel to
Project .hack, called .hack Conglomerate) has
spun off at least seven manga series and
specials, including what is considered the most
canonical and tied to the main storyline of
Project .hack .hack//Legend of the Twilight
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Disgaea
Arashi Shindo; pub Ichijinsha (Jp), Broccoli
Books (US); ser Comic Zero-Sum; vols 1;
age 13+
Character art for Flonne in Disgaea: The Hour of Darkness (developed by Nippon Ichi, published by Koei and Atlus USA, 2004)
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Disgaea 2: Cursed
Memories
Hekaton; pub ASCII Media Works (Japan),
Broccoli Books (US); ser Dengeki Maoh; vols
Jp ongoing, US 2 (cancelled); age 13+
Laharl is Prince of the Netherworld. When he
awakens from a two-year seed-sleep he finds his
father dead, and the throne empty. With the help
of his fathers servant Etna (a demon-girl) and
Flonne, a hare-brained angel (and possibly, trained
assassin), Laharl plans to become the new Overlord.
One look at the successful Disgaea series
of tactical roleplaying games and you
can instantly spot its anime- and mangaworthiness. The adorably impish character
designs and rollicking storyline made this an
easy spin-off. The anime, though well received,
deviated dramatically in many instances from
the storyline of the game. The manga was guilty
of much of the same random jokes and gags,
personality changes, and a softer character
design style but it maintains the sugar-andspice of the original game concept.
Kingdom Hearts
Shiro Amano; pub Famits PS2 (Jp), Tokyopop (US); vols 4
Kingdom Hearts II
Shiro Amano; pub Famits PS2 (Jp), Tokyopop (US); vols 5
Take one spunky hero, named Sora, who is
desperate to save his home and friends from
shadow creatures named the Heartless, give
him an awesome weapon called the Keyblade,
and youve got the makings of the next Final
Fantasy game (not to mention drop-ins by
Cloud, Sephiroth, Squall, Yuffie and other FF
characters). But toss in Mickey, Goofy, Donald,
Tinkerbell, Simba, and a host more now
youve got a work of mad genius. A joint
venture between Square and Walt Disney, the
Kingdom Hearts RPG must have sounded like a
fever dream when it was first announced. But
5.6 million-plus copies (and two sequels) later,
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Yu-Gi-Oh!
Kazuki Takahashi; pub Shueisha (Jp), Viz
(US, UK); ser Weekly Shnen Jump;
vols 38
Yu-Gi-Oh! is probably best known as the second
most successful Japanese trading card game.
What surprises many is that the game was in
fact a plot device created within the fictional
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The
Players
manga publishers
Any discussion of English-translated manga publishers must
start with the largest market and what has traditionally been
the first stop for licensed Japanese material: the US. There
has been an explosion of publishers licensing and producing
manga in the US market in recent years, rising from just five in
1998 to close to thirty a decade later.
While each has tried to carve out its own niche, the truth is
that all are locked in the game to win ever-diminishing slices of
the readership pie. The market is inevitably heading towards
saturation point, and its likely that by the time this book sees
print, one or more of the publishers profiled in the following
pages will have joined those already in the dustbin of manga
history (see boxes on pp.222 and 240). The bulk of this chapter
is taken up with profiles of US manga publishers but it includes
a number of manga publishers native to or specializing in
other regions, including Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
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Aurora
Publishing
Est. 2007
aurora-publishing.com
As the market for translated manga
nears saturation point, new publishers
are increasingly avoiding going headto-head with the more established, allaudiences publishers and are instead
focusing on niches within the market as a
way of carving out a distinct identity. One
of the more mainstream efforts of recent
years is Aurora Publishing, a subsidiary
of Japanese publisher Ohzora. The top
publisher of female manga franchises in
Japan, it was a natural step for Ohzora to
try to capture the hearts of women and
girls in English-speaking markets too.
Aurora has launched three imprints,
aimed at different segments of the
female readership. The main Aurora
line is the catch-all imprint, focusing
primarily on shjo titles, while Deux
Press handles the steamier yaoi series
and Luv Luv Press focuses on josei. Of
the three, Deux appears to have the most
aggressive publishing schedule, with
between one and four volumes of manga
releasing every month in 2008.
The question is whether the company
can gain enough of a foothold to survive
in an already crowded market. A high
number of bookstore returns coupled
with the economic downturn in 2009
saw the company selling the extras
Walkin Butterfly
Chihiro Tamaki; ser Ease Comics (2004); vols
Jp 4, US ongoing; age 18+
Meet Michiko, a young woman with a large chip
on her shoulder. She hates being too tall, she
hates it when people call her attention to being
tall, and she especially hates it when people
tell her she cant do something. So when she
accidentally stumbles into a fashion show on a
pizza-delivery run gone wrong and gets laughed
at, she wants to prove her critics wrong. Its a
quest with unmistakeably mature overtones, as
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manga publishers
Bandai
Entertainment
Est. 2004
bandai-ent.com
Bandai Entertainment may be a
prominent anime publisher, but its yet to
make big waves in the manga scene. Ever
since the company announced its manga
line, new releases have trickled out like
drops of water from a dripping tap. Its
easy to forget the division even exists
until another special edition volume of
the Eureka Seven anime is packaged with
a new volume of the manga adaptation.
Eureka Seven along with the spinoff series Eureka Seven: Gravity Boys and
Lifting Girl is, in fact, one of very few
manga series to be released since that
announcement. Witchblade Takeru, a
Japanese manga adaptation of a popular
US comic book series, came out in 2007.
And in 2008 Code Geass and Ghost
Slayer Ayashi were both released in
conjunction with anime DVDs. Bandai
has also licensed the Lucky Star manga
on which its popular anime series is
based. Add in a couple of film manga
(books containing screenshots from
anime with word balloons added) and
thats pretty much the entire Bandai
manga catalogue to date.
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Eureka Seven
Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou; ser
Shnen Ace (200506); vols 6; age 13+
Manga based on the anime, featuring a fourteenyear-old-boy who lives a dreary life in a dreary
town and dreams of one day leaving it all behind
to do some lifting (like surfing, but in the air) with
a renegade group known as Gekkostate. His dream
comes true when a giant mechanical suit piloted
by a beautiful girl named Eureka crashes into his
grandfathers garage. Together they take off on an
adventure that raises issues of racial and religious
tolerance, although these are not explored in the
same depth as in the original anime.
Lucky Star
Kagami Yoshimizu; ser Comptiq (2004);
vols ongoing; age 13+
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Witchblade Takeru
Yasuko Kobayashi (text), Kazasa Sumita
(art); ser Champion Red (2006); vols
ongoing; age 18+
As established in the original comic book, the
Witchblade is an ancient weapon that has
bonded with women throughout history and
granted them the power to become unstoppable
killing machines when confronted with evil. (It
also has the power of va-va-voom sexiness, as the
women lose much of their clothing in the transformation process.) The bearer of the Witchblade
this time around is Takeru, a high-school student
raised in a Buddhist convent, who fights off oni
(traditional Japanese demons) with its help.
Chuang Yi
Est. 1990
chuangyi.com.sg
Chuang Yi started out as a relatively
modest operation licensing and translating manga from Japanese into simplified Chinese for its home base of
Singapore. But the worldwide phenomenon that was Pokmon prompted the
CMX
Est. 2004
dccomics.com/cmx
For good or ill, two words have come
to symbolize this imprint of US comics
publisher DC Comics: Tenjho Tenge.
TenTen, as its commonly known, is a
moderately popular school-based shnen
series notable for two things: a character
who appears at first to be a small girl but
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Emma
Kaoru Mori; ser Comic Beam (200206);
vols 7; age 16+
Kaoru Mori is a self-confessed Anglophile, and
her meticulous attention to historic detail shows
in this series set in London just before the turn of
the twentieth century. Emma, a girl from a poor
Yorkshire seaside village, is training to be a proper
English maid when she falls in love with William
Jones, the eldest son of a wealthy and socially
ambitious merchant family. While her feelings
are reciprocated, the social divide constantly
threatens to snuff out the fledgling spark of love.
GALS!
Mihona Fujii; ser Ribon (19992002);
vols 10; age 13+
Ahh, Japanese kogal culture, that subset of
high-school girls known for their conspicuous
consumption and uniform of knee-high baggy
socks, platform shoes, designer accessories and
heavy make-up. Ran Kotobuki, the lone rebellious
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Gon
Masashi Tanaka; ser Weekly Morning
(19922002); vols 7
None of the animals in Gon ever utters a single
sound effect or word of dialogue. Quite frankly,
no one has to. The old clich that actions speak
louder than words is the basic premise behind
this series, which features the adventures of a
small, short-tempered yet kind-hearted dinosaur
who goes around the world interacting with
native fauna and helping his newfound friends
out of predicaments. Winner of a 1998 Excellence
Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival.
Musashi No. 9
Miyuki Takahashi ser Kirara Seize/Mystery
Bonita (1996); vols ongoing; age 13+
Ultimate Blue, a covert group so powerful that its
known as the other United Nations, defends the
Earth against militants and criminals who would
dare to disturb the peace. Among its field operatives is Agent Number Nine. She kicks butt and
takes names with the best of them, despite being
just sixteen years old. At the heart of the series is
her struggle to deal with criminals while protecting
those people who appear normal but have within
them some element that could change the world.
Samurai Commando:
Mission 1549
Harutoshi Fukui and Ryo Hanmura (text),
Ark Performance (art); ser n/a (2005);
vols 2; age 16+
Dark Horse
Est. 1988
darkhorse.com/zones/manga
Like CMX, Dark Horses manga division
is part of a larger comic book publisher,
though it has been around far longer than
DCs venture. In fact, Dark Horse was one
of the very first US publishers to enter the
manga market, beginning in 1988 with
Kazuhisa Iwatas Godzilla.
Since then, Dark Horse Manga
has gained a reputation as the go-to
publisher for quality action, sciencefiction and horror manga. That said,
its longest continuously running series
(in fact the longest-running series in
the entire English-language manga
industry), Oh My Goddess! (see p.164),
has been successful because it appeals
to both male and female audiences.
The series Whats Michael?, about the
everyday adventures of an adorable cat,
also stands out for being accessible to a
wide age range.
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manga publishers
3X3 Eyes
Yuzo Takada; pub Kodansha (Jp), Dark
Horse (US); ser Young Magazine (1987
2002); vols Jp 40, US 9 (cancelled)
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Gunsmith Cats
Kenichi Sonoda; ser Afternoon (199197);
vols 8; age 18+
Kenichi Sonoda is a fan of American culture
particularly the cars and guns and this manga
combines the two in one big action-packed
blowout. Welcome to Chicago, where two women,
Rally and Minnie-May, run a gunsmith shop. Rallys
a bounty hunter, while Minnie-Mays a prostituteturned-explosives expert. Together, they hunt
down assorted riffraff across the city in a neverending battle against the criminal underworld.
The series continues under the title Gunsmith Cats
Burst, also published by Dark Horse.
Hellsing
Kohta Hirano; ser Young King Ours (1998);
vols 10; age 16+
A series in which British Protestants battle it out
against Catholic killer nuns, inquisitors and Nazi
vampires, amongst others. Working for Hellsing,
an organization that protects the UK from vampire
attacks, are agents Arucard, a vampire working for
the good guys, and Seras Victoria, a former police
officer. Expect a healthy dose of gothic violence,
lovingly crafted down to the last bloody detail.
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Del Rey
Est. 2004
randomhouse.com/delrey/manga
Having struck a deal with Japanese
publisher Kodansha to bring some of its
top titles to the US, in 2004 publishing
giant Random House launched a manga
division, Del Rey.
Random House isnt the only big-time
trade publisher to see growth in the
manga market and decide to get a
piece of the action. AD Vision and
DC Comics tried it with their ADV
Manga and CMX imprints and, at first,
Del Rey looked in danger of making
the same mistake of underestimating
manga fans. Among its first releases was
Ken Akamatsus Negima! As readers of
Akamatsus previous series, Love Hina,
will attest, fan service mostly of the
accidental-burial-in-pillowy-breasts and
panty-flash varieties are Akamatsus
romantic-comedy bread and butter.
Negima!, about a young magician who
becomes a teacher at an all-girls school,
stuck closely to that formula.
Word got out that Del Rey was going
to be altering ten panels in the first
volume to cover up implied nudity.
While Akamatsu expressed his surprise
and amusement in his blog, manga fans
were incensed over what they saw as
censorship, no matter how few panels
were involved. But rather than stick to
its guns, Del Rey recanted and left the
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manga publishers
Basilisk
Futaro Yamada (story), Masaki Segawa
(text and art); ser Young Magazine Uppers
(200304); vols 5; age 18+
Inter-clan rivalry in seventeenth-century Japan
has never been as action-packed as in this story,
which features ten members from each of the
rival Kouga and Iga ninja clans facing off to
determine which grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu
will ascend to the shogunate. But theres a Romeo
and Juliet-style twist: Gennosuke of the Kouga
clan was betrothed to Oboro of the Iga clan and
whether their love can survive the war remains
the thread of tension throughout this series.
Mushishi
Yuki Urushibara; ser Afternoon Season/
Afternoon (1999); vols ongoing; age 16+
Primordial life forms known as mushi, neither
plant, animal nor fungus, drift through the world
undetected by most people but occasionally
show up to wreak havoc on the few who do have
the ability to see them. One of those people is
Ginko, the main character in this series. Theres
no overarching plot, only a chronicle of Ginkos
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Nodame Cantabile
Tomoko Ninomiya; ser Kiss (2001); vols
ongoing; age 16+
Shinichi Chiaki is a perfectionist when it comes
to music, hoping someday to study abroad to
become a conductor. One night, when hes passed
out in front of his apartment after drinking his
sorrows away, Megumi Nodame Noda finds him
and brings him into her messy apartment. She is
everything Shinichi hates and yet she has the
ability to play the piano by ear. When Shinichi is
assigned to conduct her and a bunch of other
loser students in an orchestra, hilarity ensues.
School Rumble
Jin Kobayashi; ser Weekly Shnen Magazine
(2002); vols ongoing; age 16+
This school-based manga proves that hardened
delinquents can feel love, too, as Kenji Harima
pines for energetic school cutie Tenma
Tsukamoto. But Tenma has her own unrequited
crush on Oji Karasuma, a boy who is so focused
on whatever task is at hand that he never
notices Tenma flinging herself at him. A strong
supporting cast flesh out what is turning into a
rather complex romantic shnen comedy.
Digital Manga
Publishing
Est. 1996
dmpbooks.com (main site)
junemanga.com (Jun imprint)
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Educational manga
Nestled among the countless yaoi titles and more traditional manga in DMPs
catalogue are several rather unconventional series, designed to educate as well as
entertain. In the Edu-Manga series, readers join Astro Boy and his friends as they
travel through time meeting historical figures including Helen Keller, Anne Frank,
Beethoven, Einstein and Mother Teresa. The Project X series, based on a popular
documentary series in Japan, is more straightforward in its presentation, profiling
three business successes: the Datsun Fairlady Z, the 7-Eleven convenience store
chain, and Momofuku Andous development of Cup Noodle. Finally, Pop Japan Travel:
Essential Otaku Guide takes readers on a typical Pop Japan Travel tour, offers a few dos
and donts and then adds a little dramatic embellishment. These series certainly
help to fulfil DMPs goal of sharing Japanese pop culture in non-traditional ways. But
at a more basic level, theyre simply a means of challenging the stereotype that comics
make kids stupid. Following are two other publishing ventures which likewise aim to
turn manga into a teaching tool.
Manga University (est. 1998, mangauniversity.com)
An imprint of Japanese publisher Japanime, Manga University is home to an everexpanding catalogue of instructional books. The companys flagship series is How to Draw
Manga, licensed from Japanese publisher Graphic-Sha, while Kana de Manga and Kanji
de Manga teach fans how to read the three Japanese alphabets of hiragana, katakana
and kanji. Theres also The Manga Cookbook, a guide to making 27 Japanese dishes. In
2007, Japanime ventured into more traditional story manga with two OEL titles: Moe USA,
about two American girls who find a pair of enchanted maid costumes when they begin
working at a maid caf in Japan, and Harvey and Etsukos Guide to Japan, a travelogue
series of sorts where a mouse from outside Tokyo visits a friend in the city.
No Starch Press (est. 1994, nostarch.com)
This San Francisco-based publisher expanded its offerings in what it calls geek entertainment mostly books about computing and programming by licensing several
edu-manga from Japanese publisher Ohmshas Manga de Wakaru (Understanding
Through Manga) series. No Starchs releases began with The Manga Guide to Statistics
in October 2008, in which heroine Rui learns about data categorization, standard
deviation and other statistics fundamentals as a way of impressing her dream love,
Igarashi. The series has since expanded to include books on databases and calculus
(and yes, the stories are equally whimsical).
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Princess Princess
Mikiyo Tsuda; ser Wings (200206); vols 5;
age 16+
In an all-boys school, the students vote to choose
guys who will dress up as girls or princesses
and offer support and eye candy to everyone else
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DrMaster
Est. 2005
drmasterbooks.com
DrMaster is nothing if not enthusiastic
about its publishing programme. A
mission statement posted on its website
gushes about how, with ambition in
their eyes and a love for art melded
with fantastic storytelling, its experienced staff have built up the company
with the aim of bringing the best manga
and manhua from Japan and China to
US readers. Theyre proud of brazenly
going against the grain and laughing in
the face of conformity.
Umm right. Joking aside, the tiny
publisher there are only six full-time
employees has gained a reputation
for quirky thinking. But the proof is in
the pudding, and setting aside a few
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manga publishers
Fanfare/
Ponent Mon
Est. 2003
ponentmon.com
Fanfare/Ponent Mon specializes in
nouvelle manga, a hybrid Japanese/
Franco-Belgian movement that emphasizes slice-of-life stories. Forged in an
alliance between UK publisher Fanfare
and Spanish firm Ponent Mon in 2003,
it produces translated editions of manga
for both the Spanish and Englishlanguage markets.
Its books are pricier than many
US-produced titles, but for that you
get sophisticated content and top-end
presentation, with larger trim sizes and
higher-quality paper than the standard
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Blue
Kiriko Nananan; ser Come Are! (199698);
vols 1; age 13+
Blue follows the course of a friendship between
two girls. Their feelings blossom into love but
soon secrets and mistrust threaten to tear the
girls apart. The art is minimalist the teens are
the only elements of the story drawn in detail,
with other characters merely hinted at through
disjointed dialogue bubbles and sentence
fragments. This gives the story room to breathe,
while heightening the emotional intensity.
Disappearance Diary
Hideo Azuma; ser n/a (2005); vols 1; age 16+
In this autobiographical account, mangaka
Azuma reveals how he deals with the continual
abrasive nagging of his editors: cut off all contact
with them and drop out of society for long
stretches at a time. Hes been homeless. Hes
worked as a gas pipe layer. Hes gone into rehab
for alcoholism. But as long as the work comes in
on time, the editors are okay with it. The book
won the Grand Prize for Manga at the 2005 Japan
Media Arts Festival and the Grand Prize at the
2006 Osamu Tezuka Cultural Awards.
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Kazuichi Hanawa
Doing Time
Kazuichi Hanawa; ser Ax (19982000); vols 1
Hanawa, a model gun aficionado, was arrested in
1994 on firearms violations after trying out some
of his guns in the hills. While serving his sentence,
he chronicled prison life through sketches and
drawings; the result became Doing Time. Theres
no real narrative line, but instead a series of
detailed stand-alone pieces in which he analyses
a particular event, the behaviour of his cellmates,
or his confined surroundings.
Yukikos Spinach
Frdric Boilet; ser Furansugo Kaiwa
(200001); vols 1; age 18+
Prison life in all its mundane detail is the subject of Kazuichi Hanawas autobiographical Doing Time.
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manga publishers
Go! Comi
Est. 2005
gocomi.com
The Go! Comi story begins with The
Almost Legendary Shannon, the dream
project of writers David Wise and
Audry Taylor. The tale concerns a highschool girl who accidentally pulls the
legendary sword Excalibur from a stone
at a Renaissance fair. Wise and Taylor
knew the style in which they wanted
the project to be illustrated: both were
anime fans, and Wise, a former writer
for US cartoons including the first
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, was
heavily influenced by anime and manga
after meeting Osamu Tezuka in 1980.
And so, in 2004, the couple secured
up-and-coming artist You Higuri to do
the artwork.
As for finding The Almost Legendary
Shannon on bookstore shelves: dont
bother looking. It has yet to be released,
on hold because of Higuris surging
popularity in Japan. However, Wise and
Taylor have meanwhile launched Go!
Comi, drawing on connections with
editors, artists and publishers made
during their time in Japan. They had
always planned to publish Shannon
themselves, and decided to license
other works as a way of keeping the selfpublishing dream alive. Wise became
CEO of the new company, and Taylor
its creative director. The couple scored
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Cantarella
You Higuri; ser Princess Gold (2000); vols
10 (Jp on hiatus); age 16+
Cardinal Rodrigo Borgias desire to become Pope
once led him to sell the soul of his infant son to the
devil. That son, Cesare Borgia, has grown older and
now finds himself shunned by his father, hated
by his brother and loved by a sister who is kept
away from him. With a demonic side rising within
him and a thirst for vengeance and destruction
slowly taking him over, it may be up to a would-be
assassin to slay Cesares demon-possessed body
while sparing and freeing his soul.
Crossroad
Shioko Mizuki; ser Princess (200305); vols
7; age 16+
Kajitsus home life has never been a bed of roses.
Her grandmother has just died, her dad is a
deadbeat, while her mum gallivants around town
switching boyfriends as often as she changes her
clothes. But when her two stepbrothers show
up with a brand-new baby sister in tow Kajitsu
is forced into family life. If home truly is where
Infinity Studios
Est. 2004
infinitystudios.com
Another publisher born out of the
ComicsONE collapse (see box on p.222),
having helped co-produce an adaptation
of the Peigenz manga before the company
went under, Infinity Studios has had the
same sort of love-hate relationship with
fans as its former partner.
And this despite a mission statement
on Infinitys website that declares its
founding intention to always put the
consumers first and to change the negative
image the industry was beginning to
acquire by both the fans and the Asian
publishing industry. While Peigenz was
plagued with the same typographical
errors and inconsistent print quality
that dogged ComicsONE titles in that
publishers final days, Infinity has steadily
improved its products to the point where
its one of the better publishers in the
industry today.
Yet it still seems unable to deliver sufficient quantities of its manga in a timely,
consistent manner. For example, Ionosama Fanatics volume 1 was released in
May 2007; at the time of writing there is
no sign of a second volume. The third
volume of Ninin Ga Shinobuden was
released in January 2008 and went out
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Literary manga
Drawn & Quarterly (est. 1989, drawnandquarterly.com)
A number of small-press, alternative North American comics publishers have been
dabbling in manga licensing of late, amongst them Drawn & Quarterly. Based in
Montral, Canada, the company is devoted to publishing literary comics. So far, its
manga catalogue is decidedly small, comprising three volumes of short stories by
Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Seiichi Hayashis Red-Colored Elegy. All were published in Japan
between 1969 and 1973 and were considered to be gekiga at that, pretty much
ensuring that only the hardest of the hardcore manga fans (and perhaps scholars and
manga critics) would pick these series up from store shelves.
This might seem like commercial folly, but the books have sold in respectable
numbers. Credit artist Adrian Tomine, who recognized Tatsumi one of the gekiga
movements most important artists as a major influence on his work and on the
American literary comics movement of the 1980s in general, and pushed for the publication of his work in the West.
Last Gasp (est. 1969, lastgasp.com)
Based in San Francisco and born out of the American countercultural movement
of the late 1960s, Last Gasp is another publisher that primarily releases alternative,
underground comics. In 2004, however, it entered the manga market, picking up the
rights for Barefoot Gen (see p.88), previously held by Penguin Books, re-translating and
re-publishing the first four volumes and then getting down to the task of producing
the remaining six volumes in English for the first time. Barefoot Gen was Last Gasps
only manga offering until 2007, when it released Town of Evening Calm, City of Cherry
Blossoms, Fumiyo Kounos award-winning manga about the aftermath of the atomic
bomb dropping on Hiroshima. More recently, the company has branched out from
accounts of the World War II bombing, licensing two manga by Junko Mizuno, Pure
Trance and Fancy Gigolo Pelu, and Tokyo Zombie by Yusaku Hanakuma, a horror-comedy
about two factory workers and jiu-jitsu enthusiasts dealing with a zombie infestation.
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Blood Alone
Madman
Entertainment
Iono-sama Fanatics
Miyabi Fujieda; ser Dengeki Teioh (2004
06); vols Jp 2, US 1 (on hiatus); age 13+
In a small kingdom far, far away, Queen Iono
dreams that some day she will have a harem full
of beautiful girls with long, black hair who love
her just as much as she loves them. As it happens,
Japan is full of girls who fit that description. So
off she goes with her harem in tow, recruiting the
willing and not-so-willing into a group in which
yuri hijinks arent just recommended for survival,
theyre virtually required.
Est. 1997
madman.com.au
For residents of Australia and New
Zealand, Madman is anime, controlling 98 percent of the DVD market in
that region. It makes sense, then, that
the company is the regions dominant
force in manga too, with more than
three hundred items in its growing
catalogue. Madmans dominance in
the market is such that US companies
Viz and Tokyopop license their
products to Madman for distribution in
the region. Madman also distributes the
products of Singapore-based publisher
Chuang Yi.
If a series is popular or being pushed
heavily in the US, its likely to be carried
by Madman as well. Current American
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manga publishers
Media
Blasters
Est. 2004
media-blasters.com
Before entering the manga market,
Media Blasters had established itself as
a player in the anime scene, licensing
and distributing a wide range of anime,
from mainstream hits such as Rurouni
Kenshin (vagabond swordsman with
a violent past vows to protect the
weak without killing to atone for the
lives hes taken) and Magic Knight
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of series that previously appeared in those pages have been reprinted and collected in
trade paperbacks as well.
As is to be expected with products of such an extreme sexual nature, finding Icaruss
publications on store shelves can be tricky. Icarus recently opened a digital distribution system in an attempt to get its manga into the hands of more people, posting
complete copies of the first few issues of Comic AG on BitTorrent sites and allowing
users to download them for free. Like ALC Publishings Erica Friedman, Jones is a vocal
advocate for what his company publishes, and his blog has become a popular source
of information on ero-manga in general.
Yaoi Press (est. 2004, yaoipress.com)
A yaoi specialist, as the name suggests, Yaoi Press is also the only publisher to entirely
forego licensing Japanese properties in favour of an all-global-manga approach,
picking up titles from American and European creators. Publisher Yamila Abraham
founded the company in 2004 after a lifetime spent drawing and writing her own yaoi
even before she knew what yaoi was.
Titles are geared towards girls and women aged thirteen to fifty and range from
sweet romances to hardcore sex-filled flings. The most popular titles to date are
Abraham and Studio Kosarus Winter Demon, about a snow demon who makes a pact
with a monk to defend his village; KSENs Stallion, a single-volume story about a
cowboy and a Native American who team up to take on a cowboy who wronged them
both; and the Yaoi Hentai anthology. Designed for audiences aged eighteen and older,
Yaoi Hentai gained notoriety in the US when family-friendly store chain Wal-Mart
inadvertently offered copies for sale on its website.
In 2007, Yaoi Press joined forces with Korean manhwa publisher NetComics in an
online publishing deal in which its less sexually explicit titles can be read for a small fee
on NetComics website (netcomics.com).
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Apocalypse Zero
Takayuki Yamaguchi; ser Weekly Shonen
Champion (199496); vols Jp 11, US 6;
age 18+
Another post-apocalyptic, Tokyo-got-levelledagain epic. As usual, a remnant of humanity
is struggling to survive, and up pops a badass
hero destined to save the world. In this case,
its the teenage Kakugo, a skilled martial artist
who has iron balls embedded in his body and
armour inhabited by the souls of World War
II test subjects. The hook here is the revolting
rogues gallery that confronts him from a
seven-ton fat naked woman to a monster who
attacks with huge genitalia and the equally
disgusting ways in which he dispatches them.
Its either pulp fiction genius or eye-gougingly
awful, depending on your tolerance for such
things.
Fujoshi Rumi sees the eponymous female otaku try to turn her yaoi
fantasies into reality.
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manga publishers
SelfMadeHero
Est. 2007
selfmadehero.com
The formula that UK-based SelfMadeHero has used to carve its niche in the
manga market is simple: take abridged
forms of the plays of William Shakespeare as adapted by Richard Appignanesi
and have some of the UKs best mangainspired artists including some from
Sweatdrop Studios render them in a
graphic novel format that appeals to teens.
The Manga Shakespeare concept debuted
in January 2007 with Romeo and Juliet
and Hamlet; as of August 2009, fourteen
of Shakespeares plays had been adapted to
the format.
The settings of the Manga Shakespeare books certainly arent what you
remember from English literature class.
Romeo and Juliet, for instance, becomes a
struggle between warring yakuza families
in Tokyos hip district of Shibuya; Macbeth
features samurai warriors in a future
post-nuclear world of mutants; and King
Lear becomes a story of Iroquois tribal
displacement on the American frontier
circa 1759. While these changes in setting
make it seem that much creative licence
has been taken, this isnt the case: the
Manga Shakespeare books retain the
original dialogue and as much of the
spirit of the story as possible. Its been a
successful approach too, with the books
regularly among the bestselling Shakespeare titles on amazon.co.uk.
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Seven Seas
Entertainment
Est. 2004
gomanga.com
Seven Seas launch line-up was certainly
unusual: Amazing Agent Luna by Nunzio
DeFilippis, Christina Weir and Shiei;
Blade for Barter by Jason DeAngelis;
Hai!, Last Hope by Michael Dignan
and Kriss Sison; and No Mans Land by
DeAngelis and Jennyson Rosero. They
were all global manga and they were all
published online before making their
way to traditional book format in early
2005. It wasnt until later that year that
Seven Seas announced its first Japanese
licence acquisition, the Boogiepop series
of light novels and manga.
The approach had its share of detractors: how dare they call themselves a
manga publisher without any Japanese
manga content? But for company
founder Jason DeAngelis, a professed
fan of Japanese culture who started off
translating manga before moving on to
make his own, it was a labour of love.
Fortunately for him, while companies
such as Tokyopop took flak for daring to
apply the name manga to titles created
outside Japan, Seven Seas largely flew
under the radar.
One controversy, however, was
unavoidable. In 2006, the company
announced it had licensed the series
Kodomo no Jikan, about a teacher who
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Aoi House/
Aoi House in Love!
Adam Arnold (text), Shiei (art); ser n/a; vols
4; age 16+
Meet Alexis and Sandy two college guys who
love anime, especially hentai. This gets them in
trouble with their dorm mates, who eventually
toss them out for repeated infractions of the
hall rules. Fortunately for them, another dorm
on campus, Aoi House, is advertising for new
roommates and offering anime viewings and
manga readings. Unfortunately, its home to a
group of young women: the Y has fallen off
the house sign. What can a couple of homeless
fanboys do other than move in and endure
whatever happens to them?
Tetragrammaton
Labyrinth
Ei Itou; ser Comic Gum (200507); vols Jp 5,
US ongoing; age 16+
Meg is a nun. She and her eternally youthful
companion Angela share a strange, strong bond
one which they use to their advantage when
they battle the demons that continually plague
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manga publishers
Sweatdrop
Studios
Est. 2001
sweatdrop.com
Tokyopop
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Est.1996
tokyopop.com
Tokyopop doesnt just want people to
read manga. The publisher, which calls
itself the leader of the manga revolution, wants people to live manga not
only through printed books, but also
through Internet videos, mobile phone
content and, perhaps some day, even
movies and TV.
This multimedia approach has been in
place from the very beginning, when the
companys founders, Victor Chin, Ron
Scovil Jr and Stuart Levy, met at an AOL
entrepreneur trade show in 1996. Chin
and Scovil were looking to create an
anime and manga website with AOL, and
Levy was interested in coming on board.
The three men shared a love of manga, a
desire to bring it to a wider readership in
the US, and a belief that it could prove
popular if marketed correctly. While
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Angelic Layer
CLAMP; ser Monthly Shnen Ace (1999
2001); vols 5
A new toy craze has the children of Tokyo all
a-twitter: Angelic Layer, a sort of virtual-reality
arena-battling game in which children can buy
and customize dolls known as angels and send
them into one-on-one fights. Entering the fray
for the first time is Misaki Suzuhara, who sees a
doll named Athena battling on TV one day and is
instantly smitten. Guided by the rather eccentric
scientist Icchan, Misaki becomes a skilled trainer in
her own right, and sets off on an inevitable collision path with the mysterious owner of Athena.
Bizenghast
M. Alice LeGrow; ser n/a; vols ongoing; age
13+
A car accident leaves Dinah without her parents
and on the edge of insanity but with the ability
to see ghosts. The skill certainly comes in handy
when she and her friend Vincent stumble upon
an abandoned mausoleum and are subsequently
tasked with helping otherworldly creatures
recapture lost souls. The penalty for failure: Dinah
will forfeit her own soul. Its a game of high stakes
in a dreamlike world.
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Sgt Frog
Mine Yoshizaki; ser Monthly Shonen Ace
(1999); vols ongoing; age 13+
Keroro, the leader of a platoon of frog-like invaders
from the planet Keron, has set his sights on the
planet of Pokopen as his next conquest. The
problem is that Pokopen is Earth. Fortunately,
Keroro is easily distracted with building model
kits of the Gundam robotic suits and other cool
toys, and the Hinata family easily subdue him,
along with a subsequent wave of attackers, which
consists of four of his colleagues. If the Keroro
Platoon are to have any hope of conquering
Pokopen, theyll have to overcome the Hinatas
first which theyll do right after theyve finished
the chores assigned to them by the family.
Udon
Entertainment
Est. 2000
udonentertainment.com
The past few years have been busy ones
for this Canada-based publisher. Udon
started out creating comics based on the
Street Fighter videogame franchise. Then
it began licensing manga based on Street
Fighter and other Capcom properties.
Now its expanded into other areas of the
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manga publishers
Vertical
Est. 2003
vertical-inc.com
While most US manga publishers have
focused their efforts on picking up the
hottest new titles coming out of Japan,
Verticals first offering in 2003 was
Osamu Tezukas religious series Buddha,
originally serialized in 197283. Its not
exactly Naruto-type sales potential were
looking at here.
But, then, Vertical wasnt founded
as a manga publisher per se; rather, its
aim is to release to English-speaking
markets translations of the best contemporary Japanese books of all kinds.
Its position as a publisher of Japanese
fiction and non-fiction has helped the
company bypass the usual licence-acquisition process. Rather than dealing with
Japanese publishing companies, Vertical
goes straight to the source the authors
or their estates. The result has been one
of the largest collections of translated
Tezuka manga, including Apollos Song,
Black Jack (see p.92), Dororo, MW and
Ode to Kirihito. The company has also
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Andromeda Stories
Keiko Takemiya; ser Manga Shnen
(198081); vols Jp 2, US 3
The marriage of Prince Ithaca of Cosmoralia to
Princess Lilia of Ayodoya was supposed to be a
blessed event for the inhabitants of the planet
Astria. All the celestial signs pointed towards
Ithaca being a holy king in what was termed a
papacy. What nobody guessed was that all
this would come about only after an invasion
by a force of hostile machines, that Ithaca
would become a cruel ruler, and that Lilias
unborn child would end up being the one to
save them all.
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manga publishers
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manga adaptation of the Project A-Ko anime, by Ninja High School author Ben Dunn. But
notable releases were few and far between in the 1990s as CPM focused on its anime.
CPM Manga hit its stride in the early 2000s, releasing several series based on
popular anime franchises. Highlights included the swords-and-sorcery shnen Record
of Lodoss Wars; another shnen series, Slayers, featuring teenage sorceress Lina
Inverse; and spacefaring adventure Nadesico. Another branch, CPM Manhwa, handled
licences of Korean titles, while the Manga 18 branch translated hentai. In late 2004,
however, financial problems began to affect the publishers release schedules. Central
Park Media suspended the CPM Manga and Manhwa lines in 2005 to restructure
distribution deals, laying off a number of staff. The collapse of two major retailers
didnt help matters, forcing another round of layoffs in 2006. The publisher pressed
on, with a few titles trickling out under a new yaoi imprint, Be Beautiful, though the
financial problems continued. While Be Beautiful was a strong CPM imprint, in 2007 it
was hit by a very public dispute with Libre, the titles Japanese licensor, who claimed
CPM was publishing its titles illegally. CPM Manga has remained silent ever since; with
the publisher perilously close to bankruptcy at the time of writing, it would not be
surprising to see it vanish completely by the time this book sees print.
DramaQueen (est. 2005)
DramaQueen is well on the road to being the yaoi equivalent of ADV: it surfaces once
in a while to insist its still alive and kicking, but fails to follow through with any new
releases. The publisher got off to a strong start, releasing both licensed and global yaoi
manga, including the anthology Rush; Challengers, a shnen-ai comedy about a prettyboy college student and the office worker who falls for him; and Audition, a manhwa
about an aspiring rock band. There was also a shjo manhwa wing, but when a
company markets itself as Purveyor of Fine Man Sex as it reportedly did at Yaoi-Con
2006 its clear most of its eggs are going in the yaoi basket for the time being.
After the initial flurry of titles, however, the flow of books slowed and finally
stopped in late 2007 with little explanation. The silence lasted until April 2008,
when company president Tran Nguyen told Publishers Weekly that the company
had reorganized, a new financial partner had been found, and more yaoi would be
making its way to stores shortly. In June 2008, posts by employee Taisa Tolunchanian
on the companys online message boards cast doubt on the existence of those new
investors. DramaQueens fate remains unclear.
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Viz Media
Est. 1987
vizmedia.com
Arguably the market leader in the US
manga market, Viz has in its stable many
of the industrys heaviest hitters past
and present, including Bleach, Fullmetal
Alchemist (see p.123), Naruto (see p.159),
Ranma (see p.175), Dragon Ball (see
p.116), CLAMPs X/1999, Ouran High
School Host Club, Nana, Honey and
Clover and Rurouni Kenshin, to name
just a few. Being jointly owned by
Shogakukan, Shueisha and Shogakukans
licensing division ShoPro Japan and
thus having access to a steady, largely
exclusive pipeline of titles certainly
helps in landing hits of that calibre.
Viz has had quite a while to establish
its present dominant position in the
market, being one of the first companies
to offer translated manga in the US.
Its founder was businessman Seiji
Horibuchi, who originally worked to
export American culture to Japan but
soon had the idea of publishing manga
in the US. In 1986, he formed an alliance
with Shogakukan and Eclipse Comics,
which at the time was looking to license
several manga but found no Japanese
publisher willing to hand over the rights
to their series. (The concern at the time
was that US publishers would re-edit or
re-draw series as they saw fit.) Together,
they released three series in 1987: Sanpei
Shiratos Legend of Kamui, a drama set
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manga publishers
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
Yoshio Sawai; ser Weekly Shnen Jump
(200107); vols ongoing; age 13+
It is the year 300X, and the Maruhage Empire
is cracking down on anyone who dares to have
hair, shaving offenders bald. A new defender
of the people emerges in the form of the
Afro-ed Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. With the help of
his companions including Beauty, a girl once
saved by Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo; Poppa Rocks,
the round creature whose powers lie in his
own insanity; and General Jelly Jiggler, with
the power of, umm, jiggling jelly he will take
the fight to the Maruhage Empire! That is, if the
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Striker (Spriggan)
Hiroshi Takashige (text), Ryoji Minagawa
(art); ser Weekly Shnen Sunday (1988); vols
Jp 11, US 3 (cancelled); age 13+
Ancient, powerful artefacts from a civilization technologically superior to our own are
being unearthed around the world, and its up
to the ARCAM Corporations military arm and
its Spriggan units to prevent those artefacts
from falling into the wrong hands. Yu Ominae
is ARCAMs top Spriggan operator stationed
in Japan, but he has a tortured past as one of
the victims of a CIA/US Army programme that
kidnapped children, brainwashed them and stuck
them into a covert black ops programme known
as COSMOS. This series is one of the most striking
examples of Vizs early censorship, as much of the
blatant anti-Western sentiment and many violent
scenes were cut out.
Yen Press
Est. 2006
yenpress.us
Yen Press may be one of the newer
publishers in the industry, but its relative
youth is offset by several formidable
forces: the imprint is backed by Hachette,
the worlds third-largest publisher, and
led by former DC Comics vice president
Rich Johnson and ex-Borders Group
graphic novel buyer Kurt Hassler. Having
Hassler on board was a major coup for
Yen, as he had recently been named the
most powerful person in manga by
online industry analyst ICv2.com.
So far, so good. While the average
retail price of Yens books has been $1
higher than similar offerings from Viz
and Tokyopop, its manga has tried to
mirror the Japanese releases as much as
possible. My goal is for Yen Press to be
as transparent as possible, Hassler told
Publishers Weekly in February 2007,
and provide fans with as authentic an
experience as we can short of learning
Japanese. The company has not limited
itself to any particular genre, so titles
like Keiko Tobes With the Light: Raising
an Autistic Child share catalogue space
with the latest series from Peach-Pit,
Zombie Loan, the entire ICE Kunion
catalogue of manhwa, and a few global
manga creators, including Svetlana
Chmakova, fresh from her success with
Tokyopops Dramacon.
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manga publishers
Alice on Deadlines
Shiro Ihara; ser Gangan Wing (200406);
vols ongoing; age 16+
A lecherous shinigami is thrown into the buxom
body of a young schoolgirl, while the girls
soul is knocked into a nearby skeleton. Hilarity
ensues as the shinigami enjoys his new body a
little too much for the normally prim and proper
girls comfort.
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Zombie Loan
Peach-Pit; ser G Fantasy (2003); vols
ongoing; age 16+
A girl with the gift of shinigami eyes the ability
to see lines around the necks of people that
signify theyre destined to die soon teams up
with two boys who should have died already but
are now under the employ of the Zombie Loan
agency. This tale of zombie hunters is a darker
turn for Peach-Pit, but the stories are actionpacked and the mysteries are introduced and
resolved in short order.
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The
Information
where to go next
As the market for manga has grown in the West, so too has the
number of resources available that explore manga and the
surrounding culture. (The book youre reading now is proof
of that.) Whether you want to learn more about manga, draw
your own or meet other people with similar interests, theres
certain to be some book, website or anime convention listed
here that meets your needs.
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Books
Getting a full perspective on the story of manga would take far more space than
is available in this book. If youd like to learn more about manga the history, the
series, the people in the industry you cant go wrong with these books.
Japanamerica
Roland Kelts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
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where to go next
Manga Design
Masanao Amano (Taschen, 2004)
A virtual encyclopedia of manga artists, this book
showcases the art of 140 artists from Koji Aihara
(known most in the Western world for Even a
Monkey Can Draw Manga) through to Sensha
Yoshida (who has yet to have any of his manga
published in English). The range of artists profiled
is vast and all have made a contribution to
Japanese culture, even if their works havent been
translated outside of Japan.
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The Information
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Mechademia
Various; Frenchy Lunning, ed. (University of
Minnesota Press, www.mechademia.org)
The first regularly published English-language
academic journal comes courtesy of Frenchy
Lunning, a liberal arts professor at the Minneapolis
College of Art and Design, and offers academic
and critical commentary on anime, manga,
Japanese pop culture and the fans of all three.
Each volume is based on a common theme, like
Limits of the Human and Networks of Desire.
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where to go next
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The Information
Understanding Comics
/ Reinventing Comics /
Making Comics
Scott McCloud (Harper Paperbacks,
1994/2000/2006)
Comics artist Scott McClouds first book, Understanding Comics, was among the first comicsrelated books to delve into what makes manga
unique from artistic and storytelling standpoints.
McCloud has since expanded on those thoughts
in two follow-up books. All three are excellent
resources for learning about comics as a whole
and not just about manga.
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Shoujo Manga
Techniques: Drawing
Basics / Writing Stories
Hirono Tsubasa and Nene Kotobuki (Drawing Basics), Mako Itsuki (Writing Stories)
(DMP, 2005)
A two-volume series that breaks down the entire
thought process behind drawing and writing a
story suitable for shjo manga, even going so far
as to discuss how to submit work to a prospective
publisher.
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The Information
Magazines
The early 2000s were peak years for Western readers who got their fill of anime and
manga news and reviews from magazines. In 2002, just as the Tokyopop 100%
Authentic Manga initiative was gaining critical mass, four magazines were published
regularly: Animerica, Anime Insider (then known as Anime Invasion), Newtype USA
and Protoculture Addicts. In 2009, only the last of these was still running. While Neo
Magazine in the UK (established in 2004) and Otaku USA (2007) have since filled the
void, the influence of print publications appears to be waning. Manga anthologies
have fared better:Vizs Shonen Jump (starting in 2002) and Shojo Beat (2005) have
remained strong and were joined by Yen Presss Yen Plus in 2008.
Neo
neomag.co.uk
Coverage of anime and manga series makes up
a good portion of this UK-based magazine, but
the editorial content goes beyond just those two
areas, covering much of Asian pop culture, such
as Japanese, Korean and Chinese entertainment,
such as music and live-action movies and TV
series, in the process.
Otaku USA
otakuusamagazine.com
Otaku USA boasts a veteran corps of writers and
editors that includes Patrick Macias as editor
in chief, Jason Thompson as manga editor, and
contributing writers such as Casey Brienza, Ed
Chavez, Erin Finnegan and Gilles Poitras. This
editorial team has helped the publication, one of
the newer ones on the market (debuting in 2007),
quickly establish itself as a premier source of
information for more mature manga fans.
Protoculture Addicts
protoculture.ca
Originally started as a Robotech fan magazine,
it has since expanded to cover all anime and
manga, supplementing its coverage through an
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Yen Plus
yenpress.us/?cat=4
Yen Presss answer to Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat
is aimed at older teens of both genders, offering a
mix of manga, manhwa and OEL manga. Popular
titles highlighted in its pages so far have included
Maximum Ride by James Patterson and NaRae
Lee, Nightschool by Svetlana Chmakova, Soul
Eater by Atsushi Okubo and Higurashi: When They
Cry by Ryukishi07.
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The Information
Websites
The Internet has been one of the major influences fuelling the boom in manga,
helping spread news faster than ever before and giving fans in remote corners of
the world a common venue where they can discuss their favourite series. While
there are many sites worth a visit, what follows is a cross-section of the best
resources for online news and commentary. In addition to the sites listed here, all
manga publishers maintain an online presence see Chapter 6. Also, check social
networking sites like twitter.com, facebook.com and myspace.com youre bound
to find fans with similar interests, or perhaps even industry professionals who
maintain a presence there too.
About.com: Manga
animenewsnetwork.com
animenewsnetwork.com.au
manga.about.com
Anime Vice
animevice.com
Gia Manry, a freelance journalist and blogger
based in Portland, Oregon, first rose to prominence online as a staff writer for the now-defunct
animeOnline in 2007. After two years of running
her own blog, she was hired as managing editor
of Anime Vice, a portal featuring news, reviews,
an encyclopedia of anime and manga series and
forums. Her writing style comes from the perspective of the average fan, sharing the glee of finding
good stuff and cringing in horror at the bad.
ComiPedia
comipedia.com
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ComiPress
MangaCast
comipress.com
mangacast.net
Manga Jouhou
icaruscomics.com/wp_web/
manganews.net
MangaBlog
mangablog.net
Freelance writer Brigid Alverson set up her blog
back in March 2005 with the aim of making
sense of all the goings-on in the manga world.
It currently monitors around fifty different
manga blogs, as well as a range of news sites,
offers interviews, reviews and also compiles
companies press releases.
Mania.com Anime/Manga
mania.com/anime_manga_oav_ova_dvd_
category_143.html
Manias anime and manga coverage has as its
foundation the news and reviews once hosted by
Chris Beveridges Anime on DVD website, bought
out by Mania in 2008. The simple layout may be
missing, but all the old content has migrated
over and is now supplemented by fresh news
and reviews. Of particular note is the manga
comparisons database, where you can see all the
titles ever published or announced by a given
publisher... and whether theyre still published or
have been cancelled.
Matt Thorn
matt-thorn.com
Thorn, a cultural anthropologist now working in
Japan as an associate professor in the School of
Manga Production at Seika University, is one of
the pre-eminent scholars of shjo manga. His site
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where to go next
Okazu
okazu.blogspot.com
The oldest and most comprehensive blog devoted
to yuri anime and manga is the online home of
Erica Friedman, president of Yuricon and ALC
Publishing and proud advocate for all things yuri.
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The Information
Rumic World
furinkan.com
Everything you ever wanted to know about
Rumiko Takahashi, including her major and
minor works, her characters and numerous
interviews over the years, is included at this site.
Its a veritable treasure trove of information on a
beloved creator.
Tezuka in English
tezukainenglish.com
When the official Osamu Tezuka website (tezuka.
co.jp) converted to an all-Japanese format in
2008, the makeover eliminated what was once a
large repository of information in English about
the artist and his work, Tezuka Osamu @ World.
Fortunately for Western fans, this volunteer-run
site was established in 2005, filling the details
void with biographical details, Tezuka-related
news, character and series profiles, analytical
essays and an active online forum.
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Conventions
Most of these events are officially anime conventions but the name is one of convenience more than anything. Calling them anime, manga and Japanese pop culture
love fests would take far too long. Indeed, many of the events feature some kind of
manga component, whether its tied in with the featured anime, part of the manga
lending libraries that sometimes open in conjunction with the event, or in the artist
alley, where the Western version of the Japanese djinshi culture comes to life. This
is only a small sampling of the events out there; check out AnimeCons.com for a
comprehensive listing, including exact dates for upcoming conventions and up-todate listings of the guests scheduled to attend.
AmeCon
amecon.org
An event started by the Leicester Anime and
Manga Club in 2004 has since grown into one
of the largest events in the UK, with all 1300
attendee slots for the 2008 convention filled
within three weeks of the preregistration period.
Its home for the past few years has been on the
campus of the University of Leicester.
Anime Expo
anime-expo.org
The largest US anime convention, held in
Southern California, has weathered its share of
criticism in recent years, with moves to locations
in Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles
spurring griping among fans about the lack of
space. For all intents and purposes, though, the
event remains an industry magnet that draws
thousands each July.
Anime North
animenorth.com
Running since 1997, the Toronto-based Anime
North is Canadas oldest and most prominent
Armageddon Expo
armageddonexpo.com
pulpexpo.com
This is more of a sci-fi convention that happens
to have an anime and manga component, but
it runs several times each year at various sites in
Australia and New Zealand.
Comic-Con International:
San Diego
comic-con.org
The granddaddy of them all when it comes
to gatherings that celebrate manga, this
renowned annual comics convention has
welcomed artists from Japan as far back as
1981, when Osamu Tezuka led a delegation of
thirty artists to meet and greet fans. While other
comics and pop culture icons get the lions
share of the space, July at Comic-Con is often
the time when manga publishers unveil their
plans for the coming year.
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The Information
Kawaii Kon
Project A-Kon
kawaii-kon.org
a-kon.com
MangaNEXT
supanova.com.au
manganext.com
Otakon
otakon.com
Fans on the East Coast have made this convention
in Baltimore, Maryland, the second-largest convention in the US. It takes place in August each year.
YaoiCon
yaoicon.com
If you love boys love manga, this is your dream
come true. Held annually in San Francisco, this
convention celebrates yaoi in all its glory, from
professional releases to fan-created djinshi.
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Glossary
& index
6/1/09 4:53 PM
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Glossary
Glossary
Note: Japanese does not have plurals, so words are either singular or collective. The noun
manga can therefore either refer to a manga or to manga in general and mangaka can
refer to either one or several manga artists.
4-koma or yonkoma four-panel comic
strip that usually culminates with a gag.
Strips are commonly printed vertically
and have self-contained plots, although
some developments may carry over
between strips.
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Glossary
263
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Glossary
264
6/1/09 4:53 PM
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Glossary
265
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Index
Index
Thumbnail and canon reviews are indicated in bold.
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Index
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Index
268
6/1/09 4:53 PM
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Index
Faeries Landing 36
Fairy Idol Kanon 238
Fanfare 221
Fantagraphics 230
Feel 100% 38, 55
Final Fantasy 206
First President of Japan 223
Fist of the Blue Sky 223
Fist of the North Star 120121, 175
Five Star Stories 28
Flesh for the Beast 229
flopping 4849
Flowers of the Year 24 Group 23
Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in San Francisco 8
Four Shojo Stories 69
Four Students Manga, The 8
Foxy 235
Friedman, Erica 230
Fruits Basket 122123, 182
Fujieda Miyabi 228
Fujii, Mihona 62, 213
Fujio, Fujiko F. 15, 22, 114
Fujisawa, Tohru 139
Fujishima, Ksuke 164, 204
Fujoshi Rumi series 229, 232
Fukui, Harutoshi 214
Fukusaku, Kinji 90
Fullmetal Alchemist 123125,192, 242, 243
Full Metal Panic 240
Fushigi Yugi: The Mysterious Play 47,
126127
Futari H 237
Gainax 197
Galaxy Express 999 29, 130131
Gallagher, Fred 56, 223
GALS! 62, 213
Garo magazine 20
GeGeGe no Kitar 24
gekiga 14, 1920
Genius Bakabon, The 25
Genshiken 134135, 216
Ghost Hunt 216
Ghost in the Shell series 66, 136137, 201
Gigantor anime 39
Girl Got Game 70
giseigo 61
gitaigo 61
global manga 39, 52
Go! Comi 225226
Godzilla 214
Gokinjo Monogatari 167
Golgo 13 42, 66, 138139
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Index
Gon 214
Great Teacher Onizuka see GTO
Grey 43
GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka 43, 49,
139141
Guin Saga Manga: The Seven Magi 239
Gungrave 204
Gunsmith Cats 215
Guru Guru Pon-chan 70, 216
Gutsoon! Entertainment 223
I Am a Man 132
Icarus Publishing 76, 230, 256
Ice Blade 47, 236
ICE Kunion 238, 244
Igarashi, Satsuki 98
Igorevna, Chezhina Svetlana 55
Ihara, Shiro 245
Ikebukuro West Gate Park 219
Ikeda, Riyoko 23, 178
Ikegami, Ryoichi 29, 103
Ikezawa, Satomi 70
Imadoki 129
Infinity Studios 226
Initial D 49, 68, 236
Inoue, Takehiko 28, 182, 184185, 188, 256
international manga see global manga
Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar
5ystem 133
270
6/1/09 4:53 PM
6555555555555555554
Index
271
6/1/09 4:53 PM
45555555555555556
Index
Lim, Hwei-Lin 55
lines, use of 61
live action films based on manga 201203
Lone Wolf and Cub 42, 43, 103, 147
149,189
Lost World 14
Love*Com (Lovely Complex) 31
Love, Courtney 54
Love for Venus 212
Love Hina 49, 150151, 192, 216
Love Quest 245
Love Roma 66, 67, 152154, 216
Lucky Star 211
Ludwig von Beethoven 18
Lunar Legend Tsukihime 220, 221
Lupin III 67, 154155
Luv Luv Press 210
Macbeth 233
Mach Go Go Go 40
Madman Entertainment 51, 212, 228
magazines, history of manga 9
magazines about manga 253
Magic Knight Rayearth 29, 47, 98, 229, 236
Maison Ikkoku 46, 66, 152, 156157, 175,
176, 202
Mai the Psychic Girl 29, 43, 103, 242
majiku 211
Make 5 Wishes 54, 217
Makoto, Mizuno 200
Manga 18 241
Manga Cookbook, The 218
Manga Guide to Statistics, The 218
Manga History of Japan, A 108
Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics 41, 249
Manga North American History, A 8
272
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Index
Manganovel 50
Manga Shnen magazine 15
Manga Sutra 237
Manga University 218
Manga Vizion 242
Mangazine 41, 52
MangErotica 76
manhua 36, 222
manhwa 3436, 231, 236, 238, 240
Man of Many Faces 99100
manzai 152
Maria-sama ga Miteru 74
Marmalade Boy 49, 193
Marvel Mangaverse 53
Mashimo, Koichi 205
Masque of the Red Death 225
Matrix, The 136
Matsumoto, Katsuji 13
Matsumoto, Leiji 15, 130, 132133
Mazinger Z 25
MBQ 55
Media Blasters 229
Megatokyo 56, 213, 223
Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, The 198,
200
Mermaid Saga 156, 176, 177
Metropolis 14, 193
Metro Survive 220
Miller, Frank 42, 148
Minagawa, Ryoji 244
Miracle Girls 236
Mitsubachi no Bouken 132
Miura, Kentaro 194, 215
Mixx Entertainment 47
also see Tokyopop
Mixxzine 47, 235
Miyao, Shigeo 9, 13
Miyazaki, Hayao 43, 154, 162
Mizuki, Shigeru 22, 24
Nadesico 241
Nagai, Go 21, 25
Nagano, Mamoru 28
Nagasawa, Satoru 74
Nakahara, Aya 31
Nakayoshi magazine 15
Nakazawa, Keiji 40, 41, 88
Nana 71, 72, 202, 242
Nananan, Kiriko 221
Nanten, Yutaka 199
Naruto 49, 159161, 192, 193, 242
Nausica of the Valley of the Wind 43,
162163, 192
Negima! 216
Nekoi, Tsubaki 98
Neon Genesis Evangelion 192, 197, 201
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days 197
NetComics 231
New Mangaverse 53
273
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Index
Okamoto, Ippei 7
Okhania 1 55
Okuda, Hitoshi 201
Oliff, Steve 78
omake 62
One Piece 166167, 242
One-Pound Gospel 177
One World Manga 243
Only the Ring Finger Knows 219
Orion 136
Oshima, Towa 220
tomo, Katsuhiro 78
Otsu-e 4
Ouran High School Host Club 70, 242
Out of Galaxy: Gin no Koshika 133
Palmer, Tom 42
panels 60
Paradise Kiss 49, 71, 152, 167168
Parasyte 47, 236
Passion 219
Path of the Assassin 103
Patten, Fred 40, 251
Patterson, James 54
Peach Fuzz 51
Peach Girl 152, 169170
Peach-Pit 244, 245
Peigenz 226
Performance, Ark 214
Phoenix 20, 41, 171173
Picard, Alice 55
Pineapple Army 43
Pini, Wendy 42, 225
Pink Is For Girls 235
Planet Ladder 49
PlayStation Portable 233
Please Save My Earth 173174
274
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Index
Pluto 84
Pokmon 4748, 204, 212, 242
ponchi-e 7
Ponent Mon 221
Pope, Paul 55
Pop Fiction 237
Pop Japan Travel 219
Pop Japan Travel: Essential Otaku Guide 218
Porco Rosso 162
Portrait 55
Priest 36
Princess Ai 51, 54
Princess Knight 12, 15, 17
Princess Princess 219
Project A-Ko 241
Project X 218
PSP 214
Pulp 242
Puyo 200
Ragnarok 36
Raijin Comics 223
Random House 216
Ranma 46, 175178, 242
Real 184, 185
Real/Fake Princess 38
Record of Lodoss Wars 241
Red-Colored Elegy 227
rem 55
Ribon 16
Ribon no Kishi 15, 17
Ricatte Kanji!? 75, 230
Richardson, Mike 43
Rikdo, Koshi 195
Ring, The 219
Rintaro 193
Robot 238
Robotech 39
Romeo and Juliet 233
Rosca, Madeleine 54, 55
Rose of Versailles 23, 41, 178180
Rosero, Jennyson 233
Rumic Theater 176
Rumic World 46, 257
Rurouni Kenshin 65, 229, 242
Rush 241
Ryukishi07 206
275
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Index
tachiyomi 14
Tagawa, Suih 9, 13
Taguchi, Masayuki 90
Takada, Yuzo 215
Takahashi, Kazuki 207
Takahashi, Miyuki 214
276
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Index
277
6/1/09 4:53 PM
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Index
Unbalance x Unbalance 36
Urano, Chikako 24
Urasawa, Naoki 56, 68, 84, 157
Urusei Yatsura 156, 175, 176, 177
Urushibara, Yuki 217
Usui, Yoshito 195
Utatane, Hiroyuki 230
Yakitate!! Japan 66
Yamada, Futaro 217
Yamagishi, Ryoko 74
Yamaguchi, Takayuki 232
Yamamoto, Naoki 243
Yanagisawa, Kazuaki 239
yaoi 7273
Yaoi Press 231
yaoi publishers 230
Yashiro, Yuzuru 200
Yatate, Hajime 199
Yazawa, Ai 72, 167
Year 24 Group 23
Yen Plus 245
Yen Press 244
Yokoyama, Mitsuteru 19
yonkoma 9
Yoshida, Akimi 27, 87
Yoshida, Tatsuo 220
Yoshimizu, Kagami 211
Yoshitoshi, Tsukioka 5
Yoshizaki, Mine 238
Yoshizumi, Wataru 193
Yotsuba&! 32, 240
278
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Index
You, Hyun 36
Yu-Gi-Oh! 49, 207, 242
Yukikos Spinach 224
yuri 7375
Yuri Hime 74
Yuri Monogatari 230
yuri publishers 230
Yu Yu Hakusho 242
279
6/1/09 4:53 PM
280
6/1/09 4:53 PM
Listen Up!
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