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Manga Mania:

"The Tokyo comic book market is very different from the US market: Comic book series launches, ad campaigns to hype the new hero, spin-off character-based comics playing off flagships like Superman and X-men are the norm in the US, but not in Japan."

(Via Blogdex.)

This article presents what Manga is all about and why it is not about your average spandex-clad super-heroes trying to save the world from some evil egomaniac (of course, you can find manga of that genre if you are interested). You will manga characters from the most unlikely sources: detectives, magicians, robots, normal everyday people living their normal lives. In short, manga tries to cater to a wide range of audience.

More importantly, it is not all about the drawing but rather the story. True, most American comics have fantastic drawing, inking and coloring but their story line is abysmal. In fact, you will realize soon enough that after reading a few pages, you can easily guess what the next corny line is going to be from an American comic. Why? Most probably because they are just that many story lines for a sci-fi for a comic that you have probably seen them all: time warping, multiple identities, psychological trauma, different eras, etc.

Because manga tends to focus more on the story line, they employ simple drawing that capture the essence of the story, no more and no less. This makes for a very clean story line without all the distractions that arise from the drawings.

So go read the Manga Mania article and head over to lurker.net to obtain your first copy of a scanlation.

It has been some time since I have read something that is really worth posting about manga. But I guess there are two series that I have just completed that are worth mentioning somewhat. I have not read other works from the same mangaku so I would not dedicate full posts to them.

The first, Hikaru No Go. I think it is supposedly the manga that sparked some Go interest when it was turned into an anime. For those who do not know what Go is, a quick search on Google reveals this link which should provide more than enough information. Of course, it is not necessary to know Go to actually read the manga which may or may not be a good thing. Anyway, the manga begins fairly well with the introduction of some spirit called Sai that possesses an old goban (Go game board). Seems like Hikaru (protagonist) is among the few who can see this spirit. So Sai goes along merrily with Hikaru and influences him to play the game of Go. Needless to say Hikaru was resistant to Sai's suggestions as first but in the long run develops a deep interest for Go. At first, I thought that this is indeed an interesting way to start a manga: have a spirit that piques the interest of a boy to play Go. Unfortunately halfway through the series, Sai has to leave the world, fo no apparent reason. That was where I got really annoyed at the story. I really dislike stories that kill off characters for no apparent reason. Worse yet, the series did not even complete the story about the Hand of God. Throughout the series there were allusions to a perfect game of Go that is called the Hand of God. Unfortunately by the time the series ended, the concept of the Hand of God seemed to have been abandoned leaving the story with a poor ending that does not do justice to the series. In other words it was a forced ending. Moreover, they are entire volumes dedicated to nothing but side stories. To me, it shows that the mangaku has already ran out of ideas and it just milking the rest out of his dedicated readers. All in all, I felt that this manga got off to an excellent start but fell short in the end. I am not sure what actually happened to the mangaku who did this series but it could have been much better.

Onto another series. GTO. Seems to be popular enough that they even made an anime out of it and even had a real drama series for it with real life actors. Though I do wonder how they toned down some of the scenes that were either very violent or just plain weird. Anyway, GTO is fantastic. Here is a story that does not rely on excellent art work but a sound story line instead. Take a gangster and make him into a teacher. (By the way, this gangster has weird (unorthodox ways) of educating problem kids, which makes for the interesting story). And then show what is wrong with the education system. Of course, it has some nonsensical behavior but it also goes to show why part of the education system in Japan is not really working. The only shortcoming that I found was the elaborate plan of the students to actually get rid of their teacher. For this they would even go so far as to plant sleeper students in the class to upset the teacher. Other than that, the story is interesting and not too long. Of course, don't really believe everything that you read in this series.

This post might seem a little out of place compared to the other posts that I have written but I still find it relieving once in a while to write about such things. After all, if it is worth reading, it is definitely worth writing about.

Nowadays my greatest source of entertainment comes from reading manga. My first post on manga was about some patterns in the typical way of producing those that sell well. You can read about it here. I decided to dedicate a section to it because I have consumed about 1000+ pages of various titles through scanlations (short form for translated scans of the original manga) by various groups. For something that I spend nearly an hour a day on, there must surely be something worth writing about.

Although the general rule of thumb is to go buy the manga and not download the scanlations once some company licenses it in your country, I cannot really abide by it. Why? Well, those companies take so long just to get one tokuban out! Sometimes the scanlations are already way ahead on volume 20 while the official tokuban has only reached volume 2! A better compromise would be to continue reading the scanlations until the official versions catch up with them. Another problem actually arises from collecting the official tokubans: physical space! You actually have to find space to store all those graphics novels whereas I can easily fit the entire series into my external usb2 harddisk. Again, I am not advocating privacy, but I would really appreciate it if the Japanese companies released the manga in some electronic form for easy portability.

What I will probably include in future posts in this category would the titles of the latest manga that I can get my hands on. By doing so, I get to adorn my web site with some pretty pictures without having to take them myself. Oh yeah, almost forgot about copyright issues. But if I give the proper credits I guess it is all right, isn't it?

Anyway, here is my tribute to one of the greatest manga artist of all time: Rumiko Takahashi. She created well-loved series such as Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, and Urusei Yatsura. She has many other titles under her belt as well. And each new series that I pick up never fails to inspire fits of laughter and hours of enjoyment. For a great website that features a summary of all her works, please visit Rumic World.

Right now, Cartoon Network is showing the older Inuyasha anime series over the weekdays. And they have the latest season airing every night on Saturdays. This would be a good time to actually watch the series. I am happy that the translation of the anime went pretty well and that the characters do not sound like silly little children with cotton balls stuff down their throats.

I have been following a few manga series over the years. Two of which are none other than DragonBall (not DragonBallZ or DragonBallGT) and Rurouni Kenshin (SamuraiX). Currently, I am reading Naruto, Shaman King, Bleach and some other shorter ones that I occasionally pick up. Moreover, I get my source of manga through scans and translations made possible by some manga groups.

Anyway, through my reading I have noticed some very similar patterns for mangas that fall into the category of action (fighting). So far Naruto, Shaman King, DragonBall all have a lot of fight scenes. So my "pattern" here only works for manga of this genre. I am in no position to claim that my observations are right. Neither have I seen these observations anyway else so these are indeed opinions of my own.

• Important pilot episode
  Most of the mangas I read had their pilot episode appear in Shonen Jump. The pilot episode is very important and is usually about 50 pages compared to the normal episodes which are usually around 20 pages only. The purpose of the pilot episode is to gauge how well the reader will respond to the manga. For me, I can decide whether I will continue reading this series by the style of drawing. Moreover, it is important for me to empathize with the protagonist of the story. If the artist is unable to achieve that then this series will not be successful.
• An unlikely hero
  The hero will be revealed in the first episode. He (the hero is seldom a she, I think) will always be someone who has some special ability. The hero himself might not know it yet but through the conversations of those around him, you can infer that the hero is no ordinary person. The artist will try to hint this to the reader casually and not explicitly. Moreover, the hero shall befriend an even more unlikely acquaintance. Together this pair will work together in the next few episodes as the mystery unravels.
• Ridiculous amount of never-ending power
  The hero will also be almost non-human or a human that possess some potent power or ability. In the first few episodes (it could run up to 50) the hero will vanquish all villains using his current level of "power" (which will definitely be higher than his power during his first battle). I have used the term power here because it is not limited to physical strength but includes other forms of abilties (the abilties to use some of the "spirits"). Moreover, the hero is able to advance in his level of power through a series of training and fighting.
• Ancient history
  To add depth to the character, the artist will insert pieces of the hero's past and history into the story as it unravels. Usually the hero will be of some special descent of people that possess some special ability. Sometimes, the artist will reveal the past of some other characters in the story too especially of those who are close to the hero.
• Simple endings first!
  The first few episodes will have simple endings. That is to say that there is a clear line between one story and the next. These first few episodes are meant to further elaborate on the character of the hero. Furthermore, these episodes will also introduce some of the main companions of the hero.
• Then greater evil!
  Greater evil will soon follow. This is where the hero will first lost the battle and will undergo more training. This will the part of the series where the fight scenes can take up an entire volume and still not end. Usually this is also the stage where all sorts of special combo moves are revealed. By this time, the manga series will have a steady number of readers. The steady rate of readers is important because the later part of the series is more enjoyable if the reader is familiar with the first few episodes.
• An enemy turn good
  There will be an enemy who will be turned to the hero's side. This will also be one of the hero's closest companion. This side-kick idolizes the hero and will strive to be like him. Of course there will be more than one enemy who will turn his back to the dark side but usually there will be one who is most prominent.
• A conspiracy
  The greatest evil will often be of the form of a conspiracy. This conspiracy involves factions of the supposedly good guys. Throughout the story before this conspiracy is revealed, the artist will insert suggestions of it. Suggestions usually take the form of masked characters, or shadows talking in the dark. It may also be as simple as a grin from the mouth of the enemy. The skilled artist is capable of such innuendoes.
• An apprenticeship
  The hero will also always fall under the tutelage of some master as the story unfolds. This is in accordance to the notion that the hero will have an infinite among of power which can be released through training.
• Extremely long fight scenes
  As the story unfolds, the fight scenes get longer. Moreover the fight scenes are not longer centered around the hero only. His companions will also have dangerous battles. To make the series of battle even longer, the artist usually relies on the idea of a tournament to determine the best fighter. Sometimes the artist will also include many more villains that help the antagonist. The hero and his friend will have to battle all of them before fighting the villain.
• A simple love story
  The artist, at his own discretion can choose to insert some form of romance in the story. The romance is usually not too elaborate but it serves rather to show that there is someone that cares about the hero in a way deeper than that of his closes companions.

Though there are some variations to this, this pattern of story-telling is usually the one that artists follow. Because this applies to a manga, the descriptions above are not necessarily embodied in writing. Instead the artist strives to describe them using his drawing and limits the conversation to provide some background to what is going on.

I guess that this time-tested pattern is what gets the reader excited about the manga and the fight scenes. Usually a good fighting manga will span about 200+ episodes.