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The Mie Journal

A WEBLOG MADE IN JAPAN

Anime/Manga

By Caroline · December 31, 2005

Both anime and manga are names used to talk about Japanese cartoons. What is the difference?

Anime comes from “animation” in English, which the Japanese read “animeeshon”, and which in turn has become “anime”. It is used for animated versions only. What kind of animated versions? Of manga. Manga is the word used for Japanese comics. In general, anime is the animated version of manga. However, this is not a hard and fast rule; anime can exist without manga and vice versa.

Megaman NT Warrior

Manga differs from traditional comics because the characters aren’t necessarily super-heroes and the stories seem to be more complex than comics. There is also the way the eyes are drawn: manga characters have large eyes. I am sure there are two reasons for this. The first must be because the Japanese have slanted eyes, so they may be showing what they would like to look like instead. The second is that large eyes are much more expressive.

There are various types of manga. The best-known are shoujo, shonen, hentai and gekiga. Shoujo means “young girl” in Japanese and shoujo manga are mostly love stories. Shonen means “young man” and these manga are mostly about fights. Hentai is a pornographic manga (no comment), and gekiga have adult content (not necessarily pornographic) and you won’t find the traditional enormous eyes in this last type. Well, again, even if shonen is more attractive to boys, girls also enjoy shonen and vice versa. Nothing here is absolute…

A good example of an anime movie is Howl’s Moving Castle. Like many of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies (see my post about this movie), this one is very different in tone from Western cartoons like Disney’s, for instance. Disney is predictable in our culture. We know the good guys will be happy ever after, and the bad guys will die. In Howl’s Moving Castle, however, the good guys sometimes take the bad guys with them, or the bad guys help the good ones. Maybe this is to show that everyone has qualities and defects. For me this depiction of reality is very significant. However, the world created by Miyazaki is also mystical since you never know exactly what it is. There isn’t anyone saying “Long ago, in Blablaland…”. You discover it all by yourself, and interpret it freely (or almost freely).

When you start liking anime and manga, and I speak for myself here (and also for someone who voiced a similar opinion in the newspaper last year, I think), you go from very popular to unknown (or almost unknown) titles. I started watching Pokemon, then I was attracted by other ones like Card Captor Sakura, Corrector Yui, animes whose readers are mostly children…

Then, the process sped up. I looked for more unknown titles, the kind that were not on television. I bought Love Hina (Ken Akamatsu), and all the popular anime were left behind. Love Hina is the story of a guy who wants to go to university. He leaves his home to live with his grandma, but the grandma’s house has become a girl’s dormitory. He’s very unhappy because he’s always being slapped by the girls when he enters the bathroom while they are having a shower… See? It is more like a romantic comedy.

Youji and Natsuo from Loveless

I have gone through Chobits by Clamp (a story that features human-looking robots and centers on the question “can robots feel anything?”), Saint Seiya by Masami Kurumada, (Knights of the Zodiac – check my article on Seiya), Cowboy Bebop by Yutaka Nanten (a kind of futuristic manga, with human beings living in the whole galaxy, and with “cowboys”, who are people that catch criminals for a living, but are not police), X by Clamp again (Clamp is a very well-known studio), it talks about the end of the world, Fushigi Yugi by Yuu Watase, Onegai Teacher by Shizuru Hayashiya and Please!. Now I’m buying Megaman NT Warrior by Ryo Tamisaki (popular and funny), Tokyo Babylon by CLAMP, Angel Sanctuary by Kaori Yuki, Saint Seiya Episode G by Masami Kurumada and Megumu Okada, Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya and others I have forgotten…

I also have Gravitation by Maki Murakami, and I’m presently reading Loveless by Yun Kouga (by the way, my sister got me the first Loveless volume in Japanese for Christmas, I’m so happy since I can read and I could understand some things!).

Some links: Clamp, Yun Kouga, Fate, Cowboy Bebop, Anipike, Jetix in Brazil.

What are your favourites and why?

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Comments (11)

Link to this comment! Rudolf wrote on December 31, 2005:

Manga and anime mostly passed me by—for my generation, the interesting comics all came from France, Belgium or the US.

Still, Miyazaki is hard to ignore. A couple of days ago I went to Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama, one of the oldest hot springs in Japan and the inspiration of the big house in Spirited Away. On a little table near the entrance they had a copy of Myazaki’s storyboards for the movie, and whoa—that man draws like an angel!

A couple of years ago I taught a course on Art Spiegelman’s Maus. A student of mine then went on and wrote a pretty good graduation thesis in which she compared Spiegelman’s graphic novel with Osamu Tezuka’s Adolf.

Also, for what it’s worth: Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics has an interesting part where he compares comics with manga and says that manga are more “cinematic”.

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Link to this comment! Caroline wrote on January 07, 2006:

Miyazaki is just amazing, I just LOVED Howl’s Moving Castle, I watched it twice in the cinema, and I’m waiting to buy it!

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Link to this comment! Rudolf wrote on January 07, 2006:

Well, the DVD is out in Japan—it shouldn’t be too long before you can get it in the West.

Totoro isn’t available in the West because Studio Gibli refused to license it to Disney. I wanted to give it to my godchild for Christmas a year ago but couldn’t because there was no German translation available, so I ended up giving her Spirited Away. Big mistake. The little girl didn’t understand anything and her big sister was so scared she couldn’t sleep that night.

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Link to this comment! tomoya wrote on January 19, 2006:

Hello Caroline! I also like anime made by Hayao Miyazaki.

When I was a child, I liked Dragonball the best. This was written by Akira Toriyama. I had all volumes of the Dragonball comics.

This manga later became anime and a movie and became very popular.

Maybe most Japanese children know Dragonball.

If you are interested, please read about Dragonball.

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Link to this comment! Mayu wrote on January 19, 2006:

Hi.

You really know better about japanese Anime and Manga than me. I’ m very surprised.

I have never watched Howl’s Moving Castle, so I will try it. But I have watched other Hayao’s movies, I like The Castle in the Sky: Laputa and Whisper of the Heart. These are very comfortable for me.

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Link to this comment! Kayo wrote on January 20, 2006:

Hello Caroline. I’m totally impressed! You have so much knowledge about Anime and Manga.

I’m really pleased to hear that you like Howl’s Moving Castle!:-) I like this movie so much, although I like the novel based on Howl’s Moving Castle written by Diana Winne Jones too. Howl in the movie version is totally creditable, I guess. And personally I like Calcifer the most. He is sooo pretty, isn’t he. Of course I like Howl, Sophie and the witch of the west!

Anyway, have you ever seen Doraemon? If you not, I suggest seeing this Anime. This anime is really fun.

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Link to this comment! Rudolf wrote on January 21, 2006:

Doraemon is everywhere—it’s a classic like Sazae-san or even Tetsuwan Atomu (known as Astro Boy in the West)—and in my opinion it’s much better fun than, say, Hello Kitty or Anpanman.

Time Magazine ran a good article on Doraemon a while ago.

Oh, and there’s Miffy, which isn’t Japanese—its creator, Dick Bruna. is Dutch—but which is still incredibly popular over here.

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Link to this comment! daichi wrote on January 22, 2006:

Hi! I was very surprised about how you examined the difference between manga and anime. I didn't know.

By the way, I like Slamdunk very much. Do you know it? This is about basketball. And Slamdunk doesn’t become anime but comic books. These days, this manga becomes DVD.

I read other comic books in the old days. Of course, I read Dragonball which Tomoya recommended.

I want you to read this manga.

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Link to this comment! TarO wrote on January 23, 2006:

My favourite ones are Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, Maison Ikkoku, and…. I think I need longer space for listing them all :)

Anime has its own style to begin with. Expression is often or should I say always exaggerated. On the other hand, the message that the producer tries to convey is not as clear and sometimes it’s up to viewer to interpret as you said. To sum up, it’s fun but still complex at the same time. I think that’s the reason I have been watching animes for several years now instead of watching movies in cinema :)

And Daichi, Slamdunk had been made into anime. But I still prefer its manga. If you ever watch Dragon Ball, I bet you don’t even watch to watch Slamdunk. Both of them, Slamdunk and Dragon ball, are much much much enjoyable to be read.

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Link to this comment! jonty wrote on February 05, 2006:

This is a very interesting entry. Thank you!

I’m 16-year-old and loves to draw. We have just recently launched our new anime-inspired storyblog, IPUIPO @ http://ipuipo.blogspot.com/

It’s a mythical story of a young boy’s journey as a mystical healer and warrior in the lush forests of Dakilang Bundok somewhere in the Philippine islands.

Please visit it when you have the time.

Thanks,

jonty

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Link to this comment! Caroline wrote on February 22, 2006:

Hi everyone… I’m sorry it took so long for me to answer, but here I am. Classes have started and Bee is no longer my teacher. I’d like to thank you for all the comments you guys left. If I have something interesting to post I’ll do so. I’ll also try to keep up with my own blog and to follow you.

I hope we’ll get along well…

See you!

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