Entertainment’s new installment

During our new generation, a new kind of entertainment has formed. This new visual enjoyment is called Manga. What is manga? Where and how did this art take form? As an ebullient manga fan, it will be my top priority to let you in this blatant, imaginative world.

It’s difficult to identify the exact date when manga had emerged, but “many credit the beginning of sequential art in Japan with the creation of scrolls of illustrations by Buddist monks in the twelfth century.” Although it’s not quite presented and formatted as the manga we see today, the idea is the same. Sending messages to readers through graphical art.  By now you have probably guessed what manga is. It’s the Japanese word for comics, but meaning “drawn short stories”.  So why did manga emerge? Did the monks start doodling on scrolls one random afternoon because they were bored?  Perhaps not.  They used graphic art as a way of recording history opposed to manuscripts.  Chinese drawings, legendary battles, religious stories and everyday life was a popular topic during the dusk of this new art. Later on, some monks started to include humor and their own ideals, like “Toba Sojo (1053-1140), shows rabbits, frogs, monkeys and foxes behaving like monks in Buddhist rituals.” In the 16^th century, artisans carved the images into wood blocks and made large stamps. This produced many copies and the art spread rapidly. By the 17^th century, woodblock artists focused their work toward entertainment (the floating world), carving sumo wrestlers, erotic geisha girls, kabuki actors and courtesans.  In the 19^th century, the great “Ukiyo-e master, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), who first coined the term manga, produced 15 volumes between 1814 and 1815. His work revealed Japanese culture and society alongside nature, but lacked narritves.” Manga culture was indeed transcending, but during world war two, publishers were forced to close due to paper shortage and illustrators all started to work for the government, producing propaganda that is. But after the war, demands for manga returned and many new publishers arouse. Today, Japan has the largest comic market in the world.

Now that we are familiar with the history of manga, let’s jump into the main subject. What types of manga are there? If manga are sorted into different groups, then the audiences are different as well? Indeed. Manga is primarily classed by age and sex. “The first category includes children’s magazines (yonenshi), teen magazines (shonenshi), and “young” magazines (yangushi, also known as seinenshi) which attract readers from their late teens to their late twenties. The second group includes adult magazines (known as seinenshi) which were intended for mature audiences. Women manga are further divided by age into teenage girl manga (shojoshi) and Ladies comics (redizu). Women oriented manga are marked by sophisticated character descriptions and a distinctive grammar.” As for genres, adventure, sports, joke, romance, literary, historical, information and erotic manga are ubiquitous. Shonenshi often adopts the first four, since it really captures male readers’ attention. As for violence and erotic, an age limit is required for reading and purchasing. Information manga includes economic manga, which erupted from the Second World War. It is also known as academic manga because its purpose is mainly educational, working as a study aid. Joke manga, alias Comedic manga is also subbed into Satirical manga, Nonsense manga and Gag manga. Satire manga are typically done by senior artists and published in newspapers and general magazines, focusing on events, politics and social issues. Nonsense manga is humorous manga which aren’t entirely satirical. Gag manga is named for the spur of the moment when you “gag” from laughter, it is the most common joke manga of all. Lastly, shojoshi topics, teen girl manga, frequently surround the topics of mother-daughter relationships, friendship, stardom, school life and romance. The format of shojoshi is also very different from the others too, taking on narrative structures, conspicuous eyes and wide columns focusing a lot more on characters then details (scenery, logic, storyline…etc) Actually, erotic manga is also sorted into male and female types, one as love stories and the other as nitty-gritty pornography, rape, lesbianism…we’ll leave it there. So these are the basic types and sorts of manga that has been seen in the past and are leading today. These topics cover so many types of stories, I seriously doubt there will be any major installments happening in the near future.

Out of hundreds of publishers, there is currently three largest manga publishers in Japan and a dozen other subs.  The first one is Shogakukan (株式会社小学館, Kabushiki kaisha Shōgakukan). Founded in 1922, it targeted elementary school children. “While expanding childrens magazines, it also became a general publishing company with a book division that releases picture books, pictorial guides, dictionaries, encyclopedias, literary works, magazines and manga.” For kids, there’s the monthly magazine Cora-Cora for children, also containing one of the most well known comic in the world, Doremon. For teens, there’s weekly the weekly manga Sunday. The manga it possesses are so competitive that only Shonen Jump can top them. Shonen Jump, or formally known as Shueisha, Inc. (株式会社集英社, Kabushiki Kaisha Shūeisha) is no doubt the current leading manga publishing company in the world. Found in 1925, it started off in the same company as Shogakukan. In 1947, it independently established their own department naming it Shueisha. Shueisha was successful from the very start, in time; all the famous bestselling magazines ultimately became their property, including the Japanese version of Playboy, Seventeen and Pinky for females, and of course, the most famous Shonen Jump for both genders and all ages. Last but not least, Kodansha Limited (株式会社講談社, Kabushiki-gaisha Kōdansha) mainly distributes magazines. Created in 1909, it shares the same organization as Kobunsha (largest book company in Japan), Gendai (famous Japanese news paper company) and King Records (leading record company in Japan).  Of course there are a lot of other companies publishing their own novels, magazines, manga or doing whatever their doing… but after naming these three top dogs, I don’t know if I could find a piece of work on the store’s shelf that isn’t their property.

The question of how to process a manga is very important but often overlooked. When an author has ideal, he droughts down a rough draft about his story, and sends it to a production company. If the editor is fond of the outline of the story, then the artists gets to really start off and produce mangas that will be published into booklets called volumes. I will explain this process first the formal way and then, through an artist’s perspective. “Manga Publishing’s Industrial Structure & Domestic Transactions” contains two parts: production and distribution. For production, we start out with original manga writers thinking brainstorming with their assistants. (There’s approximately 4000 individual artists right now) When they come up with something, they show the outline to the production company. After lots of editing and revising, the copy goes to the publishing company, who edits some more (but on a minor scale) and then starts printing the weekly, monthly magazines or separate volumes. So half of the publishing company is part of production and distribution. After printing, the goods are handed over to distributors, which makes the advertisements, and then sold to retailers (either bookstores, convenience stores, online shops…etc.), ultimately end up in the consumers hands. Since a manga artist’s doesn’t need to worry about anything other than improvising their work, this is how they see the process. Step one: Constantly brainstorming with assistants how the storyline will develop. Step two: Have a meeting with their editors about the direction and style of the story. Step three: Drought down some sketches and outlines. Step four: Fax copy to editor and make adjustments. Step five: Gather assistants and work 3 whole days producing the final copy. Step six: Fax it over, and see it in the weekly magazine the next day. (All this happens in a week) Step seven: Have a meeting with the production company to decide the layout for the next individual volume. Step eight: Draw the layouts. Step nine: Wait for a month to see it on the shelves. (When you purchase your June copy, it was ready in May) So that’s the whole process of producing a manga. To the readers, it’s just a long wait because each volume comes out every two or three months; but to the artists, it’s an intense and stressful life.

            Now that you know the history of manga, the types of manga, the process of producing manga and even the publishing companies of manga, all you’re missing is the knowledge of famous manga works and artists! Let’s take a look at some of the top mangas leading the world today. Dragon Ball (ドラゴンボール) created by Akira Toriyama in 1984, was and is no doubt the most successful graphic novel ever made. Adapting (hugely) the famous story, Journey to the west, it features a boy with extraordinary martial arts skills named Goku. Plot goes, if you find the seven legendary dragon balls you will be granted a wish. Since the manga was one of the first to adopt fantasy fighting, it was instantly a best seller. In fact, dragon ball was the manga that inspired the next manga we’re going to look at. Eiichirō Oda’s (尾田 栄一郎,) One Piece (ワンピース), is the third best selling manga in Shonen Jump’s history; that makes it currently the best selling manga in Asia. Oda was a fan of Dragon Ball since childhood, so his work shows the style and quality, also surrounding the ideals of adventure (to become the king of pirates), fighting and friendship. The only manga that can compete with the unbeatable One Piece today is Naruto. Selling over 4million2hundred and 61 thousand in 2008, it ranks second after One Piece (five million nine hundred fifty-six thousand ). Masashi Kishimoto’s (岸本 斉史),, NARUTO, captures the audience’s attention with friendship, fighting and Ninja’s. The protagonist is a kid ninja, Naruto, whose biggest wish is to save his friend from going evil and, become the village’s leader, a Hokake. Although NARUTO is secondary to One Piece in Asia, the US audience favors former over the latter. Above are the three most respected manga we have today, their position and strength is undeniable. But still, there are many venerable mangas. Bleach is another successful manga that is just prior to Naruto, also focuses friendship, life and fighting with katanas. Ironically, the anime versions of the story sold a ton better then the manga in foreign countries. Death Note was also a big hit few years back. Starring a model high school student who “accidently” obtained a killing note book, the story brings the readers into a foggy world of crime and suspense. Death Note was also a good example of a novel that became a manga. Yu-Gi-Oh was the famous manga that featured playing cards. After reading this comic, every kid had to have a stack of monster playing cards which caused every manga after the Yu-Gi-Oh era to produce their own version of playing cards. Kids that grew up in the 2000s (including myself) all remember before the Yu-Gi-Oh era, was the Pokemon era. Pokemon made fortunes out of it’s mangas, animes, movies, games and miniature monster models. Come to think about it, the whole story was to make money. “In order to become a pokemon master, you have to collect all the monsters.” That was the tagline for this insane money tree. Collecting hundreds of monster (as there were in the manga) meant years of drawing, producing, games, money. And so it is. After 14 years, the tree is still green. The list of manga goes on forever, because it’s a world of imagination and boundaries are non-existing. I hope I sprouted your interest for manga, because by the looks how it’s progressing, you won’t be able to run from it.

The origin, the types and audience, the publishers, the process and the famous works of manga is really all there is introduce. Drawing is man’s basic abilities, imagination has no boundaries. With this combination, anything is possible.