By Frederik L. Schodt

In the English-speaking world these days, more and more people are talking about "manga." In the not- too-distant future "manga" will probably be in ordinary English-language dictionaries, along with other terms from Japan such as "kamikaze" and "sushi." Right now, though, it is nowhere to be found. So what are "manga"?

In Japan "manga" just means "comics" or "cartoons." Like "cartoons," in fact, it's a very vague term, and sure enough, some older people even use it to refer to "animation" (most young Japanese use the word "anime"). In the English-speaking world today, however, most people use "manga" to specifically refer to "Japanese comics," and to distinguish them from American-style comics. You can often tell if Americans know what they are talking about when they use the word "manga." It should be pronounced "mahngah." And just as there are "sheep" but no "sheeps," manga should be spelled the same whether referring to one or two billion.

So how do manga differ from American-style comic books? Actually, they both have the same basic "grammar," as it was imported into Japan from the United States nearly a hundred years ago. This grammar consists of "word balloons" to represent dialog, written sound effects to represent noises, and -- most important of all-- panels arranged in a sequence on a page to tell a story or create a narrative. In fact, some American comic books look just like manga, and some Japanese manga look just like comic books.

There are some profound differences, though. The biggest difference-- in addition to the fact that Japanese comics are created in Japanese whereas American comics are originally created in English-- is that manga are generally read in the reverse order of their American cousins. What American readers think of as the last page of the story is usually the first page (of course to Japanese readers, American comics seem to start at the back of the book!). And the panels on each manga page are ordered from right to left instead of from left to right, and the writing in them is usually vertical. Of course, when manga are translated into English for the English market-- as in the example shown here from Akimi Yoshida's Banana Fish (translated by Matt Thorn)-- the pages are usually "flipped" or "mirrored," so that they can be read by English-speakers. When this is done, differences become less obvious.

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Other than panel order and language, most differences between American and Japanese comics are in fact differences of degree. Still, it is possible to make some generalizations. Manga are usually (but not always) printed in black and white, as opposed to color (and in a practice that confuses many non-Japanese readers, artists often draw the black hair of Japanese characters as "white" or "blonde" to help distinguish them). Manga are also usually more visual than American comics, and contain fewer words. The stories are usually longer, and as a result there is usually more emphasis on narrative and character development. The drawings in manga , however, are usually much simpler (and often not as well rendered) as in American comic books. Instead, manga stories may be told simply by showing close-ups of heads talking, and by using artistic techniques to emphasize emotions (such as drawing large eyes, or drawing dramatic lines or highlights around a character's face, as Yoshida has done in the third panel shown here).

This page from Banana Fish is, in fact, a good example of how Japanese manga and American comics drawing styles can overlap. Banana Fish is very "American" in the sense that the story is set in America (mainly in New York); it is also very "American" because the panels on its pages are rectangular and orthodox, because the story has many words, and because the characters in it are drawn quite realistically. But the story itself is very "Japanese" in that it reflects the perspective of a female Japanese manga artist. She originally created her tale for the readers of a young women's magazine, whose romantic views of New York's urban decadence have been formed by manga, movies, TV, and novels, and who expect aesthetically depicted same-sex romances among the male characters.

Today more and more American comic book artists draw in what they call a "manga" style; although their stories are in English, their work is usually more visual, and their characters have bigger eyes and use fewer words. But despite a convergence in art styles, some big differences between American comics and Japanese manga are unlikely to disappear any time soon. First, manga stories are usually much longer than their American counterparts, and are often serialized for thousands of pages in magazines and then compiled into dozens of paperback volumes. Banana Fish, for example, is around 3,400 pages and 19 paperback volumes long. Second, there are also vastly more manga in Japan than there are comics in America. In fact, nearly 40% of all magazines and books published in Japan today are said to be manga. This means that there are stories of every possible type, read by nearly all people, of all ages and from all walks of life. It also means that . Japan is the only country in the world where "comic books" have become a truly mass medium of expression, just like novels and films.

It is something of a tragedy that, like jazz, comics today are more appreciated overseas than they are in the land of their birth, for they are one of the few truly original American art forms. Like most popular films and novels and music and even like American comics-- most Japanese manga are only light entertainment. Many of them are, frankly, trash. But many are also gems. When we read manga we can enjoy wonderful stories, and we are given a glimpse of the true potential of a wonderful medium of entertainment.

Frederik L. Schodt
December 17, 1998
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