Hear me out here, it's an honest question. xD

I've heard that if an American (such as myself) draws manga (which I do) it's not "really" manga because I'm not Japanese. I've heard that the genre is based purely on origin, and not style. I look at Avatar: The Last Airbender and I see anime. Sure, Americanized anime, but genuine anime. They worked their American asses off to put genuine Asian elements into that cartoon.

I personally think manga/anime is a style and a genre. Correct me if I'm wrong.

And I also think it's funny when people say, "Americans draw cartoons, Japanese people draw anime/manga," because anime/manga is a type of cartoon.

So what do you guys think? Did some Japanese kid just get a bug up their butt and decide that only Japanese people can be mangaka? Or is there actual validity to this concept?

No, but it's so oversaturated and cliché that by now, people are just saying that to try and make you stop. Also, Western manga is generally seen as the sort of thing dim pre-adolescents draw, invariably copied from whatever the popular anime to hate is at the time. It's not true, just like how there are sprite comics that aren't lazy and awful, but it happens so often that people just don't consider the alternatives.

Although, I think 'manga' literally means 'comic', so in that sense, yes.

Holy crap, I just wrote a post defending (sort of) manga artists. How did that happen?

Edit: Also, this might have been better in comic discussion, but it's nice that you didn't just plonk it in general discussion. The effort is appreciated.

Good points.

I'd like to think my work isn't a lame copy! I'm working extremely hard on character designs right now... I have a pretty good feeling that they're unique/original. :] Don't know about the story, though! I don't know if it's already been done!

OOOOPS. Sorry if this is the wrong forum!

you dont hav 2 b japanese. but u do hav to be in japan to draw manga. and you akso hav to eat with chopsticks cuz it trains your hands to draw better. plus drinking sake and green tea helps too for various reasons.

I personally think manga/anime is a style and a genre. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I would have to argue that it is neither a style nor a genre. Considering how the term is used, I would also have to say that the only real way to interpret "manga" when speaking in English is in reference to comics initially published in Japan. Not all manga artists and writers are Japanese, but at the same time, we don't call Korean or Chinese comics manga (in fact, they are often referred to as manhwa or manhua respectively), despite the same style and story formats borrowed from manga genres.

Although, I think 'manga' literally means 'comic', so in that sense, yes.

Actually, it literally translates to "humorous pictures". The term is a holdover from an older art form in Japan. The modern Japanese is more of a generic term like "cartoon" and can refer to comics, as well as single images and animation. Of course, this isn't really relevant to whether it is appropriate to use the term in English to refer to American comics as words such as "manga" and "anime" are loan words that have distinct meanings in English, separate from their meanings in their native tongue.

isukun
I would also have to say that the only real way to interpret "manga" when speaking in English is in reference to comics initially published in Japan.

second. the only real reason that japanese cartoons and comics were branded with different names to begin with was because america was entrenched in the idea of them being "kiddie stuff" so hey used differing names to avoid confusion. heck, 'toons like "avatar" prove that's not the case anymore, so there's no real reason for it now. anyways, the point waa that "manga" and "anime" were used specifically to say "made in japan, not america" so by default, the US interpitation of it requires that it comes from japan.

of course, there's always going to be fanboys that want to brand their stuff with those words. fortunately, they suck so noone's fooled.

I think the idea of Manga ONLY coming from Japan is an idea frequently pushed by anal-retentive otaku. They want the format to be elevated above other styles and even above comics of the same style being made by "imposter" non-Japanese artists.

I can't tell you what the exact definition is, but I think you should be able to call something "Manga" without looking at the author's name or the publication info. We all know what Manga is and have certain expectations of a comic when somebody tells us it's Manga.

If it smells, tastes and looks like manga: it's manga; don't eat the manga.

Syndactyly
I personally think manga/anime is a style and a genre. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It's NOT a genre. Fantasy, adventure, horror, those are genres. Manga is not a genre same as "short story" is not a genre.

EDIT: here comes the lenght post no one will bother to read :)

The term manga generally implies Japanese Comics. Same as manhwa implies Korean Comics and manhua are Chinese Comics. Generally all three are similar but also different, since they evolved in isolation from each other (there isn't much love between these countries).

Questions:

Is Strain, a comic book published by Image Comics a manga? After all it is painted by a Japanese artist, Sana Takeda. Does that make her art for Marvel Comics manga too?

Next, Tatsuya Ishida, creator of Sinfest. Now, he's of Japanese origin and living in US (perhaps born there? no idea). Sinfest often touches on Japanese culture, caligraphy, manga etc. does that make it manga?

What about Usagi Yojimbo? Again, Japanese creator (Stan Sakai) and fully exploring Japanese culture. Does that make it a manga?

Another situation: Moebius wrote and Jiro Taniguchi drew Icaro. Does that make it a manga? or not?

How about Empowered, which is drawn by Adam Warren? Is he/his art Japanese enough to be called a manga?

What about Tsutomu Nihei who's heavily inspired by French comics (Moebius, and quite possibly Schuiten, etc.) Is his Blame! a manga? Is his short story for the Halo Graphic Novel also a manga?

Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira? character faces certainly don't look like a typical manga. What does it make it then?

Taiyo Matsumoto's Tekkon Kinkreet (or Black & White, as it was retitled by Viz) is clearly inspired by European underground/alternative artists. Is it manga?

What about Osamu Tezuka being inspired by Disney?

Go Nagai drew a special Mazinger story for the american publisher, First Comics. It's fully painted in color and about 48 pages, but does it make it a manga or an American comic? The style is basically the same as in his other work, just full color.

To add to the confusion... there appears to be a new Japanese magazine that reprints French/Belgian comics, the so-called BD (Bande Dessinée). Don't know what the format it, but it is clearly full color (looking for drawings by Schuiten I stumbled upon some images with Japanese text pasted into the word balloons) and the art doesn't seem to be reversed. Title of the magazine? Euromanga.

So what is and what isn't manga? Do you want to judge it by style, location, nationality or format?
Do speedlines make manga? American comics use/used speedlines too.
Usage of screentones? Been used outside of Japan too, just less extensively due to preference for color comics.
Black and white? What about color mangas? Plenty titles have color inserts (usually at the beginning of a volume or a chapter) but occasionally there are full color volumes (rarely though and never as long series).
Format? I have a stack of Polish comics (and Polish reprints of Italian comics) in "pocket book" format that's close enough to manga. Anyway, if you reformat it to American "floppy" format, does it become something else?

Yeah, I'll stop here :D

This is more or less echoing what Aurora just said but when you take into account that comics all rely on very similar narrative and layout considerations to tell a story with pictures and words. distinguishing western comics and manga might seem like splitting hairs, at least stylistically. Both are extremely varied in terms of style and subject matter and the greatest differences between the two I largely chalk up to language and production and distribution methods. That is to say manga is generally distributed in large volume so black and white art is generally preferred and the Japanese language is read right to left so thats how panels are laid out. Apart from that comics and manga are really the same thing. So I guess what I'm getting at is do your thing and make it your own.

Even though manga and comics both vary greatly in style, there are some general principles that are different. Partly due to the format, partly due to tradition. For example, text in manga is much much less dense. Often simple actions will take pages with minimal text, something you almost never ever see in comics which tend to be wordier. Also, manga text balloons occupy much more of the page, and also are almost always hand-drawn.

I'd say the main problem with this question is that the definition of "manga" is very different in Japan and other countries. Some of you implied that "manga" just means cartoon in Japanese, but this isn't entirely true because DC/Marvel comics etc have a completely different name, "Amekomi" (short for American comic). However, Japanese comics that are drawn in the Amekomi style are still many times referred to as manga (right now the main example I can think of is Jojo no Kimyou na tabi). For this reason I believe that, in Japan at least, "manga" refers to a comic in Japanese.

From going to a manga school in Japan for a short period of time, I learned that Japanese mangaka do not believe you actually have to be Japanese to draw manga. Many of my teachers (who were pros in Young Jump etc) used to say things like "one of our mangaka alumni was German!" implying that although the person wasn't Japanese he was still a mangaka. I am guessing that the main reason my teachers believed this was because the foreign students (German, Korean, Chinese etc) were still writing and drawing in the Japanese language.

In other countries (correct me if I'm wrong) it seems that the word "manga" has been used to describe a style of drawing rather than the country/language that the comic is in. For this reason, in English I would say that yes, it is possible for you to draw manga, but in the Japanese sense, unless you have someone translate your work or learn Japanese yourself, it will not be considered manga. I guess this is something that may change in the future, since artists from many countries have been starting to explore Japanese style, and a lot of this work will probably start to reach Japan. When this starts to happen, it will be interesting to see what title Japanese people start to call it. Like Aurora Borealis mentioned, will it be Euro/American manga, or will it start to just be called manga on its own? or will it even be called something else all together?

Sorry for the long rant, please disagree with me, I wanna here what y'all have to say!

Jonko
were still writing and drawing in the Japanese language.

is....is there a different way of drawing in the japanese language?

Orin J Master

Jonko
were still writing and drawing in the Japanese language.

is....is there a different way of drawing in the japanese language?

haha, I realize that sounds weird, but yes I would say that all of those sound effects etc are DRAWING as opposed to writing in a language. I guess that's debatable.

Unlike American comics, (traditional) manga artists draw their own text balloons and sound effects. Right on the page where they draw their art. They do not draw all the text-less art, then have another person apply balloons and sound fx on a separate layer.

On one hand, this allows them to take shortcuts in art, and the art/letters are more integrated as a whole. OTOH, it's a bitch to change (hence you see all the problems when porting manga and changing the Jpnese sound fx). You can't just delete the letters layer.

I wonder if Isukun will come and correct me on this.

Anyways, so yes, to draw authentic manga, you need to draw in the Japanese language. Just the different orientation of the balloons (Jpanese goes right to left, but also in COLUMNS not ROWS) changes everything on the page.

It's pretty ridiculous to base a work off it's creator rather than the piece itself.

Any comic you create could be classified as different things depending on the person you ask. At least in the western world, the term "manga" is evolving. I personally, think it's become a style (rather than a genre). What is and what isn't is more a matter of opinion. So to answer the question you're really asking "What is a manga?" I don't believe there's a strict classification right now. You should ask yourself, "What do I think?" As an artist, i think you have the freedom to label it however you wish. It's not like the Japanese art police are going to come after you.

Funny thing is I am 90% sure avatar was animated by lower-wage korean animators, but then again so was family guy.
--------------------------

For drawing serious manga as a career? I haven't exactly heard a success story out of those 14 year olds that 'are going to move to japan to become a mangaka dessho!' a few years back. On top of this Japan's market for anime/manga is roughly in the billions somewhere while America is in low millions, and i don't know of any american manga traveling off-shores.

I can see why people hate western manga for it not being authentic though, it's not just nerd-rage otaku. When i was younger and before i knew better i saw an ad for megatokyo in newtype mangazine. I was enraged they called that ugly ass art style 'manga' and even more pissed off when i picked it up in the book store, as my younger self had seen the art as 'someone shitting on the paper'. I felt like my favorite medium was being invaded by some half-assed wannabe, and naturally i rejected the notion of 'western manga' and wanted to discourage invaders from tainting it.

Now we have western manga like Maximum ride and gothic sports which have nicer art styles that touch the line of being influenced by both sides yet original nicely :).
I still think megatokyo is awful and lazy though fuck megatokyo.

I guess the reason why some people go fanboy crazy over Avatar not being "Anime" or that Syndactyly's comic is not "Manga" because it's not being made in Japan or something like that. It's silly, yes but I guess it's little bit like saying that something that's concieved and published in Russia is American art.

If you wish to tread the line where you should receive the least amount of technicality complaints, you can always go for the "eastern influence" description. "Avatar is a cartoon with eastern influence". "Syndactyly's artwork is influence by eastern art style".

My two cents on the subject.

mlai
Unlike American comics, (traditional) manga artists draw their own text balloons and sound effects. Right on the page where they draw their art. They do not draw all the text-less art, then have another person apply balloons and sound fx on a separate layer.

Quite a lot of european artists do that too. Also, I'd say majority of alternative/independend cartoonists handletter their work, for example Paul Pope (to choose a more known example).

On a sidenote: I've been thinking of designing a font of my own and then lettering over my rough pencils to integrate both better and THEN ink, but I haven't made that jump yet (I tend to do last minute dialogue rewrites and that'd mean I couldn't do any changes after that step).
Anyway, back to the topic.

mlai
On one hand, this allows them to take shortcuts in art, and the art/letters are more integrated as a whole. OTOH, it's a bitch to change (hence you see all the problems when porting manga and changing the Jpnese sound fx). You can't just delete the letters layer.

Nine out of ten times, replaced sound effects look awkward. Personally I'm happy with just some adnotations/translations on the margins/under the art.

For me manga is "Japanese comics" the same way fumetti is "Italian comics" etcetera. Whatever the literal translation is.

I must confess that I know little about Japanese comics, but my guess is that not all these comics are the same. I the same way not all Argentinian comics are the same. Although there will be a certain national style.

I also know for a fact that many Spanish artists, who lived and worked in Spain, drew their comics for the USA and Britain, if their work was later published in Spain it was translated. They figure as part of the USA or British comic artists. Hugo Pratt was italian, but lived and published in Argentina for a time.

So can a non-japanese draw "Japanese comics"? Well of course, why not? Can a Mexican work for Marvel? Same answer.

So where lies the confusion? Well, it seems that some western publishers sell under the label "Manga" comics written, drawn, published and read by westerners. Most if not all of these have never been published or read in Japan, and if so they will be translations, like any other non-japanese comic. These comics should be labeled "Manga Styled Comics" or something similar.

Obviously manga has had an influence in western comics, such is the nature of art.

So for me the answer is: No you don't have to be Japanese to draw manga, but just because you imitate the Japanese way of making comics, you aren't doing manga and will not be considered, and shouldn't, a mangaka.

Yes, for the simple reason that it's not a genre or a style. But a way to denote that comic books come from Japan. There are some stylistic things that some times apply, but not all times. Manga is Japanese for 'comic book', regardless of origin. Sahara is swahili for 'desert' regardless of location. But it still has to lie there to be the Sahara.

Of course, there is Japanese-style visual art, and you don't have to be Japanese for that. And 'manga' is about the most meaningless classification yes. 'x is a manga series...' is to be read as 'x is a comic book series made by a Japanese person...'

Personally, I am SO TIRED of people (this is a general complaint not directed at any 1 person, because so many ppl do it in this thread) trying to explain for the 10,000th time that manga means "humorous pictures" and just means "comics" to Jpnese ppl the same way comics mean comics to English speakers.

Like, WE KNOW. Stop trying to act smart, and realize that in this context, we don't give a damn what "manga" means in Jpnese. We know Jpnese ppl don't use the word as a art style.

But it is very real to us Americans/Europeans that manga is an ART STYLE to us. Yes, manga itself has a wide variety of art styles, but comics (manga) produced from Japan has its own set of characteristics in art and storytelling, regardless of what true art style it uses.

That's what we Americans are referring to. Stop telling everyone that "manga" means comics in the Jpnese language. WE KNOW ALREADY.

White people can draw manga, they just can't rap. Dawg.

mlai
Personally, I am SO TIRED of people (this is a general complaint not directed at any 1 person, because so many ppl do it in this thread) trying to explain for the 10,000th time that manga means "humorous pictures" and just means "comics" to Jpnese ppl the same way comics mean comics to English speakers.

Like, WE KNOW. Stop trying to act smart, and realize that in this context, we don't give a damn what "manga" means in Jpnese. We know Jpnese ppl don't use the word as a art style.

But it is very real to us Americans/Europeans that manga is an ART STYLE to us. Yes, manga itself has a wide variety of art styles, but comics (manga) produced from Japan has its own set of characteristics in art and storytelling, regardless of what true art style it uses.

That's what we Americans are referring to. Stop telling everyone that "manga" means comics in the Jpnese language. WE KNOW ALREADY.

I love how that in doing this you actually defined manga one more time!

BffSatan
White people can draw manga, they just can't rap. Dawg.

I think that's one thing that white people and Asian people have in common!

mlai
Personally, I am SO TIRED of people (this is a general complaint not directed at any 1 person, because so many ppl do it in this thread) trying to explain for the 10,000th time that manga means "humorous pictures" and just means "comics" to Jpnese ppl the same way comics mean comics to English speakers.

Like, WE KNOW. Stop trying to act smart, and realize that in this context, we don't give a damn what "manga" means in Jpnese. We know Jpnese ppl don't use the word as a art style.

But it is very real to us Americans/Europeans that manga is an ART STYLE to us. Yes, manga itself has a wide variety of art styles, but comics (manga) produced from Japan has its own set of characteristics in art and storytelling, regardless of what true art style it uses.

That's what we Americans are referring to. Stop telling everyone that "manga" means comics in the Jpnese language. WE KNOW ALREADY.

No, the relevance of it is quite clear, in that in Japanese 'manga' also means American comic books. It's a 'sahara word' as it's called. A word from a language that gets associated with that culture's take on it. Sahara just means any desert and apartheid just means 'separate-ness'.

It's relevant to point out that Japanese people don't consider it to be a genre so much as westerners.

mlai
(this is a general complaint not directed at any 1 person, because so many ppl do it in this thread)

I chose to interpret that as a personal attack, directed solely at me and thus I'm highly offended. You good sir have made an enemy out of me and thus I will not rest until I've instigated a proper comeuppance for your insidious slander.

Jonko

BffSatan
White people can draw manga, they just can't rap. Dawg.

I think that's one thing that white people and Asian people have in common!

Oh yeah?

White people CAN do manga.

I considermyself an otaku and I draw manga very well, proof:

@ qqq:
You disregarded everything I wrote, and then you basically said what I said not to say, again. Even though you had said it already.

Product Placement
Oh yeah?

LMAO actually Chinese people have a much older form of "talking songs" that predates rap by I don't know how many centuries. It's generally a form of street stand-up-comedy, except the comedians don't just talk, they "rap".

The instruments without the vocals.
A comedic story told through this performance art.

But because this art is about comedy rather than macho gangsta posturing and angry beats, it's not popular with the youth generation.

Some of you implied that "manga" just means cartoon in Japanese, but this isn't entirely true because DC/Marvel comics etc have a completely different name, "Amekomi" (short for American comic).

Amekomi is just a subclass in the same sense that some Japanese still referred to anime as "manga" until recently. I could give a completely opposing example of when I did my research for my thesis project at my first college. It involved interviewing random research subjects in Japan. I found that wording the questions with the terms "manga" and "anime", however, often resulted in naming American comic and cartoon series. If anything, Amekomi is more like the Japanese equivalent of us using "manga" to refer to Japanese comics. They borrow our words to refer to our work, but it's all still "manga" to them, just like manga is still a subset of comics to us. This kind of goes back to what I was saying before. The word has different meanings in English and in Japanese, so you can't use the Japanese translation to define the English borrowed term. (sorry, mlai, I tend to write my responses as I read so I don't forget what I'm responding to and I've been a bit busy recently, so I haven't been keeping up with things here at DD, in case you're wondering why this is being said AGAIN)

In other countries (correct me if I'm wrong) it seems that the word "manga" has been used to describe a style of drawing rather than the country/language that the comic is in.

That's kind of the debate here. Some publishers trying to ride the manga bandwagon will use the term to refer to a style, others use it exclusively for comics originating from Japan. I find younger fans tend to be more willing to accept the term to mean a style, while older fans tend to hold fast to it being a marker of the point of origin. Initially, it did not refer to a style, and I might argue that to this day it really doesn't work to just denote the style. There are a number of fairly well know comics of Japanese origin which don't conform to the accepted style which still fall under the manga classification in the West. Japanese comics were being produced fifty years before the current accepted style even existed, yet we still to this day classify it all as manga simply based on the point of origin. When Sazaesan stops being classified as manga, I'll accept the term as meaning a style and not "comics made in Japan."

I wonder if Isukun will come and correct me on this.

It depends on the comic. Most do tend to have everything on the same page, but you will occasionally run into people who use abnormal styles or techniques which make it so they need to overlay drawing effects over backgrounds and such. Also, many manga artists in Japan do have assistants to help with things like backgrounds, tones, inking, and lettering (when they don't do it digitally).

Nine out of ten times, replaced sound effects look awkward.

I've noticed that too, but I think the reason has mostly to do with the Japanese drawing those words to fit the panel, while the localization teams for the US release just white out the original Japanese and overlay some ugly font with basic Illustrator effects to shoehorn it into the panel.

Leenex t
White people CAN do manga.

I considermyself an otaku and I draw manga very well, proof:

You're joking, right? Also, otaku are considered losers in Japan. Just sayin'.