Manga
Manga are Japanese comic magazines. These large, softcover magazines printed in monochrome are by far the most broadly read literary genre in Japan. Around 2 billion copies are produced annually. Some magazines are printed in 1 million copies or more each week. Many manga are reprinted later in pocketbook format.
Each manga magazine features stories and serials of broadly the same theme: education and training, romance, action, humor, history, or even violent pornography. Characters and stories from manga, anime (animated films), and computer games are often reproduced in each other. Drawing and dialogue conventions are more complex than are generally seen in, for example, American comics: odd-shaped panels, reduction or addition of detail for emphasis, use of varied camera point of view, and mixed (Japanese/Latin) script for effect are common.
Manga artists are generally organized into schools or studios, in traditional Japanese iemoto pattern, where a senior or master instructs junior artists, who eventually instruct juniors of their own. Members of a studio tend to have broadly similar drawing and expressive styles.
Otaku, young Japanese males who are obsessed with manga and anime, are considered something of a social problem in Japan because they are said to develop limited and difficult social relationships.
Further Reading
Kinsella, Sharon. (2000) Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Schodt, Frederik L. (1996) Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press.
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