Comics Trivia | 100 trivia & facts about Comic books [Part 6]

After we delved into the history of the American comic books, it is about time to find out some more about manga. The Japanese version of comic books.

We already dived into the different ages of the American comic book. So, now, let’s find out some trivia and facts about manga.

Manga are comics or graphic novels created in Japan or using the Japanese language and conforming to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century
They have a long and complex prehistory in earlier Japanese art
The term manga is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning
Outside Japan, the word is used to refer to comics originally published in Japan
In Japan, people of all ages read manga
The medium includes works in a broad range of genres: action, adventure, business and commerce, comedy, detective, drama, historical, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction and fantasy, erotica (hentai), sports and games, and suspense, among others
Many manga are translated into other languages
Since the 1950s, manga has become an increasingly major part of the Japanese publishing industry
By 1995, the manga market in Japan was valued at ¥586.4 billion
Approximately, $6–7 billion
With annual sales of 1.9 billion manga books and manga magazines in Japan
This is the equivalent to 15 issues per person
Manga have also gained a significant worldwide audience
In 2008, in the U.S. and Canada, the manga market was valued at $175 million
Manga represented 38% of the French comics market in 2005, equivalent to approximately ten times that of the United States and was valued at about €460 million ($569 million)
In Europe and the Middle East, the market was valued at $250 million in 2012
Manga stories are typically printed in black-and-white
Although some full-color manga exist (e.g., Colorful)
In Japan, manga are usually serialized in large manga magazines, often containing many stories, each presented in a single episode to be continued in the next issue
Collected chapters are usually republished in tankōbon volumes, frequently but not exclusively paperback books
A manga artist typically works with a few assistants in a small studio and is associated with a creative editor from a commercial publishing company
He is called mangaka in Japanese
If a manga series is popular enough, it may be animated after or during its run
Sometimes, manga are based on previous live-action or animated films
Manga-influenced comics, among original works, exist in other parts of the world, particularly in Algeria (“DZ-manga”), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan (“manhua”), and South Korea (“manhwa”)
The word “manga” comes from the Japanese word 漫画, composed of the two kanji 漫 (man) meaning “whimsical or impromptu” and 画 (ga) meaning “pictures”
The same term is the root of the Korean word for comics, “manhwa”, and the Chinese word “manhua”
The word first came into common usage in the late 18th century with the publication of such works as Santō Kyōden’s picturebook Shiji no yukikai (1798)
Then, in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa’s Manga hyakujo (1814) and the celebrated Hokusai Manga books (1814–1834) containing assorted drawings from the sketchbooks of the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai
Rakuten Kitazawa (1876–1955) first used the word “manga” in the modern sense
In Japanese, “manga” refers to all kinds of cartooning, comics, and animation
Among English speakers, “manga” has the stricter meaning of “Japanese comics”, in parallel to the usage of “anime” in and outside Japan
The term “ani-manga” is used to describe comics produced from animation cels
The history of manga is said to originate from scrolls dating back to the 12th century, and it is believed they represent the basis for the right-to-left reading style
During the Edo period (1603–1867), Toba Ehon embedded the concept of manga
Adam L. Kern has suggested that kibyoshi, picture books from the late 18th century, may have been the world’s first comic books
These graphical narratives share with modern manga humorous, satirical, and romantic themes
Some works were mass-produced as serials using woodblock printing
Writers on manga history have described two broad and complementary processes shaping modern manga
One view represented by other writers such as Frederik L. Schodt, Kinko Ito, and Adam L. Kern, stress continuity of Japanese cultural and aesthetic traditions, including pre-war, Meiji, and pre-Meiji culture and art
The other view, emphasizes events occurring during and after the Allied occupation of Japan (1945–1952), and stresses U.S. cultural influences, including U.S. comics (brought to Japan by the GIs) and images and themes from U.S. television, film, and cartoons (especially Disney)
Regardless of its source, an explosion of artistic creativity occurred in the post-war period
This explosion involves manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy) and Machiko Hasegawa (Sazae-san)
Astro Boy quickly became (and remains) immensely popular in Japan and elsewhere
The anime adaptation of Sazae-san drawing more viewers than any other anime on Japanese television in 2011
Tezuka and Hasegawa both made stylistic innovations
In Tezuka’s “cinematographic” technique, the panels are like a motion picture that reveals details of action bordering on slow motion as well as rapid zooms from distance to close-up shots
This kind of visual dynamism was widely adopted by later manga artists
Hasegawa’s focus on daily life and on women’s experience also came to characterize later shōjo manga
Between 1950 and 1969, an increasingly large readership for manga emerged in Japan with the solidification of its two main marketing genres
The shōnen manga aimed at boys
And the shōjo manga aimed at girls
In 1969 a group of female manga artists made their shōjo manga debut
They were later called the Year 24 Group, also known as Magnificent 24s
“Year 24” comes from the Japanese name for the year 1949, the birth-year of many of these artists
The group included Moto Hagio, Riyoko Ikeda, Yumiko Ōshima, Keiko Takemiya, and Ryoko Yamagishi
Thereafter, primarily female manga artists would draw shōjo for a readership of girls and young women
In the following decades, shōjo manga continued to develop stylistically while simultaneously evolving different but overlapping subgenres
Major subgenres include romance, superheroines, and “Ladies Comics”
Modern shōjo manga romance features love as a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization
With the superheroines, shōjo manga saw releases such as Pink Hanamori’s Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Reiko Yoshida’s Tokyo Mew Mew, And, Naoko Takeuchi’s Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon
The latter became internationally popular in both manga and anime formats
Groups (or sentais) of girls working together have also been popular within this genre
Like Lucia, Hanon, and Rina singing together, and Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter, and Sailor Venus working together
Manga for male readers sub-divides according to the age of its intended readership: boys up to 18 years old (shōnen manga) and young men 18 to 30 years old (seinen manga)
As well as by content, including action-adventure often involving male heroes, slapstick humor, themes of honor, and sometimes explicit sex
The Japanese use different kanji for two closely allied meanings of “seinen”-青年 for “youth, young man” and 成年 for “adult, majority”-the second referring to pornographic manga aimed at grown men and also called seijin manga
Shōnen, seinen, and seijin manga share a number of features in common
Boys and young men became some of the earliest readers of manga after World War II
From the 1950s on, shōnen manga focused on topics thought to interest the archetypal boy, including subjects like robots, space-travel, and heroic action-adventure
Popular themes include science fiction, technology, sports, and supernatural settings
Manga with solitary costumed superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man generally did not become as popular
The role of girls and women in manga produced for male readers has evolved considerably over time to include those featuring single pretty girls (bishōjo) such as Belldandy from Oh My Goddess!
Those stories where such that girls and women surround the hero, as in Negima and Hanaukyo Maid Team, or groups of heavily armed female warriors (sentō bishōjo)
With the relaxation of censorship in Japan in the 1990s, an assortment of explicit sexual material appeared in manga intended for male readers, and correspondingly continued into the English translations
However, in 2010 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government passed a bill to restrict such content
The gekiga style of storytelling focuses on the day-in, day-out grim realities of life, often drawn in a gritty and unvarnished fashion
This type of storytelling is thematically somber, adult-oriented, and sometimes deeply violent
Gekiga such as Sampei Shirato’s 1959–1962 Chronicles of a Ninja’s Military Accomplishments (Ninja Bugeichō) arose in the late 1950s and 1960s
This arose partly from left-wing student and working-class political activism
And partly from the aesthetic dissatisfaction of young manga artists like Yoshihiro Tatsumi with existing manga
In Japan, manga constituted an annual 40.6 billion yen (approximately US$395 million) publication-industry by 2007
In 2006 sales of manga books made up for about 27% of total book-sales, and sale of manga magazines, for 20% of total magazine-sales
The manga industry has expanded worldwide, where distribution companies license and reprint manga into their native languages
Marketeers primarily classify manga by the age and gender of the target readership
In particular, books and magazines sold to boys (shōnen) and girls (shōjo) have distinctive cover-art, and most bookstores place them on different shelves
Due to cross-readership, consumer response is not limited by demographics
For example, male readers may subscribe to a series intended for female readers, and so on
Japan has manga cafés, or manga kissa
At a manga kissa, people drink coffee, read manga and sometimes stay overnight
The Kyoto International Manga Museum maintains a very large website listing manga published in Japanese
After a series has run for a while, publishers often collect the episodes together and print them in dedicated book-sized volumes, called tankōbon
These can be hardcover, or more usually softcover books, and are the equivalent of U.S. trade paperbacks or graphic novels
These volumes often use higher-quality paper, and are useful to those who want to “catch up” with a series so they can follow it in the magazines or if they find the cost of the weeklies or monthlies to be prohibitive
“Deluxe” versions have also been printed as readers have gotten older and the need for something special grew
Old manga have also been reprinted using somewhat lesser quality paper and sold for 100 yen (about $1 U.S. dollar) each to compete with the used book market
Kanagaki Robun and Kawanabe Kyōsai created the first manga magazine in 1874: Eshinbun Nipponchi
The magazine was heavily influenced by Japan Punch, founded in 1862 by Charles Wirgman, a British cartoonist
Eshinbun Nipponchi had a very simple style of drawings and did not become popular with many people. Eshinbun Nipponchi ended after three issues
The magazine Kisho Shimbun in 1875 was inspired by Eshinbun Nipponchi, which was followed by Marumaru Chinbun in 1877, and then Garakuta Chinpo in 1879