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Nele Noppe

About the word manga - 15 views

Sorry for the late reply! Yes, I don't think it's very useful to try and draw conclusions about manga based on some aspect of Hokusai's work. Hokusai may have made the word "manga" famous, but his ...

manga meaning

Nele Noppe

Essay Review: Comics Go Classic…Again - 0 views

  • Like Classic Comics decades earlier, the Manga Editions of Shakespeare suffer two fatal flaws inherent in most edutainment: one concerning the content and the other the medium. Regarding content, the Manga Editions do not simply adapt great works of literature to a modern form; they devastate them in the process. The result is an illustrated version of CliffsNotes
  • However, there is one major difference contained within the Manga Editions of Shakespeare. Whereas Baz Luhrmann’s modernized film Romeo + Juliet is designed to entertain, the Manga Editions aim to educate, or at least substitute for education.
  • The second overarching flaw of the Manga Editions concerns the medium. This I discovered via an informal focus group of ten manga scholars: students in the manga club at Martin Luther King, Jr. High School in New York City. These high schoolers are not mere manga fans; they are devoted researchers of the genre. They read, discuss, and debate manga in school, out of school, and in their sleep, I imagine. Moreover, they create their own manga and share their work with peers, just like Japanese youths thousands of miles away. Their first impression of the Manga Editions was voiced in unison: “It’s NOT manga!”
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  • “Where are the sound effects?”
  • And these devotees would not be caught reading manga from left to right like “amerimanga”
  • Finally, here was an authentic connection between Shakespeare and manga—a student’s creative synthesis and personal reflection of the original Shakespeare text.
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    Like Classic Comics decades earlier, the Manga Editions of Shakespeare suffer two fatal flaws inherent in most edutainment: one concerning the content and the other the medium. Regarding content, the Manga Editions do not simply adapt great works of literature to a modern form; they devastate them in the process. The result is an illustrated version of CliffsNotes
Nele Noppe

CFP: From an Intercultural Crossover to a TransculturalPhenomenon: Manga, Comic, Graphi... - 0 views

  • CALL FOR PAPERS Title: From an Intercultural Crossover to a Transcultural Phenomenon: Manga, Comic, Graphic Novel International Conference at the Cultural Institute of Japan, Cologne (Japanisches Kulturinstitut Köln, The Japan Foundation), September 30 – October 2, 2010, in cooperation with CITS (Center for Inter- and Transcultural Studies, University of Cologne) Manga, comics and graphic novels are shaped by different cultural codes and shifting visual and narrative conventions. This conference focuses on the historical development and theoretical aspects of comics and manga by stressing their mutual influences. Whereas European and North American art and popular culture exert a great impact on Japanese manga, such as the Franco-Belgian tradition of “ligne claire” on Ōtomo Katsuhiro and Taniguchi Jirō, Walt Disney’s animated films on Tezuka Ōsamu and Christian and Antique ideas on Miyazaki Hayao, Japanese manga influence the concept and visual conventions of modern European and American comics as well, as can be seen in the work by Frédéric Boilet, Moebius, and Frank Miller, among others. Moreover, the intercultural exchange between the Japanese manga tradition and equivalent forms of sequential art in other Asian countries (i.e. China, India, and Korea) largely contributes to the dissemination of new hybrid art forms in the realm of comics and manga. The purpose of this conference is to bring together scholars and other experts of different countries and different fields, i.e. literary studies, picture theory, cultural studies, linguistics, narratology, film studies, and semiotics, who pursue different areas of investigation in this field. In order to adhere to a general outline for this conference, the papers might deal with one or several of the following topics: • Intermedial, intercultural and narrative perspectives for the interpretation of the graphic novel and other genres of sequential art prominent in both comics and manga • Comparative analysis of the construction of time and setting in comics and manga • The functions of color in comics and manga • Similarities and differences between Japanese and other Asian manga and European and North American comics • Impact of wordless comics and manga • Historical development of the mutual influence of comics and manga • Change of the conventional verbal signs (such as speech balloons, sound effects, typography) • Influence of films and cinematic style on the production of comics and manga • Influence of visual codes derived from art history and popular culture in order to create an individual artistic style Contributions from academics and experts interested in any of these areas and in international perspectives are particularly welcome. There are plans to publishing the proceedings of the conference afterwards in book form. The deadline for proposals is: *31 August 2009*. Please email a 300 word abstract (for a thirty minute paper, followed by 15 minutes for discussion) and a short biography as an attached word document to Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer at: bettina.kuemmerling@t-online.de and Franziska Ehmcke at: amm07@uni-koeln.de Notification of the acceptance of proposals will be made by 30 September 2009. The conference fee will be 120 Euro, including catering, technical equipment, conference folders and various arrangements. The conference venue is located in the Cultural Institute of Japan, not far from the University of Cologne. For details, go to www.jki.de (text in German and Japanese). For further inquiries contact the conference convenors: Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer Universität zu Köln Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur II Gronewaldstr. 2 50931 Köln Germany E-Mail: bettina.kuemmerling@t-online.de Franziska Ehmcke Universität zu Köln Ostasiatisches Seminar (Japanologie) Albertus Magnus-Platz 50923 Köln Germany E-Mail: amm07@uni-koeln.de
Nele Noppe

"Looking back on Manga" 2010 - Osaka University - 1 views

  • On Thursday, December 16, three guests as well as ITO Yu, the café master, will discuss the manga arena of 2010. The three guests to the Café are YOSHIMURA Kazuma, KURAMOCHI Kayoko, and OMOTE Tomoyuki. They are staff members of the International Manga Center, Kyoto Seika University, and manga freaks. If you join this discussion, you'll learn a lot about manga for this year. Specifically, Mr. Yoshimura reads all genre of manga, but, in particular, is an expert in manga about gambling. Ms. Kuramochi is a master of manga for girls, and Mr. Omote is familiar with manga geeks. These three contribute a series of articles to the Asahi newspaper and write for Konomanga ga sugoi [This manga is great], manga ranking book, and Konomanga wo yome [Read this manga]. When it comes to talking about manga, they have no equal.
Nele Noppe

Youth Brigade: Clearing up the Tokyo Youth Ordinance Bill - 0 views

  • This bill is not good for the Japanese anime and manga industry as a whole; it is not good for publishers, and it is not good for the creators. As anime and manga fans, we are constantly fighting against the preconceived notion that such entertainment is just for kids. Unfortunately, if this law remains on the books and creators cannot make the daring works they wish, anime and manga may indeed turn into unquestioning, lobotomized entertainment for little kiddies from here on out.
  • Bill 156 is not an across the board muzzling of creativity and critical art in Japan. However, it is potentially a hollowing out of two of Japan's most noteworthy art forms.
  • novels and films are not affected by this law
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  • At the very least, for the time being there is going to be a chilling effect on anime and manga creators. They will constantly have to stop and assess their works against the law, or what the lawyers in the company interpret the law to be. Publishers will be forced to become more conservative with their stories, potentially sidestepping any criticism or commentary on major social issues.
  • As Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing pointed out in a blog post in June celebrating the defeat of the “Nonexistent Youth Bill” (possibly NSFW content), the anime and manga industries are “predominantly female” and any legislation restricting creativity in these industries would have a disproportionate effect on the female workforce. I think this is even more of a concern with Bill 156. I don't think the majority of shounen series will experience much fallout from the bill. However, an emphasis on sex and relationships is more frequently seen in shoujo, josei, and yaoi manga, where both the creators and consumers are largely female. Although it seems gender-neutral on the surface, it could be women who feel the brunt of the enforcement of Bill 156.
  • Many Japanese publishers are against this bill for many of the same reasons they were against the first “nonexistent youths” bill – it unevenly restricts freedom of speech and is so vaguely worded that they are unsure if the manga or anime they are putting out would be in violation.
  • The bill also doesn't mention doujinshi and other works created by fans. Of course, a lot of doujinshi with sexual content are already for adults only, so it would have little effect even if the law applied to such fan creations. Also, the main punishment for breaking the law is removal of access to distribution and retail, which wouldn't really impact artists who may make more of their sales directly to fans at Comiket.
  • the bill has nothing to say about any manga or anime that's currently considered adult. All of those titles that are currently for sale only to people over the age of eighteen won't be directly impacted by this. I've seen a number of people saying that they might be in favor of this bill because it would get rid of some of the horribly violent manga that feature sex with underage characters. However, this bill has absolutely nothing to say to anime or manga like that – they would still be able to be sold to adult consumers.
  • The bill puts an emphasis on self-regulation, with the expectation that publishers will begin policing themselves. (However, this may be hard to do since the bill is still vaguely worded.) If a publisher runs afoul of the bill too many times, then they may face what is in essence a blacklist, with no distributors or retailers able to carry their products.
  • The bill goes into effect in April 2011, and it's presumed that materials that were published before this date won't be affected. However, new editions of previously published anime and manga will presumably fall under this law.
  • Since Dan Kanemitsu has been writing frequently about this bill, I'll just quote his summary of the relevant portion of it, which will restrict “any manga, anime and video games that feature any sexual acts that would violate criminal codes or Tokyo ordinances OR sexual depictions between close relatives who could not legally get married to be treated as adult material IF they are presented in [an] ‘unjustifiably glorified or exaggerated manner.’” In some ways the language of the bill clarifies things, since we no longer have to try to figure out if a character meets the qualifications of being a “youth” in order for the restrictions in the bill to apply. However, by taking out the language regarding youth, it actually means that Bill 156 could have a potentially wider reach than the one that was defeated earlier in the year. Additionally, the part about presenting such scenes in an “unjustifiably glorified or exaggerated manner” is open to a wide variety of interpretations.
Nele Noppe

Comic Book Resources > Problems with the non-Japanese manga industry - 0 views

  • As I mentioned, people tend to forget that manga struggled for decades to get a foothold, but what really put manga over was anime. When anime - SAILOR MOON, DRAGONBALL Z and YU-GI-OH, mainly, with NARUTO firming up the rear - got regular spots on American TV, in syndication and on basic cable channels like Cartoon Network, they created fans, the fans sought out the manga, and because stores began giving manga its own section, it became easy to for those fans to check out other manga, word spread, sales rose, and "suddenly" manga was cool, and being read by lots of people, especially teenagers, who had never even thought of opening an American comic. That's what propelled manga. Prior to that, Viz and other manga publishers had followed the traditional route - dump their product in the American comics stream and hope for the best - and made only a little inroad. Manga's content hadn't changed, but the manga experience had. So any foreigners eyeing the American comics market, seeing manga's success, and figuring this means American comics readers are now hungry for foreign material are in for painful, especially financially painful, disappointment. (American publishers who make the same leap of faith will too.) All manga proves is that you can crack the American market, now that it's likely. And you'd better be in it for the long haul.
Nele Noppe

Manga on cell phones in de US - 0 views

  • With these new platforms, GoComics reaches every comic fan with a mobile phone, including iPhones and smart phones. Comics and manga can be read for free with ads, or they can be purchased individually using points-based subscriptions. “Our Mobile Manga is a great user experience and satisfies discriminating creators, editors and fans alike. A major reason for this is GoComics’ commitment to quality, simplicity, and an artistic adaptation that preserves the manga pacing while converting pages into a panel-by-panel format,”
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    With these new platforms, GoComics reaches every comic fan with a mobile phone, including iPhones and smart phones. Comics and manga can be read for free with ads, or they can be purchased individually using points-based subscriptions. "Our Mobile Manga is a great user experience and satisfies discriminating creators, editors and fans alike. A major reason for this is GoComics' commitment to quality, simplicity, and an artistic adaptation that preserves the manga pacing while converting pages into a panel-by-panel format,"
Nele Noppe

Opinion Prone: Digital Distribution of Manga - 0 views

  • digital manga...? I have mixed feelings about how well this will work out. Unlike anime, the format of reading a book doesn't translate as neatly as the format of watching a show on a screen. Manga sales haven't lagged as much as DVD sales partially because many people still prefer holding a physical book in their hands as opposed to reading on a computer screen (the other reason might be because they're cheaper).
  • I'm not sure if scanlations have as much an impact on manga sales as fansubs do on DVD sales though. Various experiments conducted by both fiction and nonfiction authors suggest that the availability of an e-book actually boosts real book sales.
  • The pricing model Digital Manga is using is kind of interesting. It's cheaper than buying the physical thing by more than 50%. The experiment I mentioned above had the people release their e-books free, which spurred their real book sales.
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  • I wonder if anyone will try to release digital manga by chapter shortly after release in Japan though. For long-running shounen series like Bleach and Naruto, it seems like it would be much easier than any attempt to release anime concurrently (though Crunchyroll and partners seem to be doing reasonably well). Viz already has the license. It doesn't take nearly as long to translate a chapter. It would be gold. Just figure out how to price a chapter.
  • The only issue would be that a chapter of manga is much easier to find online than an episode of anime, or at least, they're easier to access. No having to deal with torrents. You don't even have to download anything! Just pop over to Mangashare or Onemanga and you're set. Then again, if Viz did create a legal way for readers to have timely access to Japan's newest manga, I feel that many scanlators would hang up their work hats in good faith.
Ariane Beldi

Australian Anime, Manga & Slash Fans May Run Afoul of Law | Dru Pagliassotti - 1 views

  • However, the Australian law is very vaguely worded, and I fear it’s going to cause as much harm as it may cause good. For example, from an academic’s perspective, it’s clear that one of the problems of this legislation is that it will have a very strong chilling effect on Australian scholars interested in studying anime, manga, slash, and yaoi, or even other forms of sex/uality, because of the sheer possibility that clicking on a link, ordering a movie or manga, or even purchasing an academic book or reading a journal article on the subject might expose one to an image that could be interpreted as “child pornography” under Australian law.
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    In 2010 the Australian Government proposes to go ahead with a mandatory ISP-level internet filtering scheme which, if passed into law, could have a massive impact on anime, manga and slash fans. Why manga and slash fans? Because the main target of the law is to prevent the circulation of 'child abuse sexual imagery' - BUT in Australia 'child abuse sexual imagery' covers even FICTIONAL representations and includes 'under age' characters in anime, manga and slash. If the law is passed, any fan site that contains or links to this material could be added to a government 'blacklist' and access denied in Australia.
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    This is an important news for both fans and scholars of fanfictions and dojinshi.
Nele Noppe

Applying Manga-Based Thinking Method to Help Student Teachers to Make Lesson Plans - 0 views

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    This paper describes the application of a manga-based thinking method to train student teachers to form and revise their lesson plans from the learners' viewpoint. According to this method, learners are asked to present their lesson plan in the form of a manga. It is expected that this method will help student teachers to envision learners' voices since manga, which is comprised of actors and their words, can assist student teachers to simulate classroom activity vividly. The result of a field test suggests that manga-based thinking helps student teachers to see their lesson plan from the learners' viewpoint, and to revise their plan through conversing with the voices of the envisioned learners.
Ariane Beldi

Underground Manga Find A Home in France - 2 views

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    The Ankama Group has announced their plans to move deeper into comics publishing, specifically manga publishing, with an initiative to kick off January 2011. Ankama, the Roubaix, France-based developer and publisher of comics, games, and cartoons in the DOFUS and Wakfu universes, has always maintained a sensitive if not sentimental connection to the visual and narrative disposition of manga artwork. Now, the group will put their passions for underground Japanese comics and art to healthy use by publishing a manga anthology, Akiba. The monthly collection presently aims to print the works of young or new Japanese manga-ka for consumption by French-speaking comics enthusiasts.
Nele Noppe

Comic Market: How the World's Biggest Amateur Comic Fair Shaped Japanese Dōji... - 0 views

  • the world's largest regular gathering of comic fans today is Tokyo's biannual Comic Market
  • dōjinshi phenomenon did not start with Comic Market, Comike and dōjinshi are inextricably linked, having shaped each other's history for three decades.
  • Comike convention has shaped the most important trends defining the development of dōjinshi in Japan today
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  • In 1975, a woman who had made critical remarks about the Manga Taikai was excluded from that convention, and [End Page 234] subsequently a firestorm of anger among fans produced a movement against the Manga Taikai led by the famous circle Meikyū (Labyrinth), which resulted in the conception of a new alternative convention. On December 21, 1975, the first Comic Market—"a fan event from fans for fans"—was held in Tokyo.6
  • [End Page 232]
  • [End Page 233]
  • Comike's underlying vision was of an open and unrestricted dōjinshi fair, offering a marketplace without limitations on content or access.
  • With the advent of these fan-consumers (as opposed to fan-creators), dōjinshi became demand-driven publications. Greater competition gradually fostered rising standards of quality, which in turn attracted more circles and buyers. Higher sales shrank production costs and boosted profits, which could then be reinvested in the dōjinshi themselves. Small printing companies, many of which had begun in the minikomi (microcommunication) boom of the early 1970s, were able to use the profits derived from greater demand for their services to modernize their equipment, lowering production costs further and enabling them to construct their production schedules around each Comike.8 Additionally, lower printing costs freed smaller groups from the dependence on bigger groups, which often had strict rules on content and style to avoid conflict among their many members. Having lost their raison d'être, these big clubs and circles gradually faded away, leaving dōjinshi creators to produce stories they liked, in the manner they liked.9
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  • aniparo parodied popular anime series, and in doing so, attracted a new type of fan to Comike, beyond its core group of 2000 or so attendees. These were female fans, mostly middle and high school students strongly influenced by the 1970s florescence of shōjo manga. They began to create and consume dōjinshi in which the (bishōnen or "pretty boy") male protagonists of popular anime and manga were transposed into a very particular sort of erotic story typified by the phrase: "without tension" (yama nashi), "without punchline" (ochi nashi), and "without meaning" (imi nashi)—and hence the contemporary genre title, yaoi.10
  • The eleventh Comic Market in spring 1979 saw the popularity of the cute and pure bishōjo or "pretty girl" (strongly influenced by 1970s shōjo manga) skyrocket among men's dōjinshi circles, attracting many new male participants.
  • The Comic Market was dominated by women from the beginning (90 percent of its first participants were female), but in 1981, thanks to lolicon, male participants numbered the same as female participants for the first time in Comike's history.13
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  • Internal conflicts on the Comike planning committee underlay some of these developments: they marked the ascendancy of the faction led by Yonezawa Yoshihiro, who favored Comike's unlimited expansion.15 Though he was criticized for purportedly selling dōjinshi out to commercialism, Yonezawa couched his plans for Comike in terms of a collective organization of the convention by all participants, including staff, circles, and visitors.16 Whatever the underlying reality, these public principles remain little changed today.17
  • Faced with this loss of identity, talent, and space, every other large fan convention except Comike dissolved. Yaoi Boom But in the middle of the decade, one manga and its anime not only saved dōjinshi fandom from near extinction but was responsible for its biggest boom yet. Takahashi Yōichi's Captain Tsubasa (1981–88, Kyaputen tsubasa),
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  • New dōjinshi conventions appeared, and manga shops began selling dōjinshi on commission. Comparatively lush, custom-made, oversized dōjinshi with more than one hundred pages became common, and popular circles could now live on their fanworks' profits
  • professional creators like Toriyama Akira of Dragonball fame participating,
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  • Despite the self-censorship brought on by the mass media's criticism, Comike nevertheless continued to thrive. Young men tired of new, tighter restrictions on professional manga turned to Comike, and attendance once again swelled to 230,000 in the summer of 1990.23 Hardcore lolicon was now passé, and erotic dōjinshi for men had greatly changed. New genres were introduced with such aspects as fetishism and a new style of softcore eroticism enjoyed by men and women alike; in particular, yuri (lily), or lesbian stories, emerged.24Dōjinshi also became smaller and shorter due to professional publishers recruiting talented dōjinshi creators en masse: the bulk of dōjinshi were the works of the less talented creators left behind.25
  • Other factors contributing to the increased interest in dōjinshi and in fanworks were the development of fixed otaku landmarks and the spread of computers. Almost everyone could now afford to make digital dōjinshi as well as audiovisual or even interactive dōjinshi (i.e. dōjin music and dōjin games).
  • The personal technology revolution meant [End Page 239] simplification of fanworks' production processes as well as completely new possibilities for communication and new digital genres. With the growth of dōjinshi in other media, the term "dōjin products" (dōjin seihin) has gradually come into use to describe fanworks of all genres.
  • Further, the conversion of Tokyo's Akihabara "Electric Town" into a district full of shops selling otaku-related goods, as well as the nationwide expansion of otaku-goods retailers and the establishment of Internet communities and message boards in the late 1990s, enabled otaku to live out their interests and to communicate nonstop with like-minded people everywhere. Their interests and culture were easily shared, and consequently information on Comic Market and dōjin culture spread around the world.
  • The rise of the Internet also meant that Comike lost its monopoly as the center of otaku and dōjinshi culture. Nevertheless, Comike remained the most important event for Japanese fans, especially after companies with otaku-related products started to exploit it.28 Firms had been interested in Comic Market for decades as a never-ending pool of promising new talent and as a place to exploit them commercially, and they were willing to pay much money for direct access to these masses of otaku.29 Starting with NEC in the summer of 1995, companies were granted exhibition space to market or to sell their newest products. This was the birth of the dealer booth at Comike, and, as with dōjinshi circles, the number of applicant companies was much higher than that of available spaces: a self-sustaining event with such high attendance was too important for any related company to ignore.30 Companies accepted the existence of unlicensed parody dōjinshi using copyrighted material (albeit in a transformative and thus arguably fair-use manner) since they could now sell exclusive goods at Comike (Figure 3) or use it as a marketing place, attracting to the convention people who were not interested in dōjinshi.
  • In the summer of 2004, 5 percent of all circles participating in Comike were headed by a professional mangaka or illustrator, while another 10 percent had some professional experience.
  • Despite its relative newness, Higurashi became one of Japan's biggest media phenomena, and at the seventy-sixth Comic Market in summer 2009, Tōhō Project became the first dōjin title ever to receive the honor of being considered its own genre.
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  • It seems that dōjinshi circles are not switching entirely to the Internet but rather are using it as an informational and marketing platform for themselves and their creations, spreading the knowledge of and fascination with Comic Market to new spheres.
  • With high attendance, positive media attention, and industry support, Comike's position seems invulnerable. Even the deaths of important figures such as Iwata Tsuguo in 2004 and Yonezawa Yoshihiro—who was the face of Comike for decades—in 2006 did not harm its position. But unresolved problems, such as the use of copyrighted material in parody dōjinshi and the child pornography questions inherent in lolicon and shotakon, remain.
  • Comike was neither the first nor the biggest dōjinshi fair when it was established; its main purpose was to provide the freest market possible, and that freedom has come at a price. The dream of a Comic Market open to every one and everything was never realized, as there were too many physical, financial, and legal restrictions. Even today, the Comic Market suffers from a lack of space, a lack of money, and a lack of legal security. Only two-thirds of applicant circles can participate due to constraints, since, as a small independent operator Comike's financial resources are limited and most of the work is done by volunteers.
  • s the center of attention, with its size and its links to the industry, it is undeniable that Comike possesses the power and the means to influence social, market, and even political developments. In [End Page 244]
  • recent years it has not been reluctant to use this power. Whether through conferences on copyright issues or on the establishment of a "National dōjinshi fair liaison group" (Zenkoku dōjinshi sokubaikai renrakukai) in 2000, it has taken on the responsibility of representing and of regulating Japanese dōjinshi culture.
Nele Noppe

Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex - 0 views

  • Europe has caught the bug, too. In the United Kingdom, the Catholic Church is using manga to recruit new priests. One British publisher, in an effort to hippify a national franchise, has begun issuing manga versions of Shakespeare's plays, including a Romeo and Juliet that reimagines the Montagues and Capulets as rival yakuza families in Tokyo.
  • Manga sales in the US have tripled in the past four years.
  • Circulation of the country's weekly comic magazines, the essential entry point for any manga series, has fallen by about half over the last decade.
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  • Fans and critics complain that manga — which emerged in the years after World War II as an edgy, uniquely Japanese art form — has become as homogenized and risk-averse as the limpest Hollywood blockbuster.
  • The place is pulsing with possibility, full of inspired creators, ravenous fans, and wads of yen changing hands. It represents a dynamic force
  • future business model of music, movies, and media of every kind.
  • Nearly every aspect of cultural production — which is now Japan's most influential export — is rooted in manga.
  • Comics occupy the center, feeding the rest of the media system.
  • About 90 percent of the material for sale — how to put this — borrows liberally from existing works.
  • Japanese copyright law is just as restrictive as its American cousin, if not more so.
  • known as "circles" even if they have only one member
  • by day's end, some 300,000 books sold in cash transactions totaling more than $1 million
  • "This is something that satisfies the fans," Ichikawa said. "The publishers understand that this does not diminish the sales of the original product but may increase them.
  • As recently as a decade ago, he told me, creators of popular commercial works sometimes cracked down on their dojinshi counterparts at Super Comic City. "But these days," he said, "you don't really hear about that many publishers stopping them."
  • "unspoken, implicit agreement."
  • "The dojinshi are creating a market base, and that market base is naturally drawn to the original work," he said. Then, gesturing to the convention floor, he added, "This is where we're finding the next generation of authors.
  • They tacitly agree not to go too far — to produce work only in limited editions and to avoid selling so many copies that they risk cannibalizing the market for original works.
  • It's also a business model
  • He opened Mandarake 27 years ago, well before the dojinshi markets began growing more popular — in part to provide another sales channel for the work coming out of them. At first, publishers were none too pleased with his new venture. "You think I didn't hear from them?" he tells me in a company conference room. But in the past five years, he says, as the scale and reach of the markets has expanded, the publishers' attitude "has changed 180 degrees." It's all a matter of business, he says.
  • triangle. "You have the authors up there at this tiny little tip at the top. And at the bottom," he says, drawing a line just above the widening base of the triangle, "you have the readers. The dojin artists are the ones connecting them in the middle."
  • The dojinshi devotees are manga's fiercest fans.
  • provides publishers with extremely cheap market research
  • the manga industrial complex is ignoring a law designed to protect its own commercial interests.
  • Intellectual property laws were crafted for a read-only culture.
  • the copyright winds in the US have been blowing in the opposite direction — toward longer and stricter protections. It is hard to imagine Hollywood, Nashville, and New York agreeing to scale back legal protection in order to release the creative impulses of super-empowered fans, when the gains from doing so are for now only theoretical.
  • mutually assured destruction. What that accommodation lacks in legal clarity, it makes up for in commercial pragmatism.
Nele Noppe

Frenchy Lunning: Japan Journey! - 0 views

  • the distinctive characteristics…reflect the Japanese subconscience and can be identified only by stripping away the influences of the modern history of manga as an imported style…Yet highlighting only those characteristics would slant the debate toward a closed argument…an echo of Orientalism.
  • Toys, animation, gaming, and western comics all show the influence of manga and anime, but evidence of this aesthetic can also be found in fashion, graphic design, industrial design, and fine art. Though initially this was considered a trend that would peak and be replaced, this movement, has steadily expanded since it emerged in the late 1980’s (in the US), and has established itself as a substantial and sustaining aesthetic, one that has transformed western design and consumer culture.
  • the continuing steady growth of manga and anime around the world in markets like France and Italy, which embraced manga years before the U.S. did, would appear to indicate that interest in anime and manga is not a flash-in-the-pan fad, but a trend that will continue on the upswing for some time to come. (www.icv2.com/articles/news/2953.html)
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  • demonstrates the potential for new transnational aesthetics that become the uniting factor in such movements. Such an account of manga is crucial to understanding the ways in which transnational markets continue to expand and differentiate themselves, and begins to project how utopian images of the global village might become a reality.
  • I propose to look at manga graphics through an historical perspective, to trace lineages and flows of the art within Japan and from Japan to the world. Both from the standpoint of the images themselves, but also with an eye to other influential graphic objects whose national, commercial and popular cultural position in Japan meant that they have been overlooked as contributing influences on manga styles.
Ariane Beldi

Digital Manga Publishing Detail New Venture to Launch Over 1,000 Manga Online // Silico... - 2 views

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    Hikaru Sasahara, president of Digital Manga Publishing (Berserk), revealed, this week, to Anime News Network, a new venture his company is planning, by which fans will be able to provide their scanlations online, and these would then be distributed legally with the permission of the original copyright holders.
Ariane Beldi

Manga in/as Essay: Call for Submissions - 3 views

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    Exploring the expressive potentials of manga, our first manga competition seeks original image sequences that play with the themes and ideas traditionally associated with the classical 'ox-herding' sequence. Creative and innovative manga will be rewarded with publication and prizes! Deadline: 31 October 2010
Nele Noppe

Lackluster Entries Prod Morning to Change Manga Competition - 0 views

  • The Morning editors' choice of the winners wasn't controversial so much as what they had to say about the quality (or lack thereof) of the entries they received from all over the world. Their assessment of the situation was blunt, and boiled down to this: International manga artists, don't send us more of what you think manga is. To the editors and judges of M.I.M.C., manga means "comics." They were fairly dismissive of the entries that "focused on bishojo, giant robots, ninja and the like," that left a "very narrow impression of 'manga' style."
Nele Noppe

Neighbors: Artist draws acclaim with 'manga' creations - 0 views

  • That was the case when she dabbled in Fan Manga, which is a fan-drawn comic using existing characters but with newly created storylines. She had entered her work into a National Fan Manga contest that required her to use a manga called "Black Sun Silver Moon." Soon after she entered, she heard from the contest sponsors, TheOtaku.com and the go!comi publishers, that she was one of 15 finalists. Guests at the New York Anime Festival voted on their choices -- and at the ending ceremonies, she discovered her work had won."My fan manga will be published in the back of the actual manga 'Black Sun Silver Moon,' which is every manga fan's dream: to be published in a real one," she says. "I haven't gotten word which issue it will be published in but go!comi said they'd let me know."
Nele Noppe

Manga sisters, Blue Beetle, and more - 0 views

  • One of the most interesting things about the manga phenomenon is the way fans make it their own; even more than traditional comics, manga seems to inspire readers to go off and make their own books.
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    One of the most interesting things about the manga phenomenon is the way fans make it their own; even more than traditional comics, manga seems to inspire readers to go off and make their own books.
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