First and foremost, I'd like to apologize to manga fans out there for my latest cartoon. I wasn't trying to make fun of it...just never had any luck making sense of what was going on within the pages of our manga books here at the library...they're supposed to be read from back cover to front cover, right? Or is that what's causing my problem? Well anyway, I thought it would be fun to place my character in a graphic novel/manga setting, so here you go. If anyone out there has recommendations for a manga starter series to help me better understand what it's all about and maybe even get hooked, please let me know. Thanks...Thursday, May 03, 2007
First and foremost, I'd like to apologize to manga fans out there for my latest cartoon. I wasn't trying to make fun of it...just never had any luck making sense of what was going on within the pages of our manga books here at the library...they're supposed to be read from back cover to front cover, right? Or is that what's causing my problem? Well anyway, I thought it would be fun to place my character in a graphic novel/manga setting, so here you go. If anyone out there has recommendations for a manga starter series to help me better understand what it's all about and maybe even get hooked, please let me know. Thanks...
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I'm a big manga fan, but I can understand where you're coming from. The "right-to-left" format takes some getting used to. And the action scenes in some manga (namely Trigun and Blame) can be hard to figure out.
But there are a few good titles that are worth checking out. Death Note would be the first to come to mind. It's dialogue heavy, but has an incredible and original story and clean detailed art. If you want more action, Rurouni Kenshin has clean art with easy-to-interpret-but-fast-paced action scenes. Same goes for Battle Angel Alita, which has a darker storyline.
Hope that helps. :)
Manga is a format, not a genre, so it depends on what genres you like. If you like Quentin Tarantino movies or samurai movies like YOJIMBO, you might like LONE WOLF & CUB. If these are too violent for you, you probably wouldn't like it.
If you like smart sitcoms like FRASIER or the OFFICE, or old Hollywood romantic comedies like THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, you might like MAISON IKKOKU.
If you liked SPIRITED AWAY and juvenile fantasy/science fiction novels like A WRINKLE IN TIME, THE DARK IS RISING,or THE GOLDEN COMPASS, you might like NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF WIND (written by the director of SPIRITED AWAY).
My current favorite is GENSHIKEN, about a college anime/manga/videogame club, but it might have too many inside references for a newbie. Maybe just mentally replace the references with STAR WARS/STAR TREK/LORD OF THE RINGS/SPIDERMAN/DUNGEONS & DRAGONS/WORLD OF WARCRAFT.
I could try to come up with something original to say, but I'm in check-in and my brain is asleep, so I will just offer this marginally related link instead:
http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/hentai.htm
I appreciate all the suggestions so far. I'll give them a look and see if any catch my interest. Thank you!
I'll second that Genshiken suggestion.
I have this question, too, so thanks Jayson. And I think you should do more 'manga' episodes in your cartoon.
I'm not particularly a manga fan, but I found this book about manga interesting, when I read it many years ago:
Manga! Manga! : the world of Japanese comics, by Frederik L. Schodt. Kodansha, 1983. My library system has 5 copies in 4 libraries, so you can probably find one. 741.509, or 741.595.
One thing that trips me up sometimes is that most (all?) of the manga printed "back to front" are designed to be read right to left on a page as well. In other words, if there are four boxes on a page, like in "Turn the Page," Americans generally expect the action to go
1 2
3 4
However, manga frequently goes
2 1
4 3
I find it much harder to get used to the difference in panel order than the difference in page order.
(PS Great comic!)
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