Some Thoughts on Manga

View this post on Instagram

Spotlight on manga. I don't talk about sequential art nearly-enough on here as I wish I did. Though I pretty much grew-up with anime being a part of that "Toonami generation," I am an extreme latecomer to manga (I only started to seriously read them 4 years after I started reading comic books in-general). Most anime is adapted from manga, but it took me awhile to be on cinched that I would enjoy reading a comic book right to left in black & white, but I did. After watching the anime adaptation of season 1 of One-Punch Man in 2015, I wanted to really know what happened next so I bought the manga volume that took place after the anime adaptation ended and have been reading Japanese comic books ever since. • I've read older manga like Lone Wolf & Cub from the 1970s, but it is the two manga in the right-hand column that are the favorite of mine. Given this year of sorrows, the dystopian hellscape of The Promised Neverland has an almost natural resonance and may be my overall read of the year. Close second to it is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba which is about folks hunting demons in Taishō-era (roughly the Edwardian and early Georgian-era for my UK folks—Americans y'all just gonna have to look it up). American and Japanese comic books are fundamentally working on some basic principles, but have major differences. Unlike in the US where the publisher dictates the creative decisions and owns all rights to the characters, Japanese comics are much more creator-driven (though the free market can still reach in sometimes). Individual chapters are not issued in their own books like in the USA, but as part of comic book anthology magazines--the most popular one is Weekly Shonen Jump. Also shared universe is not a thing and most manga are created with the understanding that the story will end. Don't expect to see a team put together with Goku, Sailor Moon, and Naruto is what I'm saying😄. Like in the USA, Japanese comics are collected in volumes and issued as trade paperbacks. I decided to post this after noticing the recent resurgent interest in anime in the last few years. I plan to post some thoughts on that here and elsewhere.

A post shared by Ken's Bookshelf & Movieshelf (@rinehartstation) on Aug 21, 2020 at 3:23pm PDT