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March 2008
When you start talking about the art form of manga, several things immediately come up. The first, to be bluntly honest,
is the mispronunciation. It is not "man" "ga" as many western speakers want to make it. The "a"
is not pronounced "a", but as a "ahh", if you Romanize the original Japanese, as in translating the Japanese
hiragana characters into western sounds and letters. If it was pronounced "man", with an "a",
"ga" it would be spelled "men" "ga", because to Romanize an "a" sound in Japanese it
would be spelled with a "e". Why? Just the way it is done, through rules created for this sort of thing decades ago.
The possibility for variety in pronunciation just doesn’t really exist for Japanese. However, this is a really moot point, just
an annoying one, so then one must ask themselves what "Elements of Manga" are really important? Well . . .
The elements of manga as an art form are vast and better tackled by those who are much more artistic (the use of speed
lines, visual expressions and exaggerations, large eyes influenced from past originators, etc.), but the elements of what makes
manga compelling and different (from the western consciousness/American mentality that superhero comics are) is a vast
topic I feel more qualified to write on (since I can’t draw for crap). Manga is not just simply Japanese comic books,
it is too easy to pin it there due to multi generational appeal, subject variety, and style. What defines manga, for what
purpose I will use it, is that they are graphic stories from Japan. While the Japanese will define comic books from America,
and graphic novels from France or China, as manga if it is brought into Japan, to open the field up that large doesn’t help me
define what really should be written about. The "Elements of Manga" that compel and entertain readers across the
world and keep us coming back for more are unique to Japan. In talking about these ideas, what has made manga endure, what
makes it uniquely Japanese, and what people should remember while they read their manga, and what manga you should
maybe look at. I hope to explore all the facets and elements of manga (though not in one column).
The more important one I want to tackle, starting out, is the second biggest misconception of manga, which permeates
the foreign markets: that manga is anime; that these two art forms are one and same. While far from true, the
cross pollination between the two just can’t be ignored, but what I think really needs to be focused on is realizing when anime
is often either just a pastiche of what is the written/drawn form on the page, or a great work that translates well, or badly,
to the TV screen, but in the end should truly be experienced in its original format.
Therefore, I come here in defense of Dragonball! Well, not exactly, but I do come here in defense and explanation of manga
that have been adapted into anime (the reverse is the topic for another day). The prime example of this is Akira Toriyama’s epic,
long winded exploits of the alien Son Goku, reared by a loving grandfather . . . no ...not in Kansas, but in isolation, and
trained as a martial artist. This simple concept spreads out over 42 tokubans, collected graphic novels, from Toriyama’s regular
serialization of the series for over 10 years. The series is well known for its epic battles, the tradition of enemies become
allies, having a child-like sense of humor, and overly cruel streaks possessed by its main villains. (Any villain who can turn
you into chocolate and eat you for fun . . . should be avoided at all costs.) It is also known for its grunting and long
drawn out plots that consume two to three hours of your time to see one fight . . . no, wait, that’s the anime, not the manga.
So what are the differences?
Well obviously a huge one, not so much in terms of story content but story telling, is pace. While Dragonball is long, it is
not MASSIVELY long for a manga. Many other series either break, or shatter, a run of forty-two books. Forty-two is a long
series, but it is by far not the longest, or even close. However, Dragonball Z (for those who do not know the books, the manga
are just called Dragonball in Japan, the anime Dragonball Z is just an adaptation of books 16 through 42) is known as one of the
longest running anime, not just in number of episodes, but lengths of plot. The show that I once called "the best anime
to watch on video, because you can fast forward" . . . and I love the show. The reason for this is very complex, but
very formulaic, for why many other manga / anime hybrids have come out and received the same complaint:
"I don’t like X series." (And no, not the series X, which is a great series by manga creators Clamp.)
"Why?"
"It takes too long and nothing happens in any of the episodes when you watch ‘em. They just pose and stare at each
other while we see what every other character is doing and then the episode ends with one punch thrown."
"Uh . . . have you read the manga?"
"Why?"
Well that’s easy to answer. First, anime being a medium of TV and film, usually can adapt a printed piece in a
shorter time then what it takes for you to read it, unless you are a speed reader, or the TV/film is being padded a bit with
new or different looks at the original material. This is often what happens for most manga adapted into anime, they pad,
and they have to. Otherwise, if you start adapting a manga into an anime, that only has eight, or maybe even fifteen books,
you are going to run out of material after a couple of seasons. So they pad. It is the choice of how the padding is done
that can cause the above comments to become very common.
The easiest way to pad, which Dragonball Z is famous for, is by padding the episodes, making the content last longer by
taking longer, drawing things out. (The earlier part of the manga which was adapted into the anime just simply called Dragonball,
suffers from this too but not quite as epically...) Fights last longer with more punches thrown, creating special moves takes
longer, fights or events told off-screen in the original are shown and expanded in the adaptation, and characters look at each
other, stare downs, more . . . a lot more, to increase suspense. (The tradition though of the stare-down and pausing to look
at characters is a manga art form that Americans often find . . . boring.) In addition, in some spots, new stories are
added or expanded on creating anime only material that was never in the original, referred to as filler episodes or arcs.
The result is still the same, a much longer and drawn out series. Doing this doesn’t always create the best storytelling, and
the pacing of Dragonball SUFFERS for it. The best example, the example all, even causal fans, offer is the Frieza arc in
Dragonball Z. Not just the Freiza fight, the whole arc, SUFFERS for padding when animated. In the manga, the arc takes place
in books 21 through the beginning of book 28, which goes through 7 books out of the 42 total books that make up the Dragonball
manga. The anime version of the Freiza arc, in comparison, covers episodes 36-107, or 71 of 291 episodes. The length of reading
the arc in comparison to watching the same panel during an extended speech, or adding another battle to an already long fight,
causes the anime to drag on. The actual fight between Goku and Freiza takes up over ten episodes! Ten episodes for one fight
between two characters... although it is an epic fight and it should be longer then normal . . . (it was the fight Toriyama
had planned to end the manga with) but ten episodes borders on . . . no, it crosses the border into boring!
Dragonball on its own as a reading experience can be very brisk and enjoyable. There is a reason that some American comic
book artists base fight scenes off Toriyama’s fight scenes, and even more Japanese manga artists (manga-ka) love
and use similar panel layouts and battle arcs. Nevertheless, with the anime being identified as being the all inclusive version
of Dragonball causes great problems, preventing many from getting into what is a great read. In being able to read the books
the battles more or less last as long as you want, with dialogue used for character advancement being sparse and important,
instead of long and padded. The manga are an enjoyable series, similar to cosmic super hero comics, where characters
come from humble beginnings to cosmic level combat in hopes of saving those who can’t save themselves. The anime on the
other hand takes a far longer time and can only be appreciated by two fan bases: those who enjoy the lengthy fights and
drawn out character development (or just animated huge fights in general), or those who have read the original and would
like to see a different angle or scene that wasn’t in the original.
Now the modern day legacies to Dragonball in Japan, and America, now are the trinity of current popular shonen (boy)
manga: One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. These three series take the Dragonball approach of turning a popular manga with
heavy fighting elements into a longer running anime that uses fillers and padding. All three have used both techniques. One
Piece has had "filler" arcs and slowed down the action, Bleach and Naruto also slowed down their action, but both
(Naruto to a larger extent) have used long extensive "filler" arcs to allow the manga artist to keep up and produce
new stories, which will be animated later. "Filler" arcs are usually brand new anime only stories that fill in gaps
in the original story or introduce temporary or quick to die characters into the series (though Bleach is bucking this trend
by keeping "filler" arc characters around once the "filler" arc rejoins the original storyline). This
tactic helps keep popular anime series going while the manga they are based off of keep going too. It’s the classic racing
idea, where you don’t want the adaptation to get to the finish line before the original does. However, this approach has its
draw backs. One very popular series, during its time, Rurouni Kenshin, started doing an anime filler arc between the second
and third arc of the story while the creator finished the third, and final, act in the manga. However, the filler proved to
be so unpopular that the series lost viewers on TV and was cancelled before the end of the story from the manga could be
adapted. Filler and padding run this problem in anime; it can ruin or throw a viewer out of a series or story they might
otherwise enjoy.
The other extreme is manga is a series that is adapted and condensed . . . severely. Akira is considered one of the
greatest anime movies of all time. It is a movie that many feel brought anime to a wide American audience who
realized anime, unlike most American animation of the time, spoke more too adult audiences. Akira is also a movie that was adapted from 8 giant
books into one 2 hour movie. 8 books equal 2 hours . . . with a whole lot of editing. Any person who says the Harry Potter
movies were edited down has never read Akira and then watched the movie. While this editing was obviously necessary to make
the series into one story that can fit into a movie length, it leaves the careful viewer realizing there is a lot they are not
getting that maybe they should, if they had more information. It is also the movie that has left many a viewer going, "Wow,
anime is stupid . . . I don’t get any of this." The complexity of Otomo's plot rival, if not surpasses, Blade Runner
and 2001: A Space Odyssey, but in condensing it to 2 hours . . . a lot had to go. Two other very well known examples are
Outlanders (5 books to a one hour movie that only adapts the beginning) and Ghost In The Shell (only 1 book, but a very complex
plot made crammed into an hour and a half), and an average viewer watching any of these will either be greatly intrigued or
confused beyond belief. In any of these cases the anime is a pale adaptation of its manga predecessor and a person who
assumes the manga and the anime are the same is missing out on a lot.
These differences articulate that manga does not equal anime. While they are more similar then super hero adaptations (no
one would say Batman the Animated Series or Batman Begins is the same as Batman the comic) they share enough differences that
each should be evaluated on their own merits. Do not assume one is the same as the other, but try to enjoy one, or the other,
or both! Again, just because the anime version of something turned you off doesn’t mean you might not enjoy the manga
version. I am also not naïve enough to assume that if you hated Dragonball Z you will love the manga Dragonball. It is more my hope
that if you disliked one you might try giving the other a look. The Elements of Manga are vast and enjoyable and I hope that
you sample richly of them whenever possible.
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