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November 2008
After the past columns of looking at the history of manga publishing in America perhaps the biggest question that comes out of all this publishing information is why? Now no one has asked me why I wrote out all this information, quite the contrary (not as in I was swamped with letters but in the sense that no one wrote period . . . ), the question I get the most is why? Why is manga so popular? Why do people like to read it? Why? And you know what, this question I can answer in one article . . . though I should rephrase that by saying I can try to answer it.
So the main question I get from different people when I talk to them at conventions, in comic book stores, or just in general, is "why do so many people read manga?" They notice I read comic books, I read a lot of them, and that I also read manga. Now I've been a superhero/American comic book reader far longer then a manga reader, but I fell in love with manga and I read at least 5 to 6 new manga a month, if not more. Manga is the main reason I started studying Japanese and went to Tokyo to learn it, so I have a soft spot when it comes to manga. When it comes to comic book store customers not as many "straddle" the fence as I do and they go to their local comic book store for either manga or comics, rarely both. "So why do so many people read manga?" becomes the question I hear the most from everyday comic book fans.
First, manga as an art form is different from American comics. I feel I've established that in past articles, and that I don't need to go into the details again. However, there are so many reasons why manga has become popular in America that its "difference" does need to be listed as one of them. The difference in the artwork, how it looks, the different cultural values, and all these difference goes a long way to drawing people in. It is unique and lets be honest a very honest the "uniqueness" to American audiences goes a long way to bringing people in. On one level many people do fall into the "don't you want to be unique like everyone else?" column, but that doesn't mean they don't like what they read. That "different" then everything else goes a long way toward drawing people in.
This "difference" also includes the wide variety of genres manga has. Westerns, romance, sci-fi, comedy, samurai, series that have all these elements or just mix some elements together to make a new genre altogether. Manga is extremely diverse in its subject matter, whereas American comics mainly fall into superheroes and "everything else". The variety of manga fans is immense and some only like specific genres of manga or just specific series, but this variety goes a long way to explaining its popularity with men and women.
In addition the different part also helps in terms of manga's presentation. Manga took off in America after it adapted a more "novel" approach in terms of looking very similar or more similar to standard novels. This allowed and encouraged mass market book sellers (Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Hastings) to carry manga more readily to the point that manga in this format take up three to five times the space that any of these stores use for their comics or graphic novels. The availability helps in this sense too, since it was easier to get a hold of, but it also lets readers feel they are reading something similar to a novel and not everyone is going to notice their not. Comic books have their own format and it falls in size between magazines and novels making comic books easier to distinguish and be looked down upon. No conformity has held back some of comic's acceptance and raised manga's.
The profile of manga though is also raised by anime. For instance I need to revise my earlier statement, because manga is not the main reason I started learning Japanese, manga and anime are. Anime allows for continual presence of a series in the public conciseness, and gives manga something that sticks with many current and potential readers. Sales of Spider-Man related merchandise for example sell better when a Spider-Man movie is in theaters and a Spider-Man TV show on the air helps sales of merchandise and books as well. However, manga has an added bonus of almost always being exactly like the show on the air, whereas often Spidey is a completely different timeline or continuity. (For instance you can say the new Spider-Man The Animated Series has similarities to Ultimate Spider-Man, but it is not the same timeline.) So while manga and anime are not "exactly" the same story wise, they are often so close that you can follow one and jump into the other, go back and forth, and be good. (Great example is a series like Naruto. The manga is currently far into the second part of the series, but the anime airing in America is still finishing the first series so reading the manga is liking getting a sneak preview or having a time machine. The flip flop is also true as the currently airing anime episodes are no in the manga so you are getting new stories you can't see or read elsewhere that still "fit" into Naruto's history.)
All these reasons I feel lead into the main reason manga does so well: storytelling elements. Now each manga creator and series does different things and has different elements so I'll just focus on some that apply or go a long way in addressing the broad appeal of manga. First, and not laughably so, is realism. Most manga include realistic characters, day to day situations that we all face, and a lot of very personable elements. While American comic book characters have that usually, not all do, and the situations where manga characters become fantastic usually can happen to anyone (at least anyone living in Japan usually . . . ) This realism allows a reader to read sometimes for potential wish fulfillment ("that could be me") which goes a long way toward providing the "escapism" that most seem in reading. This level of realism also includes an increased maturity for manga, since manga rarely dance around maturity issues such as death and sex and instead embrace them, deal with them, or just make fun of them. These two concepts are rarely handled realistically in Superhero comics (Bucky is dead, then he isn't . . . We have no idea if Wonder Woman has ever had sex . . . ) whereas manga, like life, deals with them, gives them appropriate screen time and moves on. Superhero comics treat death as epic, very much in the traditional tragedy and literary sense, whereas manga more often just makes it a part of everyday life, more similar to slice of life and novels of the modern age. This also leads to the difference that many manga fans like, manga stories eventually end! Whereas Superman, Spider-Man, Batman . . . they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
The main issue though that gives manga a potential wider audience is one of the main reasons I love Superhero comics and why they have a hard time getting the average reader to pick them up: continuity. Continuity, in the sense, is the continuity of a universe, not a title. The shared universe approach for Superhero comics makes it hard for anyone to follow any one character in the same book because that character and his "immediate universe" can end up with some change happening in another book. Manga is self-contained and all the changes that happen to Ichigo happen in the Bleach! manga, no where else; same for Naruto, same for Ranma Saotome, same for almost every manga character. Some do have characters that cross over, any manga by Clamp comes to mind, but the stories of the character are contained in that series and you truly don't need to know what else the character did in other series (the closest non-comic reference I can come up with is Stephen King's Dark Tower series in which elements of his other books are touched upon but you don't have to have read them to follow the story, they occur more like DVD Easter eggs). Superhero comics try to have this . . . but it often fails and not because of footnotes to past storylines, but the simple fact that a shared universe with multiple creators and . . . well it can be a mess. It is a great strength for a reader who likes that but a horrible thing for a newbie (not unconquerable though).
These elements are, to me, the main focal points that give manga an easier way in to the fans minds and wallets. They create manga fans, not comic fans, and usually American comics that "manga" fans pick up are usually similar to manga or manga type storytelling. While this may answer some of the questions related "why do people buy manga?" or "why do people like manga?" it won't answer all of them and there is no pat simple answer. The elements of manga are different and appealing depending on who you are and there are no simple answers for their appeal.
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