Manga you could say is the Japanese equivalent of American Comics, which is true in that they're both illustrated and distributed on paper, however that doesn't elaborate on how diverse manga is compared to what we call comics. Manga is often at the root of the Anime / Manga genres and the two are typically associated together.. Most anime titles are generated from a manga, although some popular anime titles which have no manga basis can later end up in manga form too. Much like anime, manga is not simply considered to something for kids. It isn't uncommon to see a regular business man in Japan on the subway reading manga. With a diverse target audience like that, obviously the topic range will be diverse also.

Manga comes in a wide variety of forms, and topics. From the cute / romantic Ah! My Goddess, to the dark / violent Blade of the Immortal, there is a lot to choose from. Traditional American comics once covered a broad range of topics, from super heroes, comedy, adventure and so forth. Over time however, the market oriented itself towards the superhero genre and became a niche market. In Japan diversity in comic book form flourished in a broad range of topics for a wide audience. Coming full circle, imported translated manga is finding audiences formerly untapped here in America, such as drama oriented manga for girls.

Manga also tends to have a more focused story due to having an end in mind. In this way manga can have deeper plots similar to that found in a novel. This can help avoid the more shallow stories often found in an open ended series which is intended to run as long as commercially viable, and has a "episode of the week" feel. The result can be a bit counter intuitive to many Americans in that a manga series may end at the very height of its popularity.

As for art styles, manga is like anime, but varies widely with the style of the artist or artist groups. Manga is for the most part printed in black and white. I have yet to see manga in color (and I'm not sure why this is), but this by no means detracts from the artwork. Some genres can follow a stylistic influence too. Shojou, (girls comics) for example; typically have rather "lanky" or "skinny" looking characters, and often have more delicate features than other forms of manga. In many ways, manga being black and white can actually enhance the artwork, since artists cannot simply hide their work with color touch ups and attention to things like textures and shading techniques are still widely used. This also means that when a manga series crosses over to an anime format, much of the artistic style is lost. Often character designs are modeled to the popular character style of the day. There are for instance, significant differences between a manga done as anime in the 80s and done in the 2000s, even if produced from the same manga. An example of the differences can be seen in Kamakaze Kaito Jenne.

Manga can also utilize Japanese words that technically have no meaning, but are instead simply sounds. For example "pika pika" is equivalent to twinkle twinkle, often used to refer to something bright like the gleam off a sword. Another example would be "niko" which implies a smile. Sometimes these are referred to as "sound words" but they aren't really sounds. For example, "shiin" is said to be the "sound" of silence. In English the effect of crickets chirping may indicate a crowd is quiet, but there isn't exactly a word you would paint over a picture that would mean there is no sound. This allows attention to be drawn to attributes which a reader may miss by trying to imply something through artwork alone.

The Japanese write in 4 styles. The first is kanji (漢字) which originated in China. Each kanji has a certain meaning (or represents one word you could say), and can be combined to make up different words. The second is hirogana, which is a written phonetic symbol. There are 46 hirogana. Each make a sound such as ま(ma) or せ(se). Normally Japanese writing is a mix of hirogana and kanji. The third type is katakana, which is similar to hirogana, except that katakana is used to spell foreign words such as コ-ヒ- (koohii/coffee). The forth is romaji which is simply western alphabet letters like you are reading right now (Japanese unlike Chinese is rather easily adapted to English characters).

The Japanese writing system allows for much more artistic flare but is also much more conductive to narrating illustrations than western writing styles. As Japanese can be written ether left to right, or top to bottom, there is a lot of versatility in where text may be placed. Kanji, more often than not; are very compact compared to an equivalent sentence in romanised characters. One shortcoming of using kanji is that the character may not be recognized by everyone. In order to navigate the very basics of reading in Japan, a person should know at least, a few hundred Kanji. In order to be considered literate, a person must know well over a thousand. This can be a problem for manga, as the target audience can often be in junior high school (or younger), and as Japanese youth may not understand the kanji, they cannot understand the overall meaning of many sentences. This is often overcome by placing the phonetic equivalent in hirogana beside the kanji in a small font. In this respect you could say that Japanese comics are educational to some extent as they can teach younger readers new kanji. Manga titles oriented towards older adults tend not to do this, and is an easy way to tell what kind of audience is expected.

Example of the same word (wind) represented in different writing styles

Kanji	Katakana	Romaji
風	かぜ	kaze

Traditional Japanese books are read opposite of English texts; That is, you start a book from the "back cover" and read towards the "front cover" (right to left). Likewise each picture cell flows from right to left and top to bottom. During translations, this means that entire pages, including pictures have to be mirrored as well. One tricky aspect is that Japanese is usually written vertically, which leads "word bubbles" to also be oriented vertically. As English doesn't naturally flow in this direction, it can make dialog placements in such bubbles challenging. A more recent trend by some publishers in America, notably Tokyopop; is to translate a manga without mirroring. This requires that you read the volume "back to front". Typically there is a warning on the "first" page indicating that you're not reading it the right direction with brief reading instructions.

To learn more about manga, see the about anime section. There is a tight bond between anime and manga. More things which also apply to manga are discussed there.

Manga Samples

Read Left to Right Oh My Goddess

Read Right to Left Tsukihime Complex

Read Right to Left Gunslinger Girl

Read Right to Left GTO