How to Draw Manga - Introduction
By Erin Stinson
The word manga comes from two Japanese words: ‘man’ and ‘ga’. The
combination of these words generally means ‘crazy drawings’. This fits
the look of manga perfectly. Manga is not hard to miss because of the
unique style and the big buggy eyes staring back at you with the sparkly
pupils.
Japanese manga is growing in the world like wild fire. As the years go
by, manga has become more and more popular. Japan has become very
popular because of all the different kinds of manga that they have
produced. Most of the manga sold are very thick books, in fact, some are
even as large as phonebooks!
Japanese manga are very different from American comics. In American
comics, the stories can go on forever because there really is no general
plot. However, in manga, the stories do end up ending, and the volumes
flow together and make up one solid story instead of having a different
story every episode like American comics. Another difference about manga
is that manga reads from right to left, which is why Americans find this
to be very backwards. One more difference is that in manga, the story
can be spread out into hundreds of pages whereas in American comics the
story seems to be very short and are only spread out over a few pages.
Many people think nerdy guys that still live in their mother’s basement
at the age of thirty are the only people that read Japanese manga.
However, more and more artists are creating manga for girls. More and
more manga are consisting of mushy love stories that are directed at
females.
If you are interested in knowing more about well renounced manga artist,
here are some famous names to know! Hayao Miyazaki is famous for his
works like “Spirited Away”, “Nausicaa”, “Porco Rosso”, and “Howl’s
Moving Castle”. There is also Katsuhiro Otomo for his well known
animated movie “Akria”. Masamune Shirow created “Ghost in the Shell”
both the movie and the series.
Don’t confuse manga with anime. Anime is mostly movies and TV shows,
whereas manga are only comics that are generally in black and white.
Welcome to the wonderful world of manga!
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