Manga: A History

Japan has become the world leader in comics. Japanese manga, as comics are called here, have been publicized the world over on television and in newspapers and the most popular works have been introduced abroad both through legal and pirate translations. But despite these efforts, they remain insufficient for foreign audiences wishing to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the genre. Here’s an overview of the basics of Manga.

The manga industry in Japan is of such a massive scale as to completely overshadow the industries of the two other great comic-producing nations, the United States and France.

There are a great number of magazines in Japan devoted exclusively to manga but it is difficult to give an exact accounting of their number given that it is not at all uncommon for smaller publishing houses to bring out one new magazine after another under different titles. The core of the manga publishing industry consists of some 13 weekly manga magazines published by the major publishers alone, along with 10 biweeklies, and approximately twenty influential monthlies. At any given time there are at least ten magazines which boast over one million copies of each issue. At most there is one non-manga magazine in Japan which can claim a readership of over one million.

Yearly sales of manga throughout the 1990’s have been in the neighborhood of 600 billion yen, including 350 billion in magazine sales and 250 billion in paperbacks. These figures do no not include sales of manga appearng in general magazines and newspapers. The total sales of published material in Japan (including magazines and books but excluding newspapers) is two trillion five-hundred billion yen, of which manga sales account for nearly one quarter. Given a total Japanese population of 120 million, we can calculate that the average Japanese spends approximately 2,000 yen per year on manga in one form or another.

The three largest publishing houses producing manga are Kodansha, Shogakkan, and Shueisha. In addition there are some ten odd publishing firms which come in at a close second, including Akita Shoten, Futabasha, Shonen Gahosha, Hakusensha, Nihon Bungeisha, and Kobunsha. This is not even to mention the countless other small-scale publishing firms. The larger publishers mentioned above also publish magazines and books in areas outside of manga.

It is estimated that there are around 3000 professional manga artists in Japan. All of these individuals have published at least one volume of manga, but most of them make their living as assistants to famous manga artists or have some other supplementary source of income. Only 300 of these, or ten percent of the total, are able to make an above-average living from manga alone. In addition, there are also a great number of amateur manga artists who produce small magazines intended for private circulation, called dojinshi.

Posted June 6th, 2006 by geisha | Comments Off

Pokémon

Who does not remember Pokémon? Whether you have a kid, are a kid, or still a kid at heart, you would invariably have some experience with this cute set of games popularized by Nintendo and also released as television series and game cards. It’s yet another reflection of Japanese pop culture. Where do the world’s greatest games and game storylines come from, but Japan, of course?

Pokémon is a multi-billion dollar media franchise created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. The original Game Boy video games have since been merchandised into anime, manga, trading cards, toys, books and other media. The name, Pokémon, is a portmanteau of its Japanese name, “Pocket Monsters” (Poketto Monsutā). The game’s catchphrase, in the English language versions of the franchise, used to be “Gotta catch ’em all!”, although it is now no longer officially used (except by Hasbro and in the title sequence to Pokémon Chronicles).

The concept of the Pokémon saga stems from the hobby of insect collecting, a popular pastime in Japan, and one which Pokémon’s creator Satoshi Tajiri had enjoyed as a child. Tajiri’s formula took off in Japan and was adapted (and translated) in 1998 for the American market, with the release of Pokémon Red and Blue. These games allowed players to catch, collect, and train hundreds of creatures, known as Pokémon; and battle them against each other to build their strength. These Pokémon could then “evolve” into more powerful Pokémon and learn new and stronger techniques. Pokémon never bleed or die in battle, only faint - (however they can still become confused, poisoned, paralyzed, frozen, sent to sleep and burned) this was a very touchy subject to Tajiri, as he didn’t want to further fill the gaming world with pointless violence.

Pokémon is also the collective name for all of the fictional species within the Pokémon universe. To date, the franchise has a grand total of 395 unique species that lie at the heart of the series, a figure which has grown substantially from the 151 monsters in the original Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue games. The name can either be singular or plural (such as deer or moose), and the same applies to each species name.

Posted June 4th, 2006 by geisha | Comments Off

Rurouni Kenshin

Here’s another certified anime/manga classic: Rurouni Kenshin. Released by Sony for the Western market as Samurai X, the series tells the story of an assassin named Himura Kenshin, who was known as the Battōsai (romanized as Battōsai in the English manga and as Battousai in the English anime, it is translated as the nickname the manslayer). Kenshin later grieves for all the lives he’s taken, and has vowed that he will never kill again.

The series was and first appeared as a pair of separate short stories (both are titled Rurouni: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story) published in 1992 and 1993 in the manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump Special. In 1994, Watsuki created a final ongoing version that was published in Shonen Jump until its conclusion in 1999, which the various anime series are based from. In 2000, it was followed up by Yahiko no Sakabatō (”Yahiko’s Reversed-Edge Sword”). The manga consists of 28 tankōbon volumes (Yahiko no Sakabatō was never compiled). The storyline of Kenshin is divided into three storyline arcs: Tokyo, Kyoto, and the Jinchū (a made-up word, which could be translated as the revenge of the man) arc. The Jinchū arc was not animated, save for the parts about Kenshin’s background which formed one of the OVAs released.

There are four animated Rurouni Kenshin series. “Rurouni” is a neologism created from the verb “ru,” meaning “to wander,” and “ronin,” meaning “masterless samurai.” A rough translation of the title would be “Kenshin the Wandering Samurai.” This became the English title of the first story arc.

Posted June 2nd, 2006 by geisha | Comments Off